Source……www.ba-bamail.com
NATARAJAN
environment
Message For the Day…” How to Achieve the Spiritual Progress in One’s Life …” ?
The minute hand of the clock is the individual soul. It goes round and round – the hour hand does move, silently and slowly, with dignity. The hour hand is the Supreme Soul. Once in an hour, these two meet, but the individual soul does not get that consummation fixed forever. It loses the precious chance, and so has to go round and round again. Liberation happens when the two merges and there is just one. Like the silkworm that spins from out of itself the cocoon that proves to be its tomb, people spin from out of their own mind, the cage in which they get trapped. Assign your mind the task of serving the Lord and it will grow tame. Give your mind to the Lord. Forget the past and don’t worry about errors in future. Bring to memory only those things that are worth remembering and assiduously follow your spiritual practices. You will achieve spiritual progress.
“This Tiny Australian Bird Cries Wolf to Scare its Predators…” !!!
Researchers have found that the tiny brown thornbill mimics the hawk warning call to scare off predators. Image Courtesy: Thinkstock
one of Australia”s smallest birds found out a cunning way to protect its nest from predators by crying wolf, or rather hawk, and mimicking the warning calls of other birds.
Researchers from the Australian National University (ANU) found that the tiny brown thornbill mimics the hawk warning call of a variety of birds to scare off predators threatening its nest, such as the larger pied currawong.
“It is not superbly accurate mimicry but it is enough to fool the predator,” said Branislav Igic in a university statement.
A physical attack on a currawong would be no good. They are 40 times the size of a thornbill and will eat adults as well as nestlings.
“I am amazed that such a tiny bird can mimic so many species, some much bigger than itself. It’s very cunning,” Igic added.
Although vocal mimicry is widespread amongst birds, its function is rarely understood.
This study is the first to show that birds use vocal mimicry to scare predators.
The researchers stumbled across the thornbill’s deceit during an experiment on birds’ reaction to a stuffed owl.
“I was puzzled because I could hear the alarm calls of robins, honeyeaters and rosellas but I couldn’t see any,” added professor Robert Magrath, the leader of the research group.
He soon realised that the brown thornbill was mimicking the other species while defending the nest.
Many species of both birds and mammals eavesdrop on the alarm calls of other species. Natural communities form an information web about danger, the authors noted.
Source…www,ndtv.com
Natarajan
eRumour Circulating Now…. ” A Massive asteroid Will hit Earth in September 2015″
Reports have gone viral that the government is preparing for a large asteroid to hit Earth in September 2015.
The Truth:
The claim that a massive asteroid will hit the earth in September 2015 is a Hoax.
The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) operates the Near-Earth Object Program to identify asteroids that come within millions of miles of earth. The JPL has taken to Twitter to dismiss claims that a massive asteroid will strike earth in September 2015:
“ The September asteroid scare is just another hoax.”
“The claims an asteroid scheduled to hit earth in September are a hoax.”
These claims appear to have started with the Rev. Efrain Rodriguez, a Pentecostal Evangelical minister from Puerto Rico. Rodriguez claimed that god told him an asteroid would strike off the coast of Puerto Rico and cause 40 million deaths. Aside from Rodriguez’s personal account, there’s no proof that an asteroid is on course to strike earth in September 2015.
These claims were echoed by a number of blog sites and went viral with a YouTube video that had more than 430,000 views. But the video appears to be nothing more than an advertisement for a book about the rapture and doesn’t include any details about the so-called asteroid bound for Earth.
Because there is no scientific proof that an asteroid will hit the Earth in September 2015, and because NASA has directly denied those claims, we’re classifying this one as fiction.
A copy of the email submitted to Truthorfiction.com:
Collected on: 05/29/2015
Source….. http://www.truthorfiction.com and http://www.youtube.com
Natarajan
Image of the Day…Fresh Crater Find in Mars….
The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a “fresh” (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars on March 30, 2015.
This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta. The steep inner slopes are carved by gullies and include possible recurring slope lineae on the equator-facing slopes. Fresh craters often have steep, active slopes, so the HiRISE team is monitoring this crater for changes over time. The bedrock lithology is also diverse. The crater is a little more than 1-kilometer wide.
The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project and Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Caption: Alfred McEwen
Source…www.nasa.gov
natarajan
” Meet this Young Man from Netherlands who is Trying to Findout a Solution Cleaning the Ocean ..”
Will the Oceans Soon Be Clean?Every year, over 8 million tons of plastic trash gets dumped into the ocean. The trash is not only unsightly, but also a serious hazard to marine life. Animals get stuck in bags and other bits of plastic; others try to eat the garbage thinking it’s food, and many end up hurt or worse. This information may cause one to ask if this is the legacy we’re leaving for future generations.
