10 LESSONS FROM THE TIGER SCANDAL

The story of Tiger Woods is tragic but it is not unfamiliar. A public figure, at the height of his career, is caught in moral failure. Like Bill Murray’s character in the movie, Ground Hog Day, we awaken to the same scenario over and over again until lessons are learned and results change.

The following are 10 lessons we can learn from the Tiger Woods affair:
1. Success without grounding and accountability is failure.

2. Money and fame are not equals to character and honor.
3. Public performance and private life are not exclusive of one another – good judgment is the common thread.
4. Few things command greater respect than a person accepting full responsibility for his actions.
5. When marital vows are honored, heartache is kept at bay.
6. Forgiveness is so powerful that it is at times one’s only hope.
7. Today’s secrets are tomorrow’s revelations.
8. One’s greatest legacy is one’s family.
9. It is never too late to do what is right.
10. The greatest comebacks are found not in the arena of sports but in matters of the heart.

THE LIBERHAN ' TRAGEDY'!!!

Now, Liberhan report is out in the public domain for the scrutiny. See, how our Gen Y has reacted on the issue. It’s high time we the journalist needs to introspect. We have been put in the same league as are our politicians. Some Tweets…:-)

Is it possible that there were two different Liberhan reports: One leaked, the diluted version tabled?
Liberhan took 17 yrs/8 crores and PDFs follow same trend.Size 129 MB on NDTV,80 MB on Hindu
'Joke of d Year' - Media sections, now, fighting over their 'Exclusivity' on 'Trash'
17yrs 8 crore rs ...nw nothing against those who are behind the demolition of babri masjid...justice liberhan ?????
If I was the government of India, I would ask Liberhan for my money back. 17 years, 9 crores spent and complete rubbish ...
Liberhan has nothing to gain by leaking it now,anyway our HM is sick of talking to Naxalites & terrorists,would rather,prefer to quit
amusing 2 C sections of other media now claiming the Liberhan report 2 B "exclusive". Come on guys!!
m wondering which party does this Liberhan report benefit. BJP,Cong,SP or Left...God!!indian politics is too unpredictable.
who slept with Liberhan that it all leaked so early.....and then such a shoddy anti-climax to the whole event! lol
Liberhan no detective, politician nor a chess player, it was then PM N.Rao who outfoxed Advani by not stopping him nor dismissK.Govt
The #Liberhan report is expensive, took a lot of time coming up, got leaks in it and sunk fast. Kinda like Titanic.
Tragic day for Cong-sucking sections of media. Liberhan has turned out to be the ultimate dud.
Thank god its not a bollywood movie. This thing would have bobed biiger than Nuclear Bomb! Major Buzzkill!
Haha! You dont read my tweets closely. I just said that Congress is a long term player.Liberhan switch would be turned on-off
Now that you agree Liberhan is anti-climax, will you question why the PM is out of the country on 26/11 ?
Liberhan report could always haunt the BJP and remain there as an impediment in evolving into a viable alternative to the Centrists
May be a generational shift. But the issue here is what is more relevant today- Dalai, China, 26/11 or the old ghost called Liberhan?
liberhan has swished his sword left, right and centre - read comment about "shortsightedness of the Supreme Court" !! ref sec.163.2
LIBERHAN COMMISSION...its shame on you. What were you doing last 17 years..? Whom did you want to satisfy.. or you wanted only comfort..?
Kalyan Singh paints d clearest picture of the liberhan commission report yet! 17yrs on...is this worth d time we're giving it?
Liberhan Commission on Babri Masjid: "No punitive action against any criminals..!" Sad that all talk about report leak, not on barbaric act.
It is amusing to see how the politicians are using the Liberhan report to pander more than usual.
no mention of punitive action against any top brass leader in Liberhan ATR hs spilt water on BJP's grand plan rebuildn Hindutva agenda
The liberhan report is out - U must have been born in '92 ,The Babri Mosque was demolished that year by Hindu fanatics
Liberhan is trending.. someone finally notices after 17 freakin years. well better late than never

'Global warming' and '9/11': words that define the decade

Terrorism, economic turmoil and climate change have shaped the 2000s, not only affecting how people live but their language, with "global warming" and "9/11" topping a list of the most used words of the decade.

The Global Language Monitor, which uses a math formula to track the frequency of words and phrases in print and electronic media, said "Obama" came third in the list with the surname of U S President Barack Obama used as the stem for other words.

"Bail-out" was listed fourth after the bank bail-out was one of the first acts of the financial crisis, "evacuee" came fifth in the wake of Hurricane Katrina devastating New Orleans, and "derivative" featured fifth.

