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” AMUL Refuses to Cry Over ‘spoilt’ Milk ” !!!

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In the age of better-informed consumers and omnipresent social media platforms, it isn’t surprising that manufacturers are being held accountable for their wares.

 

Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation’s marketing arm Amul, however, used Facebook to show how seriously it took customer complaints that could hurt its brand image. The dairy giant responded to photographs uploaded on Facebook by a Gurgaon customer on October 10 showing ‘Amul Gold’ milk purchased by her resembling slop after she tried to heat it. The pictures were shared some 89,000 times and she proceeded to file complaints via e-mail and over the phone.

Amul’s response

The company’s response was immediate. Upon investigating, it found that the expiry date of the product was October 9, and questioned the basis of the complaint.

Rs. Sodhi, Managing Director, GCMMF, toldBusinessLine that Amul deals with complaints swiftly. “This particular complaint stemmed from her using expired stock. Milk is a perishable commodity to be used within the specified time. When the pH level dropped and she tried to make cheese by heating it, such a result was bound to happen,” he said.

The company gave a detailed response through its official Facebook page, where it stated that after visiting the customer at her home twice, she was informed that no problems had been found in any of the ‘Amul Gold’ batches.

The post on Amul’s official Facebook page garnered over 5,000 ‘likes’ and had been shared more than 2,500 times till late in the evening.

Amul also posted a video demonstrating where the consumer had gone wrong. The video, which was uploaded on YouTube, has received around 7,000 hits so far.

Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation’s marketing arm Amul, however, used Facebook to show how seriously it took customer complaints that could hurt its brand image. The dairy giant responded to photographs uploaded on Facebook by a Gurgaon customer on October 10 showing ‘Amul Gold’ milk purchased by her resembling slop after she tried to heat it. The pictures were shared some 89,000 times and she proceeded to file complaints via e-mail and over the phone.

Amul’s response

The company’s response was immediate. Upon investigating, it found that the expiry date of the product was October 9, and questioned the basis of the complaint.

Rs. Sodhi, Managing Director, GCMMF, toldBusinessLine that Amul deals with complaints swiftly. “This particular complaint stemmed from her using expired stock. Milk is a perishable commodity to be used within the specified time. When the pH level dropped and she tried to make cheese by heating it, such a result was bound to happen,” he said.

The company gave a detailed response through its official Facebook page, where it stated that after visiting the customer at her home twice, she was informed that no problems had been found in any of the ‘Amul Gold’ batches.

The post on Amul’s official Facebook page garnered over 5,000 ‘likes’ and had been shared more than 2,500 times till late in the evening.

Amul also posted a video demonstrating where the consumer had gone wrong. The video, which was uploaded on YouTube, has received around 7,000 hits so far.

SOURCE:::: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com

Natarajan

” Three Things I Have Learned From Warren Buffett “…. Bill Gates

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I’m looking forward to sharing posts from time to time about things I’ve learned in my career atMicrosoft and the Gates Foundation. (I also post frequently on my blog.)

Last month, I went to Omaha for the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting. It’s always a lot of fun, and not just because of the ping-pong matches and the newspaper-throwing contest I have with Warren Buffett. It’s also fun because I get to learn from Warren and gain insight into how he thinks.

Here are three things I’ve learned from Warren over the years:

1. It’s not just about investing.

The first thing people learn from Warren, of course, is how to think about investing. That’s natural, given his amazing track record. Unfortunately, that’s where a lot of people stop, and they miss out on the fact that he has a whole framework for business thinking that is very powerful. For example, he talks about looking for a company’s moat—its competitive advantage—and whether the moat is shrinking or growing. He says a shareholder has to act as if he owns the entire business, looking at the future profit stream and deciding what it’s worth. And you have to be willing to ignore the market rather than follow it, because you want to take advantage of the market’s mistakes—the companies that have been underpriced.

