
Always wish to conduct your life in such a manner that when God wishes to write His autobiography, He proudly writes your name in Gold.
source::::: H.Deepa in shirdi sai speaks
natarajan
This is the dramatic moment one of the engines of an aeroplane carrying more than 300 passengers explodes as it prepares to take off.
The Airbus A330 was taxiing along the runway at Manchester Airport yesterday when its right engine suddenly developed a fault and exploded.
The aircraft had fortunately not yet left the ground and the pilot was able to quickly bring it under control.
The Thomas Cook Airlines flight TCX314 had been carrying 325 passengers to the Dominican Republic at the time of the incident.
A dramatic video posted online shows how the engine suddenly explodes as the plane makes it way down the runway.
A flame can be seen coming from the engine before it begins to billow smoke.
The plane then veers slightly from one side to the other as the pilot swiftly gets the aircraft under control.
Emergency services including three fire engines then attend to the stationary vehicle.
A Thomas Cook Airlines spokesman confirmed an investigation was underway into the incident.

The aircraft veers slightly from one side to the other as the pilot swiftly brings the plane under control.

Once the plane is stationary emergency services including three fire engines attend to the aircraft..
source:::::mailonline.com UK
natarajan
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2348197/Dramatic-moment-engine-aeroplane-EXPLODES-taxis-runway-caught-camera.html#ixzz2XIpKas8P
HAVE you ever lingered in the first or business class sections of a plane, longing to stretch out on a lie-flat bed, before begrudgingly continuing down the aisle of the plane to your tiny cattle class seat?
Well, while we’d all love to fly in luxury, these airlines offer the next best thing – a top-notch economy class offering that makes flying less of a pain and more enjoyable.
Here are the 10 best airlines for economy class seats, according to the Skytrax World Airline Awards, the world’s largest survey of air passengers with over 18 million respondents.
A range of factors make a good economy class seat including cleanliness, design, seat comfort, width, legroom and the amount of recline available. The entertainment offering, level of service and food are also important.
Do you agree with the following list?
10. Malaysia Airlines

Malaysia Airlines is one of the world’s best airlines for economy class.
9. Thai Airways
8. ANA All Nippon Airways
7. Oman Air
6. Japan Airlines
proof that airlines can rebuild their reputation, Garuda took out the top spot after a dark period in its history. The airline was banned in the EU along with three other Indonesian carriers following the crash of a 737 plane, with the ban lifted in 2009.
But passengers love its clean, new cabin with comfortable seats and decent legroom, plus an attentive crew.



Interestingly, the airline named the world’s best in the same Skytrax awards, Emirates, didn’t make the list.
source:::::news.com.au
natarajan
Reporter Narayan Pargaien, of the News Express channel, sits on the shoulders of a flood victim. Photo: Screengrab
An Indian television journalist reporting on the deadly floods that have swept northern India has defended his decision to file a report while perched on a survivor’s shoulders.
Narayan Pargaien, who works for the local News Express channel, told Indian media website newslaundry.com that the criticism he has faced since the video was posted online was unfair.
The report was supposed to be telecast only with footage of me chest-up. This was entirely the cameraman’s fault, who… tried to sabotage my career by shooting from that distance and angle and releasing the video.
“People are talking about us being inhuman and wrong but we were actually helping some of the victims there,” Mr Pargaien said.
The reporter claimed that the slight man who carried him, who can be seen wobbling under the strain while standing in ankle-high water, had hoisted him onto his shoulders as a sign of respect.
The man “wanted to show me some respect, as it was the first time someone of my level had visited his house. So while crossing the river he offered to help by carrying me… between which, I thought of reporting”, Mr Pargaien said.
The journalist also attacked his cameraman for framing the shot so it showed him sitting on the floods survivor’s shoulders and accused him of posting the video online.
“The report was supposed to be telecast only with footage of me chest-up. This was entirely the cameraman’s fault, who… tried to sabotage my career by shooting from that distance and angle and releasing the video,” he said.
“I was wrong as well. That was the wrong thing to do, and the wrong time to have shot that sequence. But what my cameraman did was even more unacceptable.”
The Youtube video of the incident has been viewed more than 11,600 times since it was posted on Saturday.
source:::: Brisbane times .com
natarajan
The Uttarakhand tragedy casts shame on India’s disaster management
It’s headquartered in South Delhi’s plush Safdarjung Enclave. It holds press conferences about human tragedies in luxurious five-star hotels. The Prime Minister is its ex officio chairman, and its vice-chairman equals a Cabinet minister in status. Other members, mostly retired bureaucrats and police officers, rub shoulders with ministers of state. Welcome to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).
With its performance – or more accurately, the abysmal lack of it – in the rain-ravaged Himalayan state exposing its defunct status, the NDMA stands exposed for the great man-made tragedy it is.
Its National Executive Committee has not met at all between 2008 and 2012. Seven years after it came into being, the authority doesn’t even have a working plan.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has slammed the NDMA’s functioning in a report tabled in March 2013. Most NDMA projects, conceptualised soon after it was constituted in May 2005, have failed to get started.
The body formally came into existence in September 2006. Projects like earthquakes, flood and landslide risk mitigation have been in cold storage despite being approved way back in 2007. Due to improper planning, projects are abandoned midway or are lying incomplete.
A senior bureaucrat in a state government who closely worked with the NDMA in the last two years explains what plagues this body.
“The absence of strong leadership at the centre of this body is a key problem. Since the prime minister is its ex officio chairman, the onus of leading it on a day-today basis falls on the vice chairman,” he says.
According to the officer, the NDMA, which has several senior retired bureaucrats as members, needs a very strong vice-chairman.
“At present, we’ve felt many times that there is a lack of coordination in the chain of command,” the officer says.
All that translates into a disaster: evaluation of the disaster preparedness at all levels of government has taken a severe hit. The Uttarakhand situation underlines this with blood.
NDMA chief M. Shashidhar Reddy doesn’t agree. He puts the onus for the NDMA’s latest failure on the meteorological department.
“Lives could have been saved if the weather office had issued precise forecasts. The IMD followed a standard format of weather forecast and used certain terminologies like rainfall, heavy rainfall, but how are we supposed to translate it into action? They need to pinpoint where and how much it is going to rain,” he says.