Knowing this, Boyan Slat – a 20-year-old man from the Netherlands, has been trying to find a solution. Finally, he came up with an ingenious way that will allow the ocean to clean itself (with a little help).
The plan is to set up specially-designed floating barriers in key locations around the globe. These locations are gyres – large system of circular ocean currents that are formed by global winds and the Earth’s rotation. The gyres circulate the ocean water around the Earth, making them the ideal location to trap all of the garbage.
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” If You Want Change , You Must get Your Hands Dirty…” Says Young Achiever Srikar Gullapalli
“We already have engineers and medical graduates, but we need more IAS and civil service professionals, we need lawyers and political experts to spearhead this cause.
“We need more people to write open letters to the President and Prime Minister.
“The RTI Act is your weapon. Use it to get facts and information you want.
Former Watson Fellow and social entrepreneur Srikar Gullapalli talks about the issues affecting India’s growth and tells us why he wants more people to actively participate in building a bright future and put India on the global map.
When his peers were keen on studying engineering and medicine, Srikar Gullapalli was bitten by the ‘social upliftment’ bug.
The 23-year-old has stayed committed to the cause.
His life took a U-turn when he got the opportunity to travel to seven countries, between 2013 and 2014, to study citizen-state relationship as part of the Watson scholarship (instituted in the memory of Thomas J Watson, the founder of IBM).
Through the assignment, he interviewed key political figures and compiled crucial data that would help him understand how to deal with issues like tribal rehabilitation, militant movements and marginalised communities back home.
Having graduated in mathematical economics and political science from Colgate University, in the US, the young achiever is now readying to pursue a post-graduation degree in Public Administration at Princeton University.
In March 2015, he received admission offers from six international universities: Princeton, Harvard, Maxwell Institute, Duke University, Georgetown University and Carnegie Mellon University.
He picked Princeton because he felt it was best when it came to his subject of interest — public administration.
His comparative study on ‘Politics of Performance: A Comparative Study of Delivery of Good Governance by different Political Parties in India’ under the guidance of Vinay Sahasrabudde, director, Public Policy Research Centre (PPRC), New Delhi was released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi this year. (external link)
Since December 2014, he has been working with the ministries of health, drinking water and sanitation, in Delhi, researching the institutional gaps that exist in the current policies and how citizens can avail of better facilities.
We caught up with the young achiever who will be travelling to Princeton in September 2015, to find out how he plans to build a better India.
What are the problems coming in the way of India’s development?
We have a lot of policies, but the problem lies in execution.
Take, for example, the Land Acquisition Bill.
No one seems to understand the cause and effect of this Bill.
One needs to understand why the displacement is taking place and what are we doing about it.
Most of them (the displaced) do not have land of their own.
Besides, 50 per cent of the people in villages, including youngsters, want an urban job so they relocate to the cities and most of them never go back.
There is migration happening across villages in India.
Add to this the number of projects that are lying unattended.
At least 40 per cent of land development projects in India are currently behind schedule.
I feel we must have a system where unless we execute the existing projects, we don’t start or approve new ones.
Then there is the cultural divide, population expansion, and political debates that further delay projects.
Our collective aim must be to try and address these institutional gaps and bring in more clarity and transparency in execution.
We need to find out where the money goes and bring in more accountability in the whole process – perhaps a website where all this data can be uploaded and tracked.
Also, some of the policies and colonial laws haven’t been reformed since the time they were made. We need to reform our laws and policies to meet the present day requirements.
Why did you choose to go to college abroad and not in India?
At the age of 17, I wasn’t sure about my career.
I was looking for a flexible course that allowed me to study civics, advanced English and political science. Indian universities did not offer me that flexibility.
I did not want to be pigeon-holed and take up a course for the sake of completing my graduation.
At the same time, I wanted to study how things are managed internationally. So I picked Colgate University.
But whenever I had the chance, I preferred to work in India.
When I was chosen for a National Geographic project, I could have picked any country.
I chose to work on the Ganga rejuvenation and spent months interacting with seers and political leaders, trying to understand how we can bring positive change.
Tell us more about Shuddhify and what you achieved through it.
In 2011, I started Shuddhify as a social blog, funded by The World Bank Institute and British Council.
I would collect strategic data on corrupt practices in and around Bangalore.
For two years, I conducted a survey across nine government agencies and found large gaps in the system.
I compiled a report on this and submitted it to the Karnataka government.
When I was compiling this data, I received a lot of threatening calls from police officers.
