This Earth observation composite image from the International Space Station captures morning sunglint and low clouds over the central Pacific Ocean. The image was put together at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, from a series of photographs taken by Expedition 47 Commander Jeff Williams on March 25, 2016.
Image Credit: NASA
source….www.nasa.gov
Natarajan
The people of Kozhikode are silently funding an initiative that feeds anyone who is hungry for free, with utmost dignity.
“Nalla Manushyar Aanu” – “They are good people.” This is a default comment that you will hear about the people of Kozhikode, Kerala. From its fabled auto drivers who return every penny of change, to its palliative clinic that provides free care for the terminally ill, to simple heart-warming selfless conversations, the tales of Kozhikode’s good hearted people are greatly cherished.
Now here is a reason why you will also chime in with some words of praise – Kozhikode makes sure no one in the city goes hungry! Be it the poorest, the not so poor, be it you or me – the hungry will be served food for free, with utmost dignity.
Restaurants in Kozhikode serve meals to the hungry in exchange for free coupons given away by the authorities.
“We cannot ask a hungry person to get his hunger attested by a certified gazetted officer! That is why we insisted on the philosophy that ‘no questions will be asked’. If you ask for a food coupon, you will get it, it is as dignified as that,” says District Collector of Kozhikode, Prashant Nair, the chief architect of this project called ‘Operation Sulaimani’, eponymous of Kozhikode’s very own local black tea, served with a dash of lemon and cardamom.
The project was launched by Kozhikode’s District Collector, Prashant Nair, who envisaged this as a community owned and community driven initiative in its entirety. The Collector’s office initiated it and the Kerala State Hotel and Restaurants Association roped in over 125 city restaurants to become a part of this.
The volunteer team has placed the boxes across the city, into which nameless donations are made. This money is used to reimburse the meal coupons that are collected at the restaurants. Interestingly, Team Sulaimani does not take a penny from the collected money to meet its administrative costs. This money is meant only to feed the hungry, they insist.
In April 2015, Operation Sulaimani made the free meal coupons available at the Collectorate, Village and Taluk offices. Coupons were also distributed along with newspapers with the intent that people who read newspapers can offer the coupons to those in need. An army of volunteers went around the city to spread the word and distributed the coupons.
Kozhikode Collector, Prasanth Nair
The team believe that the spirit of Operation Sulaimani lies in the collective responsibility taken by the people to care for each other rather than an act of benevolence by any individual or organization.
This collective spirit has proved to be indeed powerful by feeding 9000 people in the last one year, not running out of funds, and not showing signs that the city’s good spirit will allow them to run out too.
One of the striking aspects of Operation Sulaimani is the fact that it gets fulfilled within the capabilities of existing systems. No big kitchens to feed the hungry were built and no massive funds were sought in the name of hunger eradication. By leading people to any restaurant in any part of the city, it blended the cause into the everyday function of Kozhikode’s restaurants.
The District Collector adds, “There is no food wastage nor do we have to worry about the safety of the food. If we had chosen to build a large kitchen to supply free food, we would have all these problems. But we just decided to use the existing system and make the best use of it.”
Coupons can be exchanged at local restaurants for free meals.
Many restaurant owners like him do not want to take the reimbursements but Team Sulaimani insists that they are paid.
Some people doubt if such a facility will be misused, but the team is not worried about that. Rather, it is finding it challenging to reach more people who are in need. The members found that hunger is not just about the people on the streets, the homeless, it is also discreetly present within our communities. Reaching these people and making them aware that food is the last thing they need to worry about is what the team is obsessed with.
If you noticed, we haven’t got any quotes from any beneficiary of Operation Sulaimani nor put up their photos. Team Sulaimani believes that the dignity of the people should not be infringed on, and we salute that spiri
Source…..Ranjini Sivaswany in http://www.the betterindia.com
Natarajan
Paratroopers make a big deal about jumping out of planes from 800 feet, but U.S. Army Air Force Staff Sgt. Alan Magee fell out of a plane at 22,000 feet without a parachute while the plane was on fire.
And he lived.
Magee was a ball turret gunner in a B-17 named “Snap! Crackle! Pop!” after the three mascots for Rice Krispies cereal. That plane, along with others from the 360th Squadron, was sent to bomb German torpedo stores in St. Nazaire, France on Jan. 3, 1943.
During the mission, the plane was shot by anti-aircraft guns and became a ball of flames. Magee climbed into the fuselage to get his chute and bail out, but it had been shredded by the flak. As Magee was trying to figure out a new plan, a second flak burst tore through the aircraft and then a fighter blasted it with machine gun fire.
Magee was knocked unconscious and thrown from the aircraft. When he woke up, he was falling through the air with nothing but a prayer.
Magee told God, “I don’t wish to die because I know nothing of life,” according to reports from the 303rd Bomb Group.
Magee, struggling with a shortage of oxygen and likely in shock from the events of the past few minutes, passed out again and God seemingly answered his prayer. The young noncommissioned officer fell into the town of St. Nazaire and through the glass roof of the train station. He was later found dangling on the steel girders that supported the ceiling.
The glass had slowed his fall and he regained consciousness as German soldiers took him to medical care. Magee’s right leg and ankle were broken, he had 28 wounds from shrapnel and glass, and his right arm was cut nearly the whole way off. He had also suffered numerous internal injuries.
“I owe the German military doctor who treated me a debt of gratitude,” Magee said. “He told me, ‘we are enemies, but I am first a doctor and I will do my best to save your arm.'”