Not even the most terrible statistics can wake the NDMA. For instance, the CAG says that as much as 59 per cent of the nation’s land area is prone to moderate and severe earthquakes; 23,000 lives were lost in six major earthquakes between 1990 and 2006. And it doesn’t take an official report to realise that landslides in the hills and floods in some parts of the country are an annual feature.
Some of the key roles that the NDMA is expected to perform are: lay down policy on disaster management, approve national Disaster Management plan, lay down guidelines to be followed by Central ministries and state authorities, and provide such support to other countries affected by major disasters.
“The performance of NDMA in terms of project implementation had been abysmal. So far, no major project taken by NDMA had seen completion. It was noticed that NDMA selected projects without proper ground work and as a result either the projects were abandoned midway or were incomplete after a considerable period,” the CAG report says.
“In many cases, NDMA realised midway that some other agency was already executing projects with similar objectives. Timelines in most of its projects were absent and where ever they were given, they were not adhered to,” it says.
Reddy’s response? “We are ready to work on it but the government auditor needs to be sensitised about disasters,” says the NDMA chief.
The National Disaster plan (NDP) hasn’t been formulated even after seven years of the enactment of the Disaster Management Act. The NDP was to define the guidelines for prevention of disasters, preparedness and roles and responsibilities of different arms of the government.
One of the key objectives of the NDMA is proactive prevention of loss of life and property in disasters. Even here the NDMA has failed miserably
The less-than-satisfactory role played by the NDMA in the relief and rescue operations in Uttarakhand raises serious questions over its relevance.
Created to serve as the nodal agency in times of emergency, the NDMA has instead served to provide sinecures for out-of-work politicos and retired babus.
How seriously it takes its job is evident from the fact that its national executive committee didn’t meet even once between May 2008 and September 2012.
ABHISHEK BHALLA and BHUVAN BAGGA in mailonline.com India
natarajan

FÈnec The Soul of The Desert: The fennec, or desert fox is a canine mammal species of the genus Vulpes, which inhabits the Sahara Desert and Arabia. With its features ears, this is the smallest species of the family Canidae. It is endangered and its main threat is illegal in other countries

Hidden in Plain Sight: During my visit to the Amalfi Coast in Italy I ventured for a day to Sorrento. This gorgeous island had an amazing coastline that I stuck to for the day. Because of a mix-up with ferry dock numbers I missed my ferry and had to wait two hours for the next one. I decided I would head back to town and went down a street I had passed a few times that day. The ground opened up, almost out of nowhere, where this absolute beauty, apparently “Valle dei Mulini”, was which I gazed at and shot for almost the entire period before I left for my next boat.

If Only I Could Fly: Spontaneous moment captured contemplating a beautiful and colorful sunset with all city lights down below

Flying Monk: Young monks begin their service very early in life in their studies in the monastery. This monk was young and energetic and decided to “fly” in his exuberance for life.