I did not stop or heed them and went ahead with the report. In these times of corruption, civic activism is very risky, but someone has to start and lead the change.
Shuddhify’s findings on development policies were published in the Times of India‘s Bangalore edition, in August 2012.
The research findings were picked by the state government as one of the best policy papers which is part of the recommendations of the Sakala scheme of the Karnataka government (the scheme provides guarantee of service to citizens). This was an achievement in itself.
Srikar Gullapalli (right) interviews the next Shankaracharya as part of a NatGeo project in Allahabad, India.
What did you learn from your international assignments?
When I was picked for the Watson scholarship there were 40 other students from the US.
More than 1000 had applied for it.
Through the scholarship, I got to travel to diverse countries such as New Zealand, Thailand, Turkey, Syria and Spain.
I picked these countries because I felt they all had something in common with India.
The issues are more or less the same the world over — poverty, separatist movements, health and sanitation etc.
But each country has a different way to solve it.
We need to learn from the positives from other countries and work out a way to implement them in our country.
In your opinion, how can we bring about change?
We need more youngsters to take part in policy making.
We already have engineers and medical graduates, but we need more IAS and civil service professionals, we need lawyers and political experts to spearhead this cause.
People need to understand that the constitutional law is for real and it is there for everyone to touch and feel.
In Bangalore, there is incredible amount of civic engagement happening with the involvement of local bodies.
We need more people to write open letters to the President and Prime Minister, write more editorials in newspapers and start meaningful political debates that will educate and inspire people to join the campaign.
The RTI Act is your weapon. Use it to get facts and information you want.
In India, we see all the hype and energy from youngsters only pre and during the elections.
The period between elections has little or no engagement from the citizens. This needs to change.
What would be your advice to young readers?
As I mentioned, we need more young leaders in Parliament.
Between 1952 and ’57, about 33 per cent of representation in the Lok Sabha was from those under the age of 40.
Today, the average age of members is 50-plus and only 13 per cent are under the age of 40.
A person who is 75 years old is too old to be making decisions for a country where more than 50 per cent of the population is below the age of 30.
There has to be a healthy mix of ideas and experience — a mix of smart young people with ideas, and experts with experience.
Much as people disregard it as corrupt and apathetic, politics affects each one of us.
If you want change, you must get your hands dirty.
It’s not a choice but a responsibility we all share for the country we belong to.
There is a famous line in the Bhagwad Gita: ‘It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.’
Your advice to students who are looking to study abroad?
• Be prepared to negotiate for a lot of things that you were comfortable with in your home country — the luxury of food, relaxation from daily chores etc. You are mostly on your own and will have to learn to do things independently.
• Develop organic ways to solve your problems.
• Explore your academic freedom — make the most of the flexibility your international programme offers.
• Look for work opportunities and see if you can get people to fund projects and ideas in your home country.
• Do not restrict yourself to Indian friends and communities. Network with people beyond nationalities and cultures; be tolerant and humble.
Photographs: Kind courtesy Srikar Gullapalli/Facebook
Divya Nair / Rediff.com
Source…..www.rediff.com
Natarajan
Message For the Day…” Start Today the Spiritual Discipline that has to be Done Tomorrow…”
What is the use in planning a well when the house is on fire? Where is the time to dig now? When will water become available? When is the fire to be extinguished? It is an impossible task! If, at the very start, a well was ready, how helpful it would be on such critical occasions! Beginning to contemplate on God during the last moments is like beginning to dig the well when the house is on fire. Therefore equip yourself right now, by contemplating on God off and on, so that it will stand you in good stead when the end approaches. Start today the spiritual discipline that has to be done tomorrow! Start now what has to be done today! One doesn’t know what is in store the next moment; therefore there should be no delay in engaging in spiritual practices. For this physical stamina is also necessary, so the body has to be tended to, though over-tending causes damage. To the degree that is essential, the body should be looked after with great care.
” Ayurveda Has Solutions for Digestion and Stomach related Ailments….”
- Gut problems are one of the most common reasons people go to the GP
- Ancient Indian healing practice of Ayureveda has solutions for digestion
- Includes drinking warm water with lime or grated ginger in the morning
- Also recommends using spices like fennel, tumeric and black pepper
Do you often feel bloated and sluggish?
Whether it’s a bout of diarrhoea, heartburn after a heavy meal, or aches and pains, gut problems affect nearly all of us at some point.
In fact, they are one of the most common reasons we go to the pharmacy or see our GP.
Writing for Healthista, Eminé Ali Rushton, author of The Body Balance Diet Plan, explains how methods from Ayurveda, the ancient Indian healing practice, can help.