"Google," "surge," "Chinglish" meaning a hybrid of Chinese and English, and "tsunami," after the 2004 Asian disaster that left 230,000 people dead or missing, followed.

"Looking at the first decade of the 21st century in words is a sober, even sombre, event," said Paul JJ Payack, president of The Global Language Monitor.

"For a decade that began with such joy and hope, the words chosen depict a far more complicated and in many ways, tragic time. Nevertheless, signs of hope and renewal can be found in the overall lists."

Payack said the top phrase of the decade was "climate change" followed by "financial tsunami" and "Ground Zero."

Technology's impact on the past decade was reflected in the list with "Twitter," the micro-blogging site, one of the most used words while "blog" and "texting" featured on the list.

Hollywood continued to flex its muscle, with "Slumdog" from the Oscar-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire," referring to child inhabitants of Mumbai slums, making its mark in global language. U.S. comedian Stephen Colbert's "truthiness," defined as truth that comes from the gut not books, came in at No. 25.

62 YEARS AFTER.....

WORLD IS HUNGRY

I've compiled a database of useful facts and figures on world hunger.

GLOBAL HUNGER

1.02 billion people do not have enough to eat - more than the populations of USA, Canada and the European Union; (Source: FAO news release, 19 June 2009)

The number of undernourished people in the world increased by 75 million in 2007 and 40 million in 2008, largely due to higher food prices; (Source: FAO news release, 9 Dec 2008)

907 million people in developing countries alone are hungry; (Source: The State of Food Insecurity in the World, FAO, 2008)

Asia and the Pacific region is home to over half the world’s population and nearly two thirds of the world’s hungry people; (Source: The State of Food Insecurity in the World, FAO, 2008)
More than 60 percent of chronically hungry people are women; (Source: The State of Food Insecurity in the World, FAO, 2006)

65 percent of the world's hungry live in only seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia. (Source: The State of Food Insecurity in the World, FAO, 2008)

CHILD HUNGER

• Every six seconds a child dies because of hunger and related causes; (Source: State of Food Insecurity in the World, FAO, 2004)
• More than 70 percent of the world's 146 million underweight children under age five years live in just 10 countries, with more than 50 per cent located in South Asia alone; (Source: Progress for Children: A Report Card on Nutrition, UNICEF, 2006)
• 10.9 million children under five die in developing countries each year. Malnutrition and hunger-related diseases cause 60 percent of the deaths;(Source: The State of the World's Children, UNICEF, 2007)
• The cost of undernutrition to national economic development is estimated at US$20-30 billion per annum;(Source: Progress for Children: A Report Card on Nutrition, UNICEF, 2006)
• One out of four children - roughly 146 million - in developing countries are underweight;(Source: The State of the World's Children, UNICEF, 2007)
• Every year WFP feeds more than 20 million children in school feeding programmes in some 70 countries. In 2008, WFP fed a record 23 million children.(Source: WFP School Feeding Unit)

MALNUTRITION

• It is estimated that 684,000 child deaths worldwide could be prevented by increasing access to vitamin A and zinc(Source: WFP Annual Report 2007)
• Undernutrition contributes to 53 percent of the 9.7 million deaths of children under five each year in developing countries. This means that one child dies every six seconds from malnutrition and related causes. (Source: Under five deaths by cause, UNICEF, 2006)
• Lack of Vitamin A kills a million infants a year(Source: Vitamin and Mineral Deficiency, A Global Progress Report, UNICEF)
• Iron deficiency is the most prevalent form of malnutrition worldwide, affecting an estimated 2 billion people.6 Eradicating iron deficiency can improve national productivity levels by as much as 20 percent.(Source: World Health Organization, WHO Global Database on Anaemia)
• Iron deficiency is impairing the mental development of 40-60 percent children in developing countries(Source: Vitamin and Mineral Deficiency, A Global Progress Report, p2, UNICEF)
• Vitamin A deficiency affects approximately 25 percent of the developing world’s pre-schoolers. It is associated with blindness, susceptibility to disease and higher mortality rates. It leads to the death of approximately 1-3 million children each year.(Source: UN Standing Committee on Nutrition. World Nutrition Situation 5th report. 2005)
• Iodine deficiency is the greatest single cause of mental retardation and brain damage. Worldwide, 1.9 billion people are at risk of iodine deficiency, which can easily be prevented by adding iodine to salt(Source: UN Standing Committee on Nutrition. World Nutrition Situation 5th report. 2005)
• WFP-supported deworming reached 10 million children in 2007(Source: WFP Annual Performance Report 2007)

