Google‘s 1Gbps internet: 10 things to know

Google made its foray into the market for bundled internet and television services on Thursday, promising access speeds more than 100 times faster than those of traditional US cable and telecommunications companies.

The web search leader unveiled its ultra-high speed Google Fiber service in Kansas City, Missouri, and could start installations in September, executives said. Google hopes to roll out the service to other cities later.

Here is a look at 10 ten things you would want to know about Google Fiber:

1) Google Fiber's ultra high-speed connections and television offerings are aimed at surpassing those of current providers, allowing users to search live channels, Netflix, YouTube, recorded shows and tens of thousands of hours of on-demand programming. However, no phone service is available.

2) Google said it also intends to roll out product packages for businesses, but would not provide details.

3) Google Fiber includes more than 100 networks and costs $120 a month for a package of TV, 1Gbps internet speeds and 1Tb of cloud storage.

4) Google is also offering an internet-only package priced at $70 a month. The download speeds would be around 1Gbps, according to Google executives.

5) The package includes popular networks owned by major media companies such as Comcast Corp's NBC Universal, Discovery Communications and Viacom. Premium movie networks are available from Liberty Media's Starz for an extra fee. But it excludes several major TV names, such as News Corp's Fox cable channels; Time Warner networks like CNN, TNT and TBS, as well as Walt Disney cable channels like ESPN and Disney children networks.

6) Google is charging a $300 installation fee, saying consumers should treat it as a 'home improvement' cost.

7) The initial service area includes central Kansas City, Missouri and the entire city of neighboring Kansas City, Kansas.

8) Consumers must pay $10 to register their household online for service. About 50 'neighbors' will need to register in order for their area to be eligible for installation services, according to Google executives.

9) Google Fiber includes such features as the ability to record eight TV shows at a time and store up to 500 hours of high definition programming. Users can choose to use a tablet or smartphone as a voice-activated remote control.

10) Google is offering its Nexus 7 tablet with the Google TV app to early users of the service.

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Indian mobile apps topping global charts

In June this year, a mobile application developed by an Indian gaming company was the toast of the mobile world as it emerged as the topmost application across the US and UK, notching up 10 million downloads by users of Apple devices. Created by Mumbai-based Games2Win, the app Parking Frenzy is a mobile game where the player's objective is to park his car in challenging spots within a city, thus mirroring the parking challenges individuals face in their day to day lives.

Games2win's success on the iOS platform is not an isolated event. A clutch of India-based mobile application development companies are emerging as trendsetters on the global stage. And these winners are across both productivity apps and gaming apps alike.

Apart from 'Parking Frenzy', another app which became the No 1 paid app on the US app store is 'Nightstand' from mobile app development firm Sourcebits. The app features an alarm clock which displays date, time and weather information and became an instant hit owing to its simple and attractive user interface. Another winner from India was 'Super Badminton', a game by Pune based Rolocule Games which innovated by creating the first ever mobile badminton game and moved to No 7 on the US charts.

Most recently, Chennai based Ten Miles also tasted success with their productivity app 'Wonderful Day', the app moved to No 2 in the productivity charts in the US. Their simple formula - a things to do app which encourages you to stay focussed on your daily tasks, be it going to the gym, catching up on your reading or watering the plants. All in all they have been at least 10 apps which have made a mark on global app stores.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, partner at the One97 Mobility Fund points out the reasons for this trend: "While there have been some productivity app successes, bulk of the winners are gaming apps. And if you look at the winners, it's not as if they are remarkable apps design wise or game play wise. What we have managed to do conceptually is understand the requirements of the user, in essence what the user desires be it with gaming apps or productivity apps."

Growing Ecosystem

In the last two years as the use of mobile devices has surged worldwide, there has been a rise in the number of talented developers seeking to build products around these devices. "Hiring has become much easier as compared to earlier, we hired as many as 150 grads from BITS Pilani and IIT this year. For our design requirements, we hire from Europe and the US," says Rohit Singal, founder of Sourcebits.

As fresh graduates do not always have skills tailor made for the mobile ecosystem, most firms deploy training modules to help train engineers and make them mobile ready. A strategy which has been used successfully by mobile solutions provider Photon Infotech, which today has 1,500 employees with over 1,000 mobile developers, making it one of the largest mobile development establishments in the country.

Srinivas Balasubramanian, founder of Photon Infotech tells us, "Be it usage, revenues, funding - if you track any metric linked to smartphones, there has been a 100% increase year on year. We help a lot of start-ups build their mobile products and clearly the exponential increase in the market is the wave everyone is climbing on to."

Investor Interest

The other big plus that is contributing to the boom in mobile application development is increase in investor attention. In May 2011, Sequoia Capital and IDG Ventures invested $10 million into Sourcebits. In February this year, Mumbai-based Gamiana raised approximately $1 million from the Indian Angel Network, while in June, Rolocule Games raised an undisclosed amount from a consortium led by the Mumbai Angels. Earlier this month, Matrix Partners made an undisclosed seed investment in Indore-based Twist Mobile.
According to data from Venture Intelligence, a research firm focused on Venture Capital and Private Equity, the mobile consumer apps space has seen as many as nine investments amounting to approximately $18 million since January 2011.

