| There is much to learn from the world of nature. We often forget that many of the things we know come from that place. When we despair from our world’s hardships, it can be of immense comfort to look outside of it for some answers. I hope this beautiful presentation will prove that to you.
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Source…..www.ba-bamail.com
Natarajan
The Great Barrier Reef is home to almost 6000 species. Thanks to GoPro, here’s what the journey through it looks like for one of them: a turtle’s eye view of the Reef.
To find out more about the level of pollution affecting turtles within the Great Barrier Reef, WWF is working on innovative project in Queensland with the support of our partners Banrock Station Wines Environmental Trust, James Cook University, The University of Queensland, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, State and Commonwealth government agencies, Indigenous rangers and local community groups.
As part of that project, the opportunity arose to very carefully fit a small GoPro camera to a turtle, to better understand the post-release behaviour of tagged green turtles. The result is this amazing video.
Source….www.you Tube.com and http://www.ba-bamail.com
Natarajan
When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle first began writing Sherlock Holmes stories back in the late 19th century, 221B Baker Street didn’t exist. While Baker Street itself existed, and still exists today, the numbers on the street back when Doyle wrote the Sherlock Holmes novels and when Holmes was supposed to reside there (1881 to 1904 according to Doyle’s original stories) only went into the hundreds. It would seem that Doyle intentionally picked an address that didn’t exist.
This all changed in the 1930s when the street numbers in London were rejigged and reallocated to make things a little more streamlined. During the reallocation, a recently constructed building for the Abbey Road Building Society (aka Santander), known as “Abbey House” was awarded all of the odd numbers between 219 and 229.
Because the address 221 Baker Street now existed, all of the mail that fans across the world had inexplicably sent to Holmes not knowing that he didn’t exist, now had a place to be delivered. It’s noted that as soon as the bank began trading from the building on March 18, 1932, they were inundated with dozens of letters addressed to Holmes. While most of the letters were basically just fan mail or nice messages wishing the detective well, the bank were surprised to find a decent number of people who’d written to ask for Holmes’ help.
Now you’re probably thinking that a large, faceless corporation like a bank would have dismissed these letters as an annoyance and have them shredded or something, but that didn’t happen. Instead, the bank went out and hired someone to serve as “Sherlock Holmes’ personal secretary” and charged them with reading and responding to the mail. Rather than sending a stock reply on bank stationary explaining that Sherlock Holmes wasn’t real, this secretary would write back explaining that Holmes had retired to go live in the country and raise bees on a farm in South Downs in Sussex.
Fans of Sherlock Holmes may recognise this as being where Arthur Conan Doylehimself claims the detective went in his twilight years in the short stories, The Lion’s Mane, The Blanched Soldiers and His Last Bow. Needless to say, Abbey National did their homework when it came to staying consistent with Holmes’ back story. According to Nikki Capar, who worked as Holmes’ secretary in the 1980s, she’d also sometimes write back to fans as Sherlock Holmes using quotes from the aforementioned stories, often telling fans that she (Holmes) had “given myself up entirely to that soothing life of Nature for which I had so often yearned during the long years spent amid the gloom of London.”
As it turned out, the bank quite enjoyed the attention of sharing their address with one of London’s most famous fictional residents, so much so that they had a small plaque commissioned to sit outside the building and on their 150th anniversary even paid for the creation of a bronze statue that currently sits outside the Baker Street entrance to the tube.
In 1990, though, things turned a little sour when the Sherlock Holmes museum opened nearby and suddenly decided that they should be the only ones who were allowed to open Sherlock Holmes’ fan mail. Although the museum was located between 237 and 241 Baker Street, they argued that as an authority on Sherlock Holmes, there were better equipped to deal with his correspondence than a billion dollar company with virtually unlimited resources that had been doing an admirable job at exactly that for about five decades straight. The museum even put a plaque outside their building declaring that the museum was the real home of Sherlock Holmes.