FOOD & HIV/AIDS

• In the countries most heavily affected, HIV has reduced life expectancy by more than 20 years, slowed economic growth, and deepened household poverty. (Source: 2008 UNAIDS Global Report on the AIDS Epidemic)
• In sub-Saharan Africa alone, the epidemic has orphaned nearly 12 million children aged under 18 years.(Source: 2008 UNAIDS Global Report on the AIDS Epidemic).
• WFP and UNAIDS project that it will cost on average US $0.70 cents per day to nutritionally support an AIDS patient and his/her family.(Source: Cost of Nutritional Support for HIV/AIDS Projects, WFP, July 2008)
• Assistance for orphans and vulnerable children is estimated at US$0.31 per day.(Source: Cost of Nutritional Support for HIV/AIDS Projects, WFP, July 2008)

AID SPENDING

• In a 1970 UN Resolution, most industrialised nations committed themselves to tackling global poverty by spending 0.7 percent of their national incomes on international aid by 1975. Only Norway, Sweden, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Denmark regularly meet his target(Source: DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa) facts map, 2006-2007)
• The 22 member countries of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, the world's major donors, provided USD 103.9 billion in aid in 2006 - down by 5.1 percent from 2005(Source: OECD - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2007)
• The largest donors were the United States (US$24 billion), Japan (US$18 billion), the United Kingdom (US$13 billion), Germany and France (US$12 billion each), the Netherlands (nearly US$6 billion), Spain and Italy (just over US$4 billion each) representing 80 percent of the total(Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2007)
  

Nepal: In deep crisis

The old ‘Hindu Kingdom is again in chaos. The crisis that was brewing in Nepal has come to the fore. Army chief Rukmangad Katawal was sacked by Maoist prime minister Prachanda & it was immediately followed by the president's decision to veto it. Now Prachanda has resigned. Barely a year after democracy had begun to take roots, the experiment of a coalition government of ultra-left and more moderate forces is in peril.

Sacking the general three months before he was to resign was bad enough. That it was done because the general was resisting Maoist attempt to bring their cadre into the army is worse, because it indicates a more systemic fault. Though it is not a case of democratically-elected government fighting the men in uniform, the country is awash with rumours of a "soft coup". This is hardly encouraging for a nation where democracy is nascent and monarchist forces continue to hold sway. Besides although the Maoists have given up their violent ways, they have not totally disbanded.

Existing constitutional procedures suggest that the appointment of the army chief was the prerogative of the king. As the monarchy stands abolished, the power rests with the president who has exercised his authority and stopped the army chief's sacking. The prime minister objected. It is clear that both have not worked out a modus vivendi to ensure that the system functions smoothly while the constitutional issues are worked out.It is of utmost concern that this political and constitutional battle should not rock the Nepal state or undermine its fledgling democracy. It is for this reason that India's Nepal-watchers are worried. There are encouraging signs, in that the rest of the political parties barring the Maoists are coming together to find a political solution. All efforts have to be made to ensure that Nepal does not return to political and social turmoil.

India has failed to evolve a Nepal policy which keeps abreast of changing circumstances in the Himalayan nation. The crisis in Nepal comes at a time when India is in the midst of elections, which means there is no clear policy thrust in New Delhi on how to handle the situation in Kathmandu or indeed in other troubled neighbouring countries. But the foreign policy establishment must step in to ensure that forces inimical to India's interests do not emerge in the shake-up. This is a delicate moment for Nepal and bears close watching by India.

the city never sleeps...

I walk around, it's 10 past midnight here

And I'm movin' to the sound of people drownin' out their lives

This little voice that says "Hey, we should settle down,"

"But we never listen," we say to each other"

Just wait 'til they see me now

I'm, I'm feelin' so alive

Don't you wish it was like this every night?

The city never sleeps

And you and I, lets fly away this time and get on with our lives

But don't look down,

You'll never feel your feet touch the ground

If it's all the same

I'd rather never leave

It feels too good

To hear the sounds, see the sights on India Gate.

Cuz now I see millions

Of people

Swimming out their lives

And they all came from nowhere

They all say, "Just wait 'til they see me now

I'm, I'm feelin' so alive

Don't you wish it was like this every night?

The city never sleeps

And you and I, lets fly away this time and get on with our lives

But don't look down

You'll never feel your feet touch the...

Now I'm, I'm feeling so alive

Don't you wish it was like this every night? T

he city never sleeps

And you and I, lets fly away this time and get on with our lives

But don't look downYou'll never feel your feet touch the ground

They'll never touch the ground..........