I have to admit, when I first met Warren, the fact that he had this framework was a real surprise to me. I met him at a dinner my mother had put together. On my way there, I thought, “Why would I want to meet this guy who picks stocks?” I thought he just used various market-related things—like volume, or how the price had changed over time—to make his decisions. But when we started talking that day, he didn’t ask me about any of those things. Instead he started asking big questions about the fundamentals of our business. “Why can’t IBM do what Microsoft does? Why has Microsoft been so profitable?” That’s when I realized he thought about business in a much more profound way than I’d given him credit for.

2. Use your platform.

A lot of business leaders write letters to their shareholders, but Warren is justly famous for his. Partly that’s because his natural good humor shines through. Partly it’s because people think it will help them invest better (and they’re right). But it’s also because he’s been willing to speak frankly and criticize things like stock options and financial derivatives. He’s not afraid to take positions, like his stand on raising taxes on the rich, that run counter to his self-interest. Warren inspired me to start writing my own annual letter about the foundation’s work. I still have a ways to go before mine is as good as Warren’s, but it’s been helpful to sit down once a year and explain the results we’re seeing, both good and bad.

3. Know how valuable your time is.

No matter how much money you have, you can’t buy more time. There are only 24 hours in everyone’s day. Warren has a keen sense of this. He doesn’t let his calendar get filled up with useless meetings. On the other hand, he’s very generous with his time for the people he trusts. He gives his close advisers at Berkshire his phone number, and they can just call him up and he’ll answer the phone.

Although Warren makes a point of meeting with dozens of university classes every year, not many people get to ask him for advice on a regular basis. I feel very lucky in that regard: The dialogue has been invaluable to me, and not only at Microsoft. When Melinda and I started our foundation, I turned to him for advice. We talked a lot about the idea that philanthropy could be just as impactful in its own way as software had been. It turns out that Warren’s brilliant way of looking at the world is just as useful in attacking poverty and disease as it is in building a business. He’s one of a kind.

SOURCE:::: Bill Gates in http://www.linkedin.com

Natarajan

World”s Most Influential Teens Named By TIME …

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Nobel Peace prize winner Malala Yousafzai, Obama’s daughters and Joshua Wong, the face of the Hong Kong protests against China have been named by Time magazine among its list of the 25 most influential teenagers of 2014.

Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, the joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, waves after speaking at Birmingham library in Birmingham, central England. Photographs: Darren Staples/Reuters

“Teens today might have a mixed reputation, but there’s no denying of their influence. They command millions of fans on Twitter and Vine, start companies with funds they raised on Kickstarter, steal scenes on TV’s most popular shows, lead protests with global ramifications, and even win Nobel Peace Prizes,” Time said as it analysed factors like social-media followings, cultural accolades and business acumen to compile the list.

Mid-Atlantic Region pitcher Mo’ne Davis (3) throws a pitch in the first inning against the West Region at Lamade Stadium. Photographs: Reuters

The youngest on the list is 13-year-old Mo’ne Davis of Pennsylvania, a female baseball player who appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Obama’s daughters Sasha, 13, and Malia, 16, are also on the list.

“A lot of dads get squeamish about their daughter’s first prom, but only Malia Obama’s date status could be called “classified information”, as the President joked,” on TV earlier this year.

Time said the elder Obama sibling has “emerged as a figure of national interest” and her appearance at Chicago’s Lollapalooza Music Festival caused almost as much of a stir as the musicians themselves.

U.S. President Barack Obama and his daughters, Malia (C) and Sasha (L), depart the White House for the presidential retreat Camp David in Maryland. Photographs: Larry Downing/Reuters

While Malia’s name has “spiked in popularity” after her father’s election, Sasha has become an icon in her own right.

Wong, 18 has become the face of the Hong Kong protests, a civil disobedience movement demanding that China stages unfettered elections for Hong Kong’s top political position.

Joshua Wong, leader of the student movement take a pause after delivering a speech to protesters outside of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying offices in Hong Kong. Photographs: Carlos Barria/Reuters

“To some, he’s a symbol of hope — a youth rallying his peers to fight for a cause they believe in. In mainland China, however, many argue Wong is an extremist and an emblem against China’s storied national order,” Time said.