The courts didn’t agree and they ruled in favour of the bank, since, well, they did technically own 221 Baker Street and it wasn’t their fault that people kept sending letters there to a guy who didn’t exist. The museum fought this decision for over a decade until 2002, when the bank, which was then known as Abbey National, moved its headquarters to nearby Triton Square.
By this point, Westminster council had grown pretty sick of dealing with the issue and when the bank moved, they granted the museum exclusive rights to use theaddress 221B Baker Street, even though the museum itself still resided between 237 and 241 Baker Street.
The museum is still there today.
Source….www.today i found out .com
natarajan
ARussian cosmonaut has achieved an astonishing feat by spending most number of days on the International Space Station (ISS). Cosmonaut Gennady Padalka has officially set a new Guinness world record by spending 804 days on the ISS.
Padalka, who is also the commander of the crew on the ISS, surpassed cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, former Russian Air Force officer who spent 803 days, nine hours and 41 minutes in the space, across six mission from 1998 to 2005. In addition, Padalka is scheduled to return to earth in September this year and by then he would have spend a total of 877 days in space.
Born on June 21, 1958, in Krasnodar, Russia; Padalka graduated from Eisk Military Aviation College in 1979; in 1994 he left UNESCO International Center of Instruction Systems, where he was an engineer–ecologist. After graduation from the Military College in 1979, Gennady Padalka served as a pilot and a senior pilot in the Air Force. In 1989, he was selected as a cosmonaut candidate to start training at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. In 1991, Padalka was qualified as a test cosmonaut. Since then he never looked back and became the most experienced cosmonaut.
Coming to his personal life, Padalka is married to Irina Anatolievna Padalka (Ponomareva). They have three daughters, Yulia, Ekaterina and Sonya. Gennady enjoys the theater, parachute sport and diving.
Moreover, ISS is a space station that was launched in 1998.ISS is the largest artificial satellite body that orbits earth nearly 400 km above the surface and it can be seen with naked eye. Recently a man clicked a photo of ISS orbiting the earth. ISS moves at a very high speed and it completes 15.54 orbits per day.
Source….www.tecake.com
Natarajan
The popular belief is that unless they come from English speaking, sophisticated and affluent families, prepare at a young age, get educated in a first rate college, go to a coaching class in one of the metro cities, take the examination several times, the aspirants cannot make it to the civil services list, particularly its very top.’
Ambassador T P Sreenivasan — who serves in an honorary capacity at the NSS Academy where Renu coached for the IAS — on how she surprised even herself by topping the UPSC exam.
By securing the second rank in the UPSC civil services examination this year, a 27-year-old married medical graduate, born in a Kerala village to a bus conductor father and educated, but unemployed mother, Renu Raj has exploded many civil services myths.
The popular belief is that unless they come from English speaking, sophisticated and affluent families, prepare at a young age, get educated in a first rate college, go to a coaching class in one of the metro cities, take the examination several times, the aspirants cannot make it to the civil services list, particularly its very top.
Renu Raj is not the first to explode some of these myths. Several other women have registered major successes. Two years ago, Haritha Kumar, from a similar background, an engineer, made it to the first rank.
Many years earlier, Nirupama Rao had secured the first rank. Last year, Divya Iyer, a doctor, did well and joined the coveted Kerala cadre. A rank holder throughout her academic life, a high achiever in many areas and a published author and editor, she was expected to be at the very top.
Renu is undoubtedly a product of the changing civil services scene across the country. The examination was always tough, as it followed the pattern of selection of the Indian civil service officers in the colonial era.
The change came first when the profile of the recruits changed from the urban to the rural. The rural rich landowners in several states lost their old wealth and power on account of land reforms and distribution of wealth. They discovered that the only way for them to recover their lost prestige was to get their children into the civil services, particularly IAS and IPS.
