Contribute to the society, e-way.

You can contribute, sitting on the comp. Just do the needful, explained below.

Cross positing from BAWA's blog: AMEX and Art of Living

Here is the post, reproduced for you.

Hi everyone
Jai Gurudeva!

All of us could potentially see to it that a nice partnership can be formed between AMEX and Art of Living... read on...

AMEX (American Express) has offered USD$2.5 million for a Service project that will be chosen among many that people all over have put up on their website... The process of choosing is simple... people vote, the top 25 projects will be reviewed and considered for the grant... There are many interesting projects out there... AND Art of Living has 2 projects, who need votes to get into the top 25 (about 600 votes away)... i would prefer them to get into the top 5 :) (about 4000 votes away)

Could whoever reading this please goto their site and vote for these 2 projects?

You can sign in as a card member if you own an AMEX card, or you can sign in as a guest as well... and you can do so anonymously too!

So please, take a few minutes out and go vote for these projects... btw, you can vote for multiple projects, so if any other catches your eye, feel free to vote for those as well :)

Voting stops on Monday the 1st of September, so PLEASE do it now!! :)

here is what you do:

1. Click the links below
2. SIGN in either using your American Express Card Membership or as a guest. (When u click the link below, a window opens and bottom right there's guest signup, go signup and assign yourself a screen name)
3. Once you have registered,window automatically opens to the project selected. Click the Nomination Button. Thats it!


Jharkhand Tribal Project



End Gang and Youth violence in California



Once you have done it, PLEASE leave a comment here to let me know that you did it :)

Also get friends, relatives, family, etc to do it... It will be great if Art of Living can have a partnership with AMEX to do the fantastic work that it is anyways doing!

Jai Gurudeva!
love
bawa

BlogDay

Today, August 31, is the blog day. So, this blog. I will put my blogging experiences here.





My blogging started one Sunday morning when I woke up and felt like writing some thing. And here is the results, my first blog. That is one of my best blogs. This blog inspired many people to write/restart their blogs and I am happy that I could be some where part of it. I am not sure what exactly inspired them but as long as the results are positive I need not worry.

Then came Life is a template , another blog which I personally liked very much. This was read and explained to my parents by my brother and sister in a family get-together. This also gave a hint to my parents that I may not follow the template and hence they might be better prepared for whats coming up to them soon. I hope this will ease my work during my Diwali vacation.

On the blog day, do post some thing :). Visit: http://www.blogday.org/

Are these in your fruit basket yet?

We all know that fruits are good for health. Fruits provide vitamins, minerals and energy. Fruits have to be a part of your daily diet. But do you know what fruits are absolute must-haves in your fruit basket? Experts have listed the following five as the 'best' in terms of health benefits.

By Sugatha Menon

Guava: (Amrud in Hindi. Peru in Marathi): This is the uncrowned king of the fruit basket. We are lucky that being a tropical fruit, guavas are available almost throughout the year in our country. A guava tree is one of the most common fruit tress growing in many a backyard. Even in a concrete jungle like Mumbai, one frequently comes across guava trees. Why is guava the star? Recent reports suggest that guavas are packed with anti-oxidant properties and are abundant in Vitamin C. In fact it is said that it beats other fruits hollow when it comes to Vitamin C. Guavas are also the richest in fibre and have age and inflammation fighting properties. Not surprising then that this fruit is the top chartbuster here!

Lychee: Lychees are beautiful to look at, and taste great too. But did you know that just three lychees can meet a third of your Vitamin C requirement of the day? 100 gms of fresh lychees gives you 72 mg of Vitamin C. Other good points of lychees include copper, potassium and riboflavin. Avoid lychee juices and stick to the whole fruit.

Papaya: Another one from the wonder fruits stable. Papayas are wonderful for your skin as they help you fight wrinkles. Vitamin C, folate and potassium are present in papayas. Papayas contain papain, a natural digestive aid, which helps to cleanses the digestive track. Other nutrients include Vitamin A, E and carotenoids and lycopene. In comparison to an orange papaya has 13 times more Vitamin C and 50 times more potassium and four times more Vitamin E than oranges and apples. All this at a lower calorie count.

Banana: Easy to afford and easily available, bananas are a universal favourite. Quick to digest, bananas come with a host of vitamins, A, B, C and also calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorous, potassium and zinc. Experts say that the fiber in a banana is good for your heart. People suffering from acidity are often asked to consume bananas, as they are said to protect from stomach ulcers. Raw bananas are also used in Indian cooking and are high in iron content.

Pomegranate: Red wine and green tea are said to be high in anti-oxidants. But did you know that the content of anti-oxidants in pomegranates are almost three times higher! So next time say 'cheers' with pomegranate juice. Also indulging in this juice frequently is extremely beneficial for your heart and it cuts down the risk of artery clogging. Additionally they contain Vitamin B, C, calcium and phosphorous. It also contains a powerful agent that helps fight against prostrate cancer. It is also said to be effective against anaemia, intestinal parasite irritation, piles, asthma, diarrhoea, morning sickness and poor appetite.

Google knol

Google too wanted to celebrate my birth day and hence released Google knol (a unit of knowledge). It struck me immediately as I was looking for similar tool to make my GateGenie book public. Well, GateGenie is a book for Computer Science GATE preparation. As I am growing old, I am finding it difficult to keep the book updated and hence wanted a platform where I can upload the book and then the users can comment/update which I can moderate. WIKIBOOK was one of the options but then I loose the control and no revenue once I make it public.

