How much do you know your world?

What if knowing a place can get 10 cups of water to needy, what if knowing a word would mean feeding someone?

Try your knowledge to help someone get food and water.
www.freerice.com
www.freepoverty.com

Coming out of hibernation

Ahh... long time no see!!!

I am coming out of my hibernation from the blogging world. While I was in hibernation, I got involved in couple of interesting activities. I found a direction to walk, a motivation to work for the future. The future of the country I left two years ago. I didn't know that it was waiting for me here, but fate brought me here and I found my directions to the destination.

I always used to feel empty whenever someone asked what I want to do after all this education. I could never imagine myself 4-5 years later in my life. In fact I am one of those who don't believe in planning the life more than next couple of hours. However now I can see myself walking a road which I know I would love to walk on. It would be difficult, but it would be satisfying.

I am sure there are not many people interested in what I would be doing in future. Still here is the hint, check out www.aidindia.org

Adios!!

Chashme Buddoor [1981]

Chamko detergent, does that rings a bell to you? you might never have seen this brand of detergent, however if you watched hindi movies on doordarshan in early 90's you cant miss this brand.

This is kinda identification for the movie: Chashme Buddoor (1981). Farooq Shaikh, Deepti Nawal.

A very simple Middle-of-the-road movie.

Power of education

Read this article on Powerful Jews and response on desicritics.

The original article was a bit too long and most of it was repetitive. But if I got it right then there were two important parts in that article.

"Question: So, why are Jews so powerful?
Answer: Education."

and

"So, why are Muslims so powerless?
Answer: Lack of education!"

I would not say that Jews are most powerful and Muslims are most powerless in the world, however I don't see why I should disagree with the two reasoning above. If a religion emphasizes more on education, its bound to have more intellectuals. In today's world you cannot ignore the power of knowledge. Yes you can say that jews or for that christians have english as their basic language which is the language of most part of the knowledge available in the world today. However you cannot ignore the emphasis they put on literacy.

I have always believed in the power of education. All the issues in this world can be settled with proper knowledge transfer. Think of global warming, educate people about it and they would use the resources carefully. Think of international disputes, educate people about the issues and they would come up with an amicable solution. When you see a disease like AIDS which does not have a cure yet, the best option you are left with is educate people about it.

Religious principles might not be the only reason for the growth of people belonging to a particular religion, however these principles can have a huge impact on the social development.

Brain Drain

15 bright students of Indian origin, sitting in a small room in one of the biggest university of USA. Any guesses what they were doing in there?

Discussing the economy? No
Celebrating the rise of India? No
Talking over the rising oil prices? No

They were concerned about the lack of interest of poor dalit children in education. They were discussing how to support a group to take initiative and teach those children in their own homes. These students were discussing the living conditions of the poor people in one of the small village of West Bengal.

I have been hearing about brain drain since I joined IIT Kharagpur. It was hard to convince people that even after coming out of country, people do think about India. A small meeting yesterday evening bolstered my belief in indian brain's worry about their country.

wanna know more?? AID India

Happy Valentines' Day

A thought for the day ....

Screen-print your own T's

Have you thought of screen-printing your own T's sometime ..... well its a nice weekend project ... I found this video on youtube for screen printing the T's.

google is watching!!

Here comes google with orkut trends!!

Google has been watching your searches and now they are also watching how much do you scrap and what do you write in that!! And above all, google never removes this data from its storages!! It scares a lot of people who are privacy cynic, however I don't mind as long as google gives me better results in my searches and comes up with services I always want.

Lets see what google comes up next with!!

Triple Filter Test

In ancient Greece (469 - 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom.

One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance who ran up to him excitedly and said, "Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?"

Wait a moment," Socrates replied. "Before you tell me I'd like you to pass a little test.It's called the Triple Filter Test."

"Triple filter?"

"That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my student let's take a moment to filter what you're going to say. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"

"No," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and..."

"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?"

"No, on the contrary..."

"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him, even though you're not certain it's true?"

The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.

Socrates continued. "You may still pass the test though,because there is a third filter - the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?"

"No, not really..."

"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful,! why tell it to me at all?"

The man was defeated and ashamed.