Hordes of young people migrated to Delhi to find short cuts to success in the civil services examination. A virtual IAS industry grew from the elite institutes like Rao’s Study Circle in Connaught Place to sweat shops on Mukherjee Street, where youngsters were spoon fed with readymade answers to old question papers and digested notes on every optional subject.
Aspirants from Bihar and UP began to qualify in large numbers.
Kerala had made a modest contribution to the civil services throughout, but it caught on to the new trend only in the beginning of the 21st century.
The first State Civil Services Academy came into being in 2004 and several other coaching centres came up all over the state.
A major facility offered by the government was the ‘adoption scheme’, which provides airfare and accommodation in the comfortable Kerala House in Delhi at the time of the UPSC interview.
The number of entrants from Kerala, which had reduced to a trickle in the 1980s and 1990s, picked up. The trend has continued and Kerala began to produce about 8 per cent of the recruits in the last ten years. This year, there are nearly 40 recruits, many of them with high ranks.
The increase in the age limit and the number of permissible chances changed the scene completely. The upper age limit rose from 23 to 32 and the chances increased from 2 to 6. This enabled doctors, engineers, IIT and IIM graduates and others to take the place of arts and humanities graduates to a great extent.
Instead of a few, who took the risk of not taking up professional studies, the brighter students went to professional courses, secured jobs, worked for a few years, raised families in some cases and then took the civil services examination.
Though the standard expected of the candidates is at the master’s level, graduates began to prepare full time in the academies instead of joining postgraduate courses. Introduction of Hindi and regional languages and literature also contributed to the change of the profile of the candidates further.
The lure of Mukherjee Road took some to Delhi and other metro cities. The theory of ‘catch them young’ was given the go by.
For Renu, who obtained the 4th rank in the Class 10 and 13th rank in plus two exams, it opened up immense possibilities because of the changed circumstances and nature of the examination.
She breezed into a government medical college, passed the MBBS examination in flying colours, married a doctor and began to practice medicine.
Her parents, who had seen her win prizes for elocution and do well in extra curricular activities, developed ambitions to get her into the IAS, shifted to a rented house in Thiruvananthapuram to support her, with the full encouragement of her husband, L S Bhagat, who pursued his own medical studies elsewhere and the backing of her sister, Ramya Raj, also a medical student.
Her mother, V S Latha, a Malayalam literature graduate, trained her for the optional paper. Renu rose to the occasion, prepared on her own, even while working and later joined the State Academy, went to the Pala Academy for her Malayalam literature optional paper and the NSS Academy for the international relations module and model interviews.
She said that the International Relations Module was enough for her to score well in the relevant part of the General Studies paper.
Most aspirants go to several institutions for selected courses, for which they are famous. For instance, Pala has specialised in Malayalam and the NSS Academy in international relations. Everyone signs up with the State Academy to avail of the adoption scheme.
Renu went through the three stages, becoming one of the 13,000 out of 450,000 at the preliminary level, one of 5,000 at the mains level and second out of the 5,000.
She could not believe that she had spectacular success even after she saw her name on the UPSC web site.
An evangelist of the civil services, particularly, the IFS, I have been teaching at the various academies for more than ten years. In the last two years, I have been directing, in an honorary capacity, the NSS Academy.
The UPSC springs surprises every year. Some aspirants, with great promise, do not make it, while others do better than expected. The dynamics of the examination have their own vagaries. But one thing is certain: No one makes it without talent and hard work, even if some of the best do fail.
I noticed Renu at an International Relations Module, a special offering of the NSS Academy. Though she was not showy, she impressed me because of her pleasant demeanour, eagerness to learn and command of the language. In the tests we conducted, she always stood first. I was not surprised when she was chosen for the third stage of the examination and after a couple of model interviews, I was convinced that she would do extremely well.
I chose her, together with another aspirant, Parvathi, for a model interview on television, which went extremely well. Sadly, Parvathi, an economist, did not make it and Renu went on to get the second rank.