Jazz Jennings, 14, has been lauded by Time for her support towards transgender rights. Jennings started living as a girl at the age of 5.

Transgender teen Jazz Jennings arrives at the 24th Annual GLAAD Media Awards at JW Marriott Los Angeles at L.A. LIVE in Los Angeles, California. Photographs: Jonathan Alcorn/Reuters

She co-wrote a children’s book, “I Am Jazz”, loosely based on her life that aims to help other kids understand what the term ‘transgender’ means.

Yousafzai, 17,  became the youngest-ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize two years after Taliban gunmen shot her in the head while she was riding to school.

“The accolade caps an impressive — albeit early — career for Yousafzai, who has used her organisation, the Malala Fund, as a platform to promote girls’ education, help Syrian refugee children and demand the return of the Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram, among other things,” Time said.

In April, she received an honorary doctorate in civil law from the University of King’s College in Canada.

“Malala is a testament that women everywhere will not be intimidated into silence,” former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who also survived a shooting incident, wrote of Yousafzai in this year’s Time 100.

“We will speak, no matter how hard it is to do so.”

The list also includes 15-year-old Flynn McGarry, who has emerged as a chef in the culinary industry and 15-year-old Erik Finman, founder of a website that offers tutoring over video chat for teens.

The other names in the list include actor Will Smith’s 16-year-old-son Jaden Smith, 17-year-old Lydia Ko, who ranks third among women golfers in the world and 17-year-old Salma Kakar, the lead rider on the co-ed Afghan National Cycling Team.

Actor Jaden Smith attends a hand and footprint ceremony for actor Jackie Chan at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California. Photographs: Jonathan Alcorn/Reuters

Kakar’s dream is to “wave the flag of Afghanistan at the Olympics one day, and to show the world how far Afghan women have come.”

Ciara Judge, 16, Emer Hickey, 17, and Sophie Healy-Thow, 17, from Ireland also made it to the list because they took home the grand prize at the Google Science Fair after wowing the judges with their discovery ‘Diazotroph’, a bacteria that sucks nitrogen from the atmosphere into soil, speeding up the germination of cereal crops and increasing their yield.

SOURCE::::Rediff.com

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” No One Can Believe We Have Won Rs.7 Crores on KBC …!!! “

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“Ever since the news of our win got out, I’ve received six-seven marriage proposals!” Achin Narula exclaims. “I wasn’t thinking about marriage but afterKBC, it will definitely be easier to find a match.”

Here’s what happens when two 20-something Delhi boys become crorepatis overnight.

Image: Achin (far left) and Sarthak Narula (far right) on Kaun Banega Maha Crorepati with Amitabh Bachchan and their parents

“Arey yaar, they edited out my Dil Chahta Hai dialogue there,” Achin Narula, 28, purses his lips in mild disappointment.

The joint winners of the whopping Rs 7 crore prize on Kaun Banega Maha Crorepati — Achin and his younger brother Sarthak Narula, 23, — are glued to the television, reliving their glory as their momentous KBC episode unfolds on the TV screen in their room.

Sitting on their respective beds in Hometel, a comfortable budget hotel in Malad, a western Mumbai suburb, the two brothers — who are working their way through tricky questions on the popular game show — are a study in contrasting personalities.

Achin restlessly paces the room every time he gets a congratulatory phone call and rocks back and forth at crucial points in the episode. His brother, on the other hand, sits calmly with his legs covered with the comforter.

Presumably because they have done quite a few interviews till now, they have learnt to periodically tune out an outsider presence for brief, private victories with each other.

When we politely decline their offer of tea/snacks — I suspect it’d be a mindless interruption for them — Achin quips, “Don’t worry, it’s all on Sony (the channel).

They are obviously in a very good mood.

While the show progresses, it becomes clear that more than witnessing their moment ofKBC glory, the duo is interested in how they have conducted themselves on TV.

They are acutely conscious of how many of their wisecracks and quips were edited out.

“He (Achin) thinks everything he’s said and done should be shown on TV,” Sarthak remarks.