SHEIKH ZAYED MOSQUE: A reflection of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in the basin of the fountain opposite the mosque where the main dome of the mosque appears

Tormenta: On June 4, 2011 began Cordon Caulle eruption, located in the Region of Los Rios in Chile. A rash that lasted about 12 months where people and animals had become accustomed to living with the daily fall of ash, which also caused problems in the air traffic in the south of America. The first days of the eruption could be seen from hundreds of miles around explosions and thunderstorms from the expulsion of lava. This photograph was taken on the second night of eruption from the town of Lago Ranco
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Coming of Age: Seijin no Hi or Coming of Age Day is a traditional Japanese holiday which is organized on the second Monday in January. In Japan the age of majority is 20 wearing kimono


Swim with Jelly Fish: Its like a dream when u swimming with harmless jellyfish…









e
Students from underprivileged families crack the IIT-JEE Advanced thanks to Anand Kumar’s Super 30 educational programme.
Pranav Kumar, Bhanu Pratap, Ankit Kumar, Shivangi Gupta, Abhishek Kumar, Santosh Kumar and Hanjala Shafi cleared the fiercely competitive Indian Institute of Technology Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE) this year. These students and 23 others from Anand Kumar’s Super 30 share one thing in common: all of them come from poverty-stricken families.
While the intelligent and hard-working youngsters studied for the JEE, their parents were fighting for survival and earning their livelihood by working as labourers, landless farmers, electricians, salesmen, smalltime shopkeepers and magazine vendors. These poor folks never dreamt that their children will become part of prestigious IIT campuses, but thanks to Super 30, a free coaching centre for underprivileged students in Bihar, it was made possible.
Super 30 is an innovative school run by Anand Kumar in Patna since 2002. Each year, Kumar selects 30 meritorious students — mostly from poor families — and grooms them for the IITs. The students stay with him; they are provided free food and lodging. And Kumar bears the expenses on his own, with no financial help from anyone.
And the main feature of Super 30 was reflected yet again in this year’s results, announced last Friday — of Kumar’s 30 wards, 28 cracked the examination and will make it into an IIT.
The mood at Kumar’s residence in a congested lane in Patna’s Jakhanpur locality, from where he runs Super 30, was overpowering as successful students basked in their newfound glory.
Joy knew no bounds for Bhanu Pratap from Uttar Pradesh. His father Rampyare Pratap is a labourer and the sole breadwinner in the family; they have often had to go without food. Along with Bhanu’s mother Geeta Devi, he was at Kumar’s house celebrating their son’s achievement. “You have shown us a day we never even dreamt of. We shall always be obliged to you,” said Geeta Devi, as her husband nodded.
“I think Anand Sir not only prepared us (for IITs), but also gave us the confidence to excel, even in the face of difficult odds,” added Bhanu.
And there are many like Bhanu who were part of the Super 30 this year.

source::::rediff.com
natarajan
In a heart-rending act of animal kindness, a stray dog steps in where no human would and buries a dead puppy by the side of a road.
Onlookers watched in awe as the mongrel circled and sniffed the lifeless pup after finding it in a ditch where it had been left to rot in the midday sun.
But rather than leave it to scavengers, who would inevitably have torn it limb from limb, she spent more than three minutes gently raking sand over the corpse with her snout with extraordinary care.
But there were no sermons, ceremony or quiet reflection at this impromptu canine burial service… not even a bark.

Once she is happy that the puppy’s body is entirely covered, the black-and-white dog simply turns around and walks silently away.
It was an extraordinary act of respect rarely seen in the animal kingdom and is sure melt hearts across the world
It is unclear whether she was a grieving mother burying one of her litter or just a passing stranger with a caring heart.
Nor is it clear where the moving scene, captured on a bystander’s mobile phone, was filmed but Arabic script on it’s YouTube page suggests it may have been made in the Middle East or the Persian Gulf.
Dogs are known to bury bones and toys to come back for later, but it is rare to see a dog burying another dog

Proper job: The mongrel goes to extraordinary lengths to ensure the dead pup is completely covered in sand

No ceremony: Once she is sure the puppy’s entire body is covered, the black-and-white dog simply turns around and walks silently away
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2347261/Heartbreaking-moment-stray-dog-discovers-dead-puppy–painstakingly-buries-stunned-onlookers.html#ixzz2X9MnEG3J
It echoes pictures taken in December of a dog in China standing guard over his dead mate in a busy road where she was mown down by a speeding car.
Those heartbreaking pictures, taken in Zhangzhou, in China’s Fujian Province, show the animal carefully nudging the female dog after she was hit and killed by a car.

Vigil: The dog refused to move from her side despite the female lying in the middle of the busy road

Moving: The male tries licking the top of her head as he tries to revive her
After he fails to wake her, the male refuses to leave and stays within feet of his mate for six hours.
The male was seen repeatedly licking the face of dead dog and keeping a watchful eye on her as he dodged the oncoming traffic. But he never strayed more than a short distance from her side.
When he got tired the dog lay down next to her as he kept up his vigil for hours.
source::::;mailonline .com
natarajan