The civil services examination is truly transformational for those who make it. They are like pupae, which turn into butterflies overnight.
Others begin to see a halo around them and themselves blossom into mature, responsible and sophisticated individuals, as they climb the bureaucratic hierarchy. The nightmare of the preparations for the examination turns into a dream come true.
Renu may not have fully realised the transformation as yet, but all her interviews and speeches are joyous, generous about sharing credit with family, teachers and friends and expressing her concern for the poorest, lowliest and lost.
She attributes her success to commitment and hard work, not to any exceptional ability. She says she had expected to do well, but never dreamt of the second rank, particularly because, as a first timer, she did not have a sense of her capabilities in comparison to the others.
She will realise the full extent of her accomplishment and blessing only when she reaches the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussourie and meets the many well-healed and talented youngsters, with greater opportunities, whom she overcame.
Kerala is agog with jubilation over the repeated successes of its men and women, who have been joining the civil services in recent years. Among the men who have done extremely well in recent years are V Sriram, Johny Tom Varghese, Alby John and Abhiram Shankar.
One consequence of these successes will be an exponential growth in aspirants and training centres. The nation needs the best civil servants and Kerala is ready to make its contribution with officers like Renu, bright, committed and full of idealism.
source….T.P.Sreenivasan in http://www.rediff.com
Natarajan
| Some days, a good dose of fiction will blow your mind, but today your mind can be blown with a good old dose of truth, brought to you by science. These fascinating facts lend credence to the saying that truth is stranger than fiction. Here are 16 strange tidbits that even a master writer couldn’t think up on his or her own.
Rogue planets
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Susannah Mushatt Jones, 116, from Brooklyn took the title from Jeralean Talley.
A woman in the United States who celebrated her 116th birthday on Monday has officially been recognised as the world’s oldest living person by Guinness World Records.
Guinness World Records has confirmed that Susannah Mushatt Jones of Brooklyn, New York, born on July 6, 1899, is now the world’s oldest living person.
In addition to the early present from Guinness World Records, Jones is celebrating this milestone year with two birthday parties — an intimate gathering of family on Monday and a larger celebration with her housing community, friends and local officials in attendance on Tuesday.
Jones became the record holder at the age of 115 years and 346 days, as of June 17, 2015.
Jones took the title of the world’s oldest living person from Jeralean Talley who died, just 26 days after her 116th birthday at her home in Inkster, a Detroit suburb, on June 17.
Asked for the secret of her longevity, Jones said “sleep!” While she has lost her eyesight and is hard of hearing, Jones is not bed-bound and only takes two medications a day.
Jones, known as ‘T’ to her 100 nieces and nephews, will also become the oldest living female, Guinness said.
Jones was born in Lowndes County, Alabama, to Mary and Callie Mushatt. Her father was a sharecropper who picked cotton to support his wife and ten children.
In 1922, Jones left Alabama for New Jersey before moving to New York City in 1923, finding employment as a live-in housekeeper and childcare provider.
Image: Susannah Mushatt Jones will also become the oldest living female. Photograph: Guinnessworldrecords.com
Source…www.rediff.com
Natarajan
You may ask: “How am I to declare, Aham Brahmasmi (I am Divine)?” Yes, you can do so. But, first understand the Aham, the ‘I’, the Divine Principle. Scriptures declare – Ekam Eva adhvitheyam Brahma – The Absolute is One without a second. Though people worship the Absolute with different names and forms, the Supreme Reality is only one. Just as the same person is called in different names by different people at different times, God has many names and forms – all these are creations of the human mind. Scriptures emphatically declare that the Lord is the nameless and attributeless Eternal Reality. Understand properly the true and Divine nature of the Aham (‘I’). The ‘I’ is the master of your body, senses and the intellect, and is the power that permeates the entire cosmos.