“They must have sold these slots for exorbitant prices and longer duration ads,” concludes Achin, who works in the marketing department in a real estate firm based out of New Delhi.

“They have edited so much, I’m getting calls from my friends saying, “Tu toh kuch bol hi nahi raha (You aren’t saying anything at all),” says Sarthak, sounding concerned.

The brothers bought new spectacles for their appearance on the show.

“I used one pair for many years but when we had to come here, I decided to get another pair just in case the old one broke. The new pair you see on him (Achin) are photochromatic,” Sarthak offers, even as Achin squirms — he is more conscious of how he’s presenting himself than his soft-spoken younger brother.

The Narula brothers’ preparation for the show was (obviously) top notch — Achin had been trying to get on the show for the last 10 years and had made it to the fastest finger first four times before.

The KBC team would say,’Tu phir se aa gaya? When will you quit?’

“I told them I’ll keep trying until they let me through the next level,” Achin says.

So did they have a certain number in their mind that they intended to win?

“We were looking at winning at least Rs 25 lakh. Since there were the two of us, it seemed like an achievable goal,” Sarthak chimes in.

Image: Achin and Sarthak Narula in their hotel room. Photograph: Afsar Dayatar/Rediff.com

When asked about his very unusual sounding name, Achin says, “It means a man without worries — my parents wanted to name me Sachin but, at the same time, didn’t want to break the family naming convention in which all names must begin with an A.”

But then, why was Sarthak named differently?

“My mom wanted me to be different,” pat comes the reply from Sarthak.

The big win hasn’t sunk in yet for the Narula brothers even though it’s been three weeks since they shot for the episode and won. Their friends and family are still ‘shell-shocked’ as well.

“They can’t believe that such a thing has happened. How many people can reach even the 1 crore question, after all?” asks Achin.

Friends and friends of relatives they hadn’t even heard of, or have met briefly, have been calling in to congratulate them.

“The guy I was talking to over the phone is a cousin of a friend who I met once, when I was in the 12th standard. It’s a bit of a hassle to attend each and every call since the phone is on roaming at present,” Achin confides.

But money is surely no matter now?

“Middle class values always remain intact. More importantly, the money hasn’t come in yet,” the brothers burst into peels of laughter.

“We have already spent a lot of money — CCTV cameras have been installed in the house, we have thrown three parties — for friends, work friends and relatives. Paisa aane se pehle hi chala jaa raha hai (money has been spent even before we’ve got it),” they note.

 

Achin took an indefinite break from work when the first call from KBC came in.

“It was an opportunity of a lifetime and I needed to prepare for it,” Achin says.

“I can show you emails of the number of books I’ve ordered for quizzes over the years. We’ve also watched a lot of quiz shows. There’s one on the Disney Channel that airs at 3 am,” Sarthak, who has done his graduation in Commerce, informs.

“Then we read Derek O’Brian’s Bournvita Quiz contest books, another one by Siddharth Basu, one called Mastermind; we have also been regular subscribers of Competition Success Review (a staple for Government entrance exam aspirants),” he adds.

“Since I was trying for KBC for 10 years, we made notes of what areas of GK were asked from the most and worked at them accordingly,” Achin says.

The Rs 7 crore prize money brings with it a set of new career plans for him.

“I will look at viable business opportunities now. We have the capital now, loans will also be more easily available to us,” he notes.

A string of marriage offers for Achin have also come in.

“Ever since the news of our win got out, I’ve received six-seven proposals,” Achin informs. “I wasn’t thinking about marriage but after the win, it will definitely be easier to find a match.”

Achin and Sarthak’s father is a marketing officer with National Insurance.

“We also had a mattresses business in our mother’s name but we had to shut it down after some regulation changes. It just wasn’t viable for us anymore. We incurred heavy losses and had to sell our house. We now live in our grandfather’s house,” says Sarthak.

Their mother was detected with ovarian cancer in July 2013. The chemotherapy sessions are over, and she’s on the road to recovery.

“She will recover but she will need regular tests for the rest of her life. Chemo has been tough — we’ve all suffered emotionally too, besides her own physical pain,” Sarthak adds.