It is one page knowledge that one can share with others. You are the author of the page. You can invite collaborator/reviewers etc. There are three levels of licenses (open, non-commercial, copyright) and three levels of collaborations (open, restricted, closed). In the restricted mode of collaboration registered uses can suggest changes to be approved by the author which is a very useful way. You can also earn using google adsense. Adsense was one of the feature I was looking for and I got peacefully. In addition it also has Name Verification option which if done will put a seal against the knol/author. This way the reader will be sure of the identity of the author.

As its recently released, only few articles, mostly in medical science are available as beta release. But I guess with Google's aggressive way, the tool is going to rock. In all, a cool too if it satisfies your requirements. In my case, it is perfect.

Village, Thane

I had been to Village, Eternity Mall, Teen Haath Naka, Thane for my V3.0 treat with close ones. We were welcomed with a stamp (like a pub) and Tilak. I was happy to see a true village like environment along with a good variety of food. I had walked about 2KM due to unavailability of the auto rickshaw, so was ready have blast at all the food items around.

The ambiance was excellent. All people over there were in Rajasthani clothing. The water is served in small glasses which are typical in tea-stalls in villages. Even the welcome drink, Chaas and sugarcane juice was served in similar small glasses. That set up the perfect mood for all of us. We jumped in for starters, Aalu (अळु)chi Wadi, पकोडे. They were good and then for a change, we shifted our gear to desserts and had Keshar Milk, Gulab Jamun, and Moong ka Halwa.Desserts were far below expectations :( .





As I was celebrating my B'day, the cake cutting was with LIVE song. After all cutting/eating, we also danced on few LIVE numbers and that was really refreshing. That enhanced our enthusiasm and we were all waiting for the grand food items. There were Punjabi, Marwadi, Gujrati stalls along with routine Chaat, Fruits, Desserts ,etc. All this with the live songs sung by village artists, Puppet show, Astrologer and the Tarot Reader.

We started with all favorite Dal-Baati but that crossed our all expectations downward and we just could not have it. Next we went for Gujrati food but again nothing up to the mark. Even Kaju-Karela had Kishmish in it which completely made it taste horrible. Some sweetness in between ruined my Karela dish. The other items were also not at all up to the mark. Gujrati Khichadi and Kadhi were so so and we had to be happy with that only. To end our food journey, we had ICE gola and kulfi.

In all, the ambiance is very good but food is not at all up to the mark. Its a good place to spend time in a big group of 10+ people but if you are looking for good food, there are lot many other options

Ratings:
Ambiance: *****
Service: ****
Food : *
Value for Money: **

Start Investing NOW

Thanks to Amey, I started investing monthly in Mutual Funds since last August. I wanted to do that since long but was procrastinating it for long, almost 2 years. I invested about 20K in one year which thanks to inflation is worth little less than that.




My advise to all those who have just entered into their PhD life and also to others, start investing NOW. With increased stipend, save at least 20% of the stipend. Ask some one if you are not aware of investment methods. In simple case, if you avoid investing, at the end of 5 years, you will have nothing with you. Now, suppose you start investing say 3K per month, i.e. 36K per annum, you will save 1,80,000/- in 5 years and if you book a profit of 20%, which is quite common, you will earn about 85,000, which adds up to 2,60,000/-. So, if a new PhD student starts investing right from day one, he can save up to 2,60,000/- by the time he passes out.

You may claim that you don't have any money to invest, don't worry, that will be the case even if you invest or don't. Had I not started investing last year, I am sure I would have just smoked that money some where in shopping or eating out.

So, what you waiting for? Start Investing NOW :)

Life is a template

My discussion with Ayush started with the context that I met my fourth close friend who had his first child within first year of marriage. All the four are financially well off but I could not figure what made them take this step of getting into parenthood so fast. In my personal opinion, the newly wed couple should spend some time together to understand each other and then plan to extend the family. In all these cases, technically speaking, there was hardly any time spent with that awareness of knowing each other.

So, the discussion went in the direction that why should they wait any further if they can financially afford to have a child. A very valid point but then what is the hurry to have a child so soon?

So if we look at life of a typical person right from the birth, it will more or less follow a template: You are born. You start schooling at the age of three, study in primary school, middle school, high school, slog for SSC and then HSC, enter into engineering/medical college, do lukkhagiri for most of the time, study during the exam period, crack the exams, land up with a good job in the placements, join the company, get married. Once financial stability is achieved, get into parenthood, get involved in the up bringing of your child, make sure the child gets good schooling, completes his degree, and gets married, become grandparent... The story continues and finally one fine day you die.



Have you noticed, for most of the people this is a typical case. One thing logically leads to another. There is no deviation from this template of life. The moment one things is complete, the next logical step is taken. There is no thought process while taking the next step. It just happens. So once the education is over, the next logical step is to join the job. After a some time in job, the next logical step is to get married, and further have children. So, there is hardly any thought process that is needed. Just live the life like a template and follow it. The life will be simple to live. Nothing much to take decision about. You are happy, your parents happy, and all others are also happy.

A careful understanding of this concept answered my question in the first para. It just follows :). Now if we look at the life of people who are doing some thing different in their life, we will see that they are forced to take decisions at every step in their life. One step does not lead to the next local step and that makes their life full of decisions as well as uncertainty. Sometimes they might be labeled as poor decision makers as some of their decisions are proved to be wrong but that is because they have taken that step to go out of the template and create their own life pattern. Like doing some thing is better than doing nothing, taking a wrong decision is better than taking no decision. And the highly successful people will mostly fall in this category who defy the template.

So, next time you take a decision in life, be aware if that is a standard template decision or a non-template one.

(This post is the outcome of my discussion with Ayush Choure. The theme is mainly developed by him during our discussion.)