From using digestive-friendly spices like fennel and ginger, to eating fruit on an empty stomach, here, she shares her tips for banishing bloating…
Gut problems are one of the most common reasons we go to the pharmacy or see our GP (file photograph)
WARM WATER AND LIME IN THE MORNING
Before you do anything in the morning, boil your kettle and fill half a mug with boiling water, then the other half with room temperature filtered water.
Drink as it is, or with a squeeze of lime if you’re feeling bloated or constipated, or with grated ginger if you’re feeling very lethargic.
The feeling of warm water hitting the stomach first thing in the morning is quite incredible because it’s pouring down a pipe that’s not been used in hours.
Try and leave at least 20 minutes before breakfast. It’s the quickest and easiest perk- and pick- me-up there is.
TRY TRIPHALA
Drinking warm water with lime in the morning can kick-start digestion
A traditional Ayurvedic remedy for gentle gut cleansing, Triphala is made from three traditional Indian fruits (haritaki, amla and bibhtaki).
It also contains psyllium, liquorice, fennel and linseed – gold- standard gut-clearers.
It can also help your body absorb nutrients from your food.
It’s available in health food stores.
GET SMART ON DIGESTION-FRIENDLY SPICES
Whenever I had an upset tummy as a child, my mother would boil up a generous pinch of fennel seeds in water (the water should boil up and turn a pretty yellow-green colour) and get me to drink it.
Within minutes my stomach used to start to feel better.
Fennel is a truly great gut-calmer, as is ginger, which can be added to all foods or boiled up in hot drinks.
Other spices that are great to add to your diet when you’re feeling off-colour are ginger, ground coriander, turmeric, cumin and black pepper – all of which are Ayurveda’s secret weapons for stoking and restoring digestive fire.
EAT FRUIT AT ROOM TEMPERATURE – ON AN EMPTY STOMACH
Ayurveda is specific about fruit and suggests it is always best eaten on an empty stomach.
So after your glass of warm water in the morning, enjoy ripe fruit at room temperature.
This is how we were meant to eat it – sun-warmed, first thing, fresh from the tree.
When fruit is refrigerator-cold it shocks the stomach, which hinders optimal digestion.
Eating gut-friendly spices like tumeric, ginger, fennel and black pepper can soothe stomach problems
Almost all fruits taste better and sweeter at room temperature – particularly berries, peaches, apricots and melon.
Get into the habit of taking fruit out of the refrigerator the night before and eating it about 40 minutes before breakfast.
Another good time to enjoy fruit is mid-morning, as a snack before lunch, as you want to try to leave a couple of hours on either side – so breakfast before 9am, fruit between 10 and 11am and lunch around 1pm won’t tax those digestive juices.
Always eat fruit at room temperature and on an empty stomach
EAT SLOWER
In Ayurveda, body types are classified into three types, or doshas, called vata, pitta and kapha.
Some doshas really do need to take more time than others over their meals.
Kapha, with their sluggish digestion, benefit from spending a longer time chewing.
Pitta, with their tendency for internal fire, do well to eat quietly in a peaceful spot.
Vata types, who often suffer digestive upset and loose bowels, need to slow down the eating process completely.
They also need to savour each mouthful, and never eat on the go (which is a common tendency with airy, and busy, Vata types).
PROBIOTICS
Achieving optimal gut health (and digestive fire) is at the heart of Ayurveda.
One of the simplest ways to aid digestive fire is to boost your stomach’s healthy bacteria with a proven probiotic blend, particularly after a course of antibiotics or during illness.
I am calling on modern wisdom here.
Obviously ancient Ayurveda doesn’t have a stance on probiotics – but I’ve found, from trial and error, that my digestive fire is always strongest when I support it with probiotics and enzymes.
We often hear that our immune system is situated in our gut: what this means is that 70 per cent of the antibacterial and antiviral cells within our body are situated in the walls of the stomach and intestines.
Our stomach also produces acid, which kills off most pathogens, and our small intestine produces mucus, which blocks further potential pathogens from entering our bloodstreams.
So, when your gut lining is weakened, your immunity will also be compromised. I really cannot overstate the importance of a healthy stomach in the pursuit of good overall health!
Eminé Ali Rushton is founder of balanceplan.co.uk
This article originally appeared and has been reproduced with the permission of Healthista.
Source….www.dailymail.co.uk
Natarajan
“Kids are Capable of Doing More than We Expect From Them…Watch this video clip…!!!
A compilation of incredible talented and fearless kids, demonstrating their skills at everything from skateboarding and weightlifting to surfing and basketball trick shots!
Source….www.ba-bamail.com and http://www.youtube.com
Natarajan
Take off with Natarajan 