But they don’t want to dwell on that.

“We wanted to talk about it on the show only because there are now vaccines for certain types of cancers. Many people don’t know it so we just wanted to get that information out there through television,” they explain.

SOURCE:::: rediff.com

Natarajan

This PHOTO is for Real and Moving , and Touching our Hearts ….

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The crowd stretches beyond what your eyes can see.

Standing amid the bombed ruins of their lives, these weary people are inhabitants of the Yarmouk refugee camp awaiting food packets from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.

Before the civil war broke out in Syria, Yarmouk, an unofficial refugee camp, was home to some 150,000 Palestinian refugees. That figure has since dwindled to just 20,000.

During the civil war, Yarmouk became the scene of intense fighting between the Free Syrian Army and the PFLP-GC supported by the Syrian Army government forces.

The camp was closed off by the Syrian regime last year, after it served as a primary base of operations for the Free Syrian Army and other radical Islamist militias.

According to the Haaretz daily, “The tragedy lies in that there really is no one to negotiate with in order to secure free flow of aid to the camp. When the Palestinian leaders met with officials from rebel groups, and especially the Islamist militias, their demands were refused, as the rebels claim that the land is Syrian, and not Palestinian.’

The conflict led to severe food shortages and widespread hunger.

Since January 18, the UN agency has managed to deliver 6,528 food parcels, 10,000 polio vaccines and a range of other medical supplies to civilians inside the camp. However, it has so far had only partial humanitarian access.

The UN has reported infant malnutrition in the community, which has been reduced to eating animal feed. As of this week, all aid distributions have been suspended because of security concerns.

The extreme situation has forced the UNRWA to release this photograph of the camp to draw the world’s attention to the need for safe, substantial and continuous humanitarian access.

The Rediff News Bureau

SOURCE::::: Rediff.com
Natarajan

 

Malala Yousafzai Missed out on Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 For being too Young ….

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Malala Yousufzai missed out on peace prize in 2013 for being too young, Nobel Institute admits
Pakistani teenage activist Malala Yousafzai awarded the Nobel peace prize for 2014.
LONDON: The Norwegian Nobel Institute has admitted for the first time ever, that the global figurehead for a girl’s right to an education — Malala Yousafzai missed out on the Nobel peace prize in 2013 for being too young.She however won the world’s most coveted prize on Friday. This still makes her the youngest Nobel laureate ever at the age of 17.

So far, 47 Nobel prizes have gone to women between 1901 and 2014. Malala became the 16th woman being awarded the Nobel peace prize which also includes Mother Teresa from India.

Director of the Nobel Institute in Oslo Geir Lundestad told TOI in an exclusive interview “It is a tremendous responsibility to win the Nobel prize. And when you give it to someone too young or too unknown, it changes their life forever. We throw them out to the world stage overnight. We felt the same about Malala last year and thought it was too early for her to receive the prize”.

READ ALSO: Malala: Idol to the world, outcast at home

The Nobel committee was also wary whether Malala would be able to handle the pressure that comes from global fame and expectation after winning the Nobel prize.

“However, Malala has performed very well over the past year as a global ambassador for education and we felt it was time to give her the prize,” Lundestad told TOI.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee had awarded the prize in 2013 to the International Chemical Weapons watchdog that is destroying poison gas stockpiles in Syria, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

READ ALSO: Full list of Nobel peace prize winners

Malala was however very gracious in defeat even though she was the favourite to win. She said OPCW deserved to win the prize and said on Twitter “congratulate the OPCW and thank it for its wonderful work for humanity”.

Later when asked on missing the prize, she said “I think that it’s really an early age. But there’s always later. I would feel proud, when I would work for education, when I would have done something, when I would be feeling confident to tell people, Yes, I have built that school; I have done that teachers’ training, I have sent that (many) children to school. Then if I get the Nobel peace prize, I will be saying, Yeah, I deserve it, somehow”.One of the events that caught the Nobel committee’s eye was the confidence with which Malala addressed the UN.