French POWs at work at a farm in Westscheid bei Mennighüffen.
Magee was able to keep his arm and eventually made a full recovery. He spent most of the rest of the war as a POW.
In 1995, Magee was invited back to France as part of a ceremony sponsored by French citizens to thank Allied service members for their efforts in the war. Magee was able to see monuments to the crew of Snap! Crackle! Pop!, including the nose art which had been used as a Nazi trophy until after the war when a French man recovered it. It was restored in 1989.
Magee died in 2003.
Read the original article on We Are The Mighty. Copyright 2016. Follow We Are The Mighty on Twitter.
Source….www.businessinsider.com
Natarajan
Consider the meaning of the name ‘Sai Baba’. ‘Sa’ means Divine; ‘ai’ or ‘ayi’ means mother, and ‘Baba’ means father. Your physical parents exhibit love with a dose of selfishness; but Sai, your Divine Mother and Father, showers affection or reprimands only to lead you towards victory in the struggle for self-realisation. Sai descended as Avatar to achieve the supreme task of uniting the entire mankind as one family through the bond of brotherhood, of affirming and illumining the Divine (Atmic) reality in every being. Divinity is the basis for the entire cosmos, and My mission is to instruct all to recognise the common divine heritage that binds one person to another, so that you can rid yourself of the animal, and rise to the Divine! I desire that you contemplate on this, derive joy and be inspired to observe the spiritual disciplines I laid down to progress toward the goal of realising Sai, who shines in your hearts.
Since I moved freely among people, talking and singing with them, even intellectuals were unable to grasp My truth, My power, My glory, or My real task as Avatar. I can solve any problem however knotty. I am beyond the reach of the most intensive enquiry and the most meticulous measurement. Only those who have recognised My love and experienced it can assert that they have glimpsed My reality. Do not attempt to know Me through the external eyes. When you go to a temple and stand before the image of God, you pray with closed eyes, don’t you? Why? Because you feel that the inner eye of wisdom alone can reveal Him to you. Therefore do not crave from Me trivial material objects; but, crave for Me from within, and you will be rewarded. The path of Love is the royal road that leads mankind to Me. My grace is ever available to devotees who have steady love and faith.
Ravana (the villain in Ramayana) sought wealth and gratification of desire, utterly violating the principle of dharma. He was a scholar par excellence. He had mastered the sixty-four disciplines of learning whereas Rama had mastered only thirty-two. However Rama put them into practice and thereby digested them, whereas Ravana failed to digest them. The indigestion on the part of Ravana arose in the form of desire (kama), which ultimately destroyed him. While Rama was the embodiment of Dharma, Ravana remained as the embodiment of kama. Thus there arose a conflict between righteousness and unrighteousness. Rama transformed Himself into the embodiment of sathya (Truth), since He followed the principle ofdharma. Since Ravana violated dharma, he became the embodiment of asathya (untruth). There is an eternal warfare between righteousness and unrighteousness, truth and untruth. It is your duty to follow and practice the twin principles of truth and righteousness.
One of dozens of high-powered rockets lifts off on April 16, 2016, during NASA’s 16th annual Student Launch challenge, held near Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama from April 13-16.
Nearly 50 middle and high school, college and university teams from 22 states competed in the challenge, demonstrating advanced aerospace and engineering skills related to real-world activities and programs on NASA’s Journey to Mars. Teams spent the past eight months building and testing rockets designed to fly to an altitude of one mile, deploy an automated parachute system, and land safe enough for reuse, while other teams also designed scientific payloads for data collection during flight.
Preliminary winners for Student Launch were announced during an awards ceremony April 16, at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, and hosted by Orbital ATK. The overall winners of Student Launch will be announced in early May, as the final calculations are still under review for accuracy.
Image Credit: NASA/MSFC/Charles Beason
Consider each brother, sister, comrade, companion, and collaborator of Rama as an example of a person saturated with Righteousness (dharma). In Ramayana, Dasaratha is the representative of the merely physical, with the ten senses. The three qualities (gunas) — serenity, activity, and ignorance (satva, rajasand tamas), are the three queens. The four goals of life, thepurusharthas — righteousness, wealth, fulfilment of desires, and liberation are the four sons. Lakshmana is the intellect; Sugriva is discrimination (viveka); Vali is despair; and Hanuman is the embodiment of courage. The bridge is built over the ocean of delusion. The three Rakshasa chiefs, Ravana, Kumbhakarna, and Vibhishana, are personifications of the active (rajasic), ignorant (tamasic), and pure (sattvic) qualities. Sita is the Awareness of the Universal Divinity (Brahma-jnana), which the individual must acquire and regain while undergoing travails in the crucible of life. Be established in the faith that the Lord (Rama) is the Reality in your daily existence.
The four brothers in Ramayana were the embodiments of the four Vedas. Rig Veda is the embodiment of speech (vaak); Yajur Veda is the embodiment of the mind (manas); Sama Veda is of the life principle (prana); and Atharvana Veda is of the intellect (buddhi). Thus the four Vedas strolled with Dasaratha as Rama, Lakshmana, Bharatha, and Shatrughna. We will not gain much if we let ourselves be dominated by the mistaken notion that Rama is the Embodiment of Divinity and that He is beyond our reach. We should realise the fact that the Lord descended on earth to demonstrate an ideal to mankind. Hence every human being should mould themselves according to the great example set by Rama. Rama lives in every human heart as the enchanting principle, as the Divine Self within. There is none in this world in whom the Self is absent. Hence the Rama principle exists in everyone.
Take off with Natarajan 