“ஏதோ ஒரு கோயிலில் லக்ஷதீபம் போட, நீ திரவியம்
கொடுத்திருக்கே. லக்ஷம் தீபத்துக்கு எண்ணெய் – திரி
போட்டு உன்னால் ஏற்றவே முடிந்திருக்காது”
சொன்னவர்; ஸ்ரீமடம் பாலு.
தொகுப்பாளர்;டி.எஸ்.கோதண்டராம சர்மா
தட்டச்சு;வரகூரான் நாராயணன்.
ஓர் ஏழைப் பாட்டி.பெரியவாளிடம் அபார பக்தி.
கையிலிருந்த சொற்ப பணத்தைக் கொண்டு மிகவும்
சிக்கனமாக வாழ்க்கையைக் கழித்துக் கொண்டிருந்தாள்.
மடி ஆசாரம் பார்ப்பாள். ஏராளமான பக்தி.
தினமும் பெரியவர் இருக்கும் இடத்தைச் சுத்தம் செய்வாள்.
கோலம் போடுவாள். தீபம் ஏற்றி வைப்பாள்.
இரண்டு புடவைகள் தான் அவளுடைய ஆஸ்தி.இன்னொரு
புடவை வாங்கக் கூட அந்தப் பாட்டியிடம் பொருளில்லை.
ஒரு பக்தர் அரிசிக் குறுணையும்,வெல்லமும்
பெரியவாளிடம் சமர்ப்பிந்திருந்தார்.அவற்றை நல்லபடியாக
விநியோகம் செய்ய வேண்டுமே?
பாட்டிக்கு பெரியவா உத்தரவு போட்டார்கள்.
“காஞ்சிபுரத்தில் உள்ள எல்லா எறும்புப் புற்றுக்களிலேயும்
கொஞ்சம் கொஞ்சம் போட்டுட்டு வா. அரை ஆழாக்கு
வீதம் போடு…” என்றார்கள்.
அந்தப் பாட்டியும் பக்தி சிரத்தையுடன் அலைந்து திரிந்து,
பல எறும்புப் புற்றுகளில் அரிசிக் குறுணையும்,
வெல்லமும் போட்டு விட்டு வந்தாள்.
அந்த வேலை முடிந்ததும் பெரியவா அந்தப் பாட்டியைக்
கூப்பிட்டார்கள்.
பெரிய மாலை போலத் திரிநூல் இருந்தது.
ஒரு டின் நிறைய எண்ணெய் இருந்தது.
“திரிநூலை கட் பண்ணி ஒவ்வொரு கோயிலுக்காகப் போய்,
எவ்வளவு விளக்குக்குப் போட முடியுமோ, அவ்வளவுக்குப்
போடு.ஒவ்வொரு நாளும் இரண்டு,மூன்று கோயில்களுக்குப் போய் விளக்கேற்றினாலும் போதும்” என்றார்கள்.
பாட்டிக்குப் பரம சந்தோஷம். பரம சிரத்தையுடன் நாள்தோறும் சில கோயில்களுக்குச் சென்று பெரியவா உத்தரவை நிறைவேற்றி வந்தாள்.சில நாட்களில் இந்தக் கைங்கரியம் நிறைவு பெற்றது.அந்தச் செய்தியையும் தெரிவித்தாள் பாட்டி.
பாட்டியின் பணிகள் முடிந்த சில நாட்களுக்குப்பின்,
ஒரு பெரிய மனிதர், ஆடம்பரமாக மடத்துக்கு வந்தார்.
பெரிய மனுஷத் தோரணை, அகங்காரம்.
“ஸஹஸ்ரபோஜனம் செய்துட்டு வந்திருக்கேன்.
லட்சதீபம் போட்டிருக்கேன்…..” என்று தற்பெருமை
தொனிக்கப் பெரியவாளிடம் சொன்னார்.
பெரியவாளுக்கு அவருடைய அகம்பாவம் புலப்பட்டது.