She told the elite gathering on her 16th birthday that books and pens scare extremists. Malala has been credited with bringing the issue of women’s education to global attention. A quarter of young women around the world have not completed primary school.

Malala in 2013 also won the prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2013. Yousafzai was a student from the town of Mingora in Swat District, Pakistan, known for her women’s rights activism in the Swat Valley, where the Taliban regime has banned girls from attending school.

She gave her first public speech in September 2008, entitled “How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to an education?”

When all girls schools under Taliban control were closed in January 2009, she started a blog for BBC Urdu under the pseudonym of Gul Makai, a folklore heroine. The blog brought fame to Malala and her fight. Threats to her family followed as soon as her identity was revealed, leading up to an assassination attempt in October 2012, when she was shot in the head and neck by Taliban gunmen while returning home on a school bus.Malala has gained global recognition as a human rights fighter militating for the right to female education, freedom and self-determination.

She then said that a country’s strength should not be measured by its army but by the number of educated people in it.

Making a passionate plea for more education, Malala said “We are all here together united to help these children, to speak for them, to take action. These children do not want an I phone, an X-box, a Playstation or chocolates. They just want a book and a pen”.

Malala recently went silent for 24 hours to show solidarity with children whose voices are silenced.
BOTTOM LINE::::: KINDLY CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINK AND READ MY EARLIER BLOG ON MALALA YOUSAFZAI  … BLOG dated  11 october 2013..
https://natarajank.com/2013/10/11/16-year-old-malala-yousafzai-leave-jon-stewart-speechless/
 Natarajan
SOURCE:::: timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Natarajan

Image of the Day…Full Moon Rising over Lotus Temple in NewDelhi …

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Full moon rising over Lotus Temple in Delhi, India

We saw many photos of the October 8 moon during the total lunar eclipse. Here’s one from India, where the eclipse was less easily visible.

Photo by Abhinav Singhai. Visit him on Flickr.

Our friend Abhinav Singhai captured this moonrise (Hunters Moon) time lapse over the Lotus Temple in Delhi, India. It was October 8, 2014, the night of the total lunar eclipse. Abhinav wrote:

Penumbral lunar eclipse was visible from Delhi at the time of moonrise, and visible in the first picture as well (slight shadow).

SOURCE:::: EARTHSKYNEWS

Natarajan

” Theo and Beau ….” !!!

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This month marks my fifth year blogging and being actively involved in social media.

   in

Momma’s Gone City

 

Source:::www.huffintonpost.com

 

My intent and focus has always been the same: Telling our story through words and photos. Instagram is my youngest social platform, as I resisted following the craze for what felt to me like a long time. Interestingly enough, it’s because of my Instagram account that our lives changed overnight.

Social media has had a positive influence on my life in so many ways, beginning long before my photos of Theo and Beau went viral.

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Three months after we moved to New York City, my 2-year-old landed us in the emergency room with a severe allergic reaction to pistachios. Without any family, friends or neighbors to call, my husband stayed home with our youngest while I literally ran my wheezing, hive-covered baby through the rain to the NYU ER. Over the seven hours that Jack and I spent in that sterile, packed little curtained-off corner while he received round after round of steroids and oxygen, I turned to Twitter and found that I wasn’t, in fact, alone. There was a community of mothers and fathers there to virtually hold my hand, sharing their experiences and advice with me. Mostly they assured me that it was OK to be scared, but that my baby would also be OK. That was the first time I realized that this community is so much more than a bunch of strangers behind computer screens — this is a lifeline. These are my friends.

This incredible group of socially conscious and connected peers would prove immeasurably valuable over the next five years, but never more so than when my instagram photos went viral last November.

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We adopted Theo from the Santa Cruz SPCA in late November of last year. He was 7 weeks young when we brought him home with us, and I’m quite sure he was sharing the nerves and anticipation that we were feeling.

Theo found the most comfort in my son Beau, and they immediately bonded as buddies, partners in crime, and even as brothers. He began napping with Beau, who wasn’t quite 2, the day after he came to live with us. I shared my delight with my husband via text first, then on Instagram.

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They napped together day after day, and after a few naps I realized this wasn’t going to change anytime soon — so I gave them their own hashtag, and wrote about their lovely little ritual on my blog. The Huffington Post published an article about them next day, and by that night I had a slew of new followers and a deluge of media requests. Realizing what was happening without really registering it consciously, I stayed up for two nights fielding requests and handling agent emails and talk show inquiries. The local news crews were on our doorstep that weekend, and we even went to San Francisco in the middle of the night to film Fox & Friends. Good Morning America set up shop in our living room one evening the following week, and we started appearing in print all over the world.

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Everyone said that I had “hit the lottery” and told me to enjoy my five minutes of fame. I couldn’t connect with that whatsoever, because in the midst of all of that attention, my baby’s face was appearing all over the world and my anxiety was eating me alive. It was mostly positive, though of course with the rapid attention and millions of eyeballs came the naysayers and Internet grumps. I’ve dealt with my share of negativity from strangers on the Internet, but those instances pale in comparison to the hundreds of emails and thousands of supportive comments from people all over the world.

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I’ve heard stories of love and loss and how the photos of Theo and Beau bring peace and reassurance and hope to all kinds of people in all different situations. Above all else, this has been the largest bounty. The amount of love we’ve received in many different forms and several different languages has left me forever humbled.

My commitment to using social media for good had also presented itself in the most obvious way: turning the attention to our local Santa Cruz SPCA. We’ve raised over $10,000 towards their goal of building a new facility, and with a portion of the proceeds from my book going toward it as well, I’m confident they’ll meet that goal. Philanthropy has always been my anchor, and it’s kept me grounded throughout this experience.

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The past five months have been some of the most intense of my entire life. I’ve rapidly learned all about Internet property, copyright and trademarks, and more broadly, the infinite arms of the Internet — how vast that span is and yet how wildly unhinged it can be, too.

In my most frantic and dire moments of stress, my online community was there for me again. Far from the emergency room, yet feeling stranded all the same, I received unsolicited emails and notes of advice and support from some of the most successful and knowledgeable pioneers in this business: women and men whom I am hugely proud to call my friends. I battened down the hatches by hiring a team of heroes: lawyers, agents, publicists, a rock star to handle my sponsorship opportunities, and even a babysitter and a house cleaner. What was once a loosely run online lifestyle journal is now a full-time commitment, and I still get to be at home with my kids fulfilling my number one goal and priority of raising my children.

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This means that I’m taking conference calls at the playgrounds, Little League games, and even my obstetrician’s waiting room. I may be enjoying far fewer morning trips to the beach than originally planned upon our move to Santa Cruz, but I’m earning a living of my own and am able to help support my family as well as climb the ladder of dental school debt.

I’m incredibly proud to announce that Naptime with Theo and Beau is now available for pre-order. I am also incredibly thrilled to release the very first video that I’ve been working on with Anna Mayer, which was shot soon after we brought Theo home. It’s been a wonderful journey, and it’s apparent that our story is only beginning.

 

Natarajan

 

Image of the day…. Image sent by MANGALYAAN on 7 Oct 2014 !!!

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India’s maiden spacecraft to Mars—Mangalyaan—has send another image of the Red Planet, captured by the camera on board.

“Another full disc image of Mars, taken by the Mars Color Camera, from an altitude of 66,543 km. Dark region towards south of the cloud formation is Elysium – the second largest volcanic province on Mars,” the facebook page of Isro Mars Orbiter said on Tuesday.

The spacecraft had beamed its first photos of Mars’ crater-marked surface a day after India successfully put the probe into the red planet’s orbit.

Just after that Isro had uploaded the regional dust storm activities over northern hemisphere of Mars – captured by Mars Color Camera.The image was taken from an altitude of 74500 km from the surface of Mars.

India joined an exclusive global club of deep space explorers on September 24 when the indigenously-made spacecraft successfully slipped into the orbit around Mars after a 10-month journey on a relatively shoe-string budget.

Source:::: http://www.hindustantimes.com

Natarajan