தர்ம காரியங்கள் செய்துவிட்டு அதைப் பற்றி பேசிக்
கொள்வது புண்ணியத்தைத் தராது. தர்மம் செய்தவருக்கு
நற்பலன்கள் கிடைக்காமல் போய்விடும்.
வினயத்துடன் சொல்லியிருந்தால் பெரியவா
சந்தோஷப்பட்டிருப்பார்கள். ஆனால்,அந்தப்
பெரிய மனிதர் அகம்பாவத்துடன் பேசினார்.
பெரியவா சொன்னார்கள்.
“இங்கே ஒரு பாட்டி இருக்கா. அந்த அம்மா
லக்ஷபோஜனம் செய்திருக்காள்.
பல லக்ஷதீபம் போட்டிருக்காள்….”
ஆணவப் பணக்காரருக்கு சற்று திடுக்கிட்டது.
‘யார் அந்தப் பாட்டி…அவ்வளவு பெரிய பணாக்காரி?’
என்று தெரிந்து கொள்ள ஆவல் பிறந்தது.
பெரியவா அந்தப் பாட்டியை அழைத்து வரச் சொன்னார்கள்.
“இவள்தான் அவ்வளவு பெரிய உத்தமமான காரியம்
செய்தவள்…”
அழுக்கான கிழிசல் புடவையைக் கட்டிக்கொண்டு
வந்து நின்ற பாட்டியைப் பார்த்து, பெரிய மனிதர்
அயர்ந்து போனார்.பாட்டியின் நெற்றியிலிருந்த
வெள்ளை வெளேரென்ற திருநீற்றுப் பூச்சு,
அவளுடைய இதய சுத்தத்தை விளாக்கினாற்போலிருந்தது.
பெரியவா சொன்னார்கள்.
“ஸர்வ ஜீவனிலும் பகவான் வியாபித்திருக்கிறார்.
பிரும்மா முதல் பிபீலிகம் (எறும்பு) வரை பகவான்
இருக்கிறார். மனுஷ்யாளிடத்திலும் இருக்கிறார்.
“நீ ஆயிரம் பேருக்கு அன்னம் போட்டிருக்கிறாய்.
ஆனால், இந்தப் பாட்டியோ பல லக்ஷம் ஜீவன்களுக்கு
(எறும்புகளுக்கு) ஆகாரம் போட்டிருக்கிறாள்.
“ஏதோ ஒரு கோயிலில் லக்ஷதீபம் போட, நீ திரவியம்
கொடுத்திருக்கே. லக்ஷம் தீபத்துக்கு எண்ணெய் – திரி
போட்டு உன்னால் ஏற்றவே முடிந்திருக்காது. இந்தப்
பாட்டி, பல கோயில்களுக்குப் போயிருக்கிறாள்.
பக்தி சிரத்தையாய் அகல் வாங்கி,எண்ணெய் ஊற்றி,திரி
போட்டு தன் கையாலேயே ஏற்றியிருக்கிறாள்….”
கேட்டுக் கொண்டிருந்த பிரமுகர் தலைகுனிந்தார்.
பெரியவாளிடம் பவ்யமாகவும்,அகங்காரமில்லாமலும்
பேசவேண்டும் என்பதைப் புரிந்து கொண்டார்.பின்னால்
பல பக்தர்கள் வந்து நிற்பதைப் பார்த்து சற்றே நகர்ந்து
இடம் கொடுத்தார்.
சிறிது நேரம் கழித்து, பெரியவாளே அந்தப் பெரிய
மனிதரைக் கூப்பிட்டு, உட்கார வைத்து,பல சமாசாரங்கள்
பேசி, பிரசாதம் கொடுத்தனுப்பினார்கள்.
அடக்கம் கற்றுக்கொண்ட அவர், ஆனந்தமாகத்
திரும்பிச் சென்றார்
Read more: http://periva.proboards.com/thread/9619/#ixzz3f1lxqqsA
Source….www.periva.proboards.com
Natarajan
Take off with Natarajan 