Strategy Mix

To cut through the clutter each app development firm has adopted varied strategies. The horses for courses policy is clearly paying off for most of the players. Those pursuing a large user base typically offer their applications free of cost, a model that Games2Win has pursued successfully.

"Building a large user base for us is key and even though we were making as much as $3,000 per day through advertising on Parking Frenzy, we decided to switch it off and instead promote our other game Super Mom," says Alok Kejriwal, co-founder and CEO of Games2win.

In the following weeks, the company clocked up 200,000 downloads for Super Mom, building up a large community that has seen the app become the No 12 most popular free app on the iOS App Store. "If your goal is to build a large community to monetise in the future, free is the way to go. However, if you are building a utility app, the premium strategy might work better," says Rajesh Rao of Dhruva Games, one of the oldest game development studios in the country.

The key is in sustaining the popularity on the store as in the case of Games2win, which adopted a unique strategy to build on the popularity of their hit game "Parking Frenzy" to their entire suite of products. While Games2win has adopted a free app strategy concentrating on building a large user base, which they plan to monetise in the future, others such as Indiagames (nowDisney Indiagames) have taken on a different approach. Its most popular games in the recent past have come through partnering with large brands such as the Indian Premier League or movies like Ra One, where a large part of the costs are recovered through in-game advertising within the game.

A similar strategy has been used by Rolocule Games, which tied up with Dunlop to increase brand recognition and promote their game 'Touch Squash'. "Tying up with a larger brand certainly helps you get recognised and helps you recover a percentage of your cost even before you launch," says Anuj Tandon, chief executive of Rolocule Games. The most common strategy used, however, remains the premium apps strategy, one which has worked very well for the Sequoia-funded Sourcebits.

"Our most successful app has been 'Night Stand'. We have seen over three million downloads from the app and it has grossed us over $1 million in sales," says Rohit Singhal, founder of Sourcebits. "Unless there is difficulty in monetising the apps, no business model works better than a premium model." Sourcebits today has ramped up its operations and has as many as six offices across the globe with over 500 employees.

The investment community sees these various monetisation options as a big opportunity to scale up the mobile app development industry in India. "The quality of game design and game play from Indian studios has been steadily improving. A large number of mobile app development services companies are becoming hot-beds for new product start-ups," says Karthik Reddy of Blume Ventures one of the investors in Rolocule.

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Hacking experts find new ways to attack Android phones

Hacking experts on Wednesday demonstrated ways to attack Android smartphones using methods they said work on virtually all such devices in use today, despite recent efforts by search engine giant Google (GOOG.O) to boost protection.

Experts showed off their prowess at the Black Hat hacking conference in Las Vegas, where some 6,500 corporate and government security technology workers gathered to learn about emerging threats to their networks.

"Google is making progress, but the authors of malicious software are moving forward," said Sean Schulte of Trustwave's SpiderLabs.

Google spokeswoman Gina Scigliano declined to comment on the security concerns or the new research.

Accuvant researcher Charlie Miller demonstrated a method for delivering malicious code to Android phones using a new Android feature known as near field communications.

"I can take over your phone," Miller said.

Near field communications allow users to share photos with friends, make payments or exchange other data by bringing Android phones within a few centimeters of similarly equipped devices such as another phone or a payment terminal.

Miller said he figured out how to create a device the size of a postage stamp that could be stuck in an inconspicuous place such as near a cash register at a restaurant. When an Android user walks by, the phone would get infected, said Miller.

He spent five years as a global network exploit analyst at the U.S. National Security Agency, where his tasks included breaking into foreign computer systems.

"WILD WEST"

Miller and another hacking expert, Georg Wicherski of CrowdStrike, have also infected an Android phone with a piece of malicious code that Wicherski unveiled in February.

That piece of software exploits a security flaw in the Android browser that was publicly disclosed by Google's Chrome browser development team, according to Wicherski.

Google has fixed the flaw in Chrome, which is frequently updated, so that most users are now protected, he said.

But Wicherski said Android users are still vulnerable because carriers and device manufacturers have not pushed those fixes or patches out to users.

Marc Maiffret, chief technology officer of the security firm BeyondTrust, said: "Google has added some great security features, but nobody has them."

Experts say iPhones and iPads don't face the same problem because Apple has been able to get carriers to push out security updates fairly quickly after they are released.

Two Trustwave researchers told attendees about a technique they discovered for evading Google's "Bouncer" technology for identifying malicious programs in its Google Play Store.

They created a text-message blocking application that uses a legitimate programming tool known as java script bridge. Java script bridge lets developers remotely add new features to a program without using the normal Android update process.

Companies including Facebook (FB.O) and LinkedIn (LNKD.N) use java script bridge for legitimate purposes, according to Trustwave, but it could also be exploited maliciously.

To prove their point, they loaded malicious code onto one of their phones and remotely gained control of the browser. Once they did that, they could force it to download more code and grant them total control.

"Hopefully Google can solve the problem quickly," said Nicholas Percoco, senior vice president of Trustwave's SpiderLabs. "For now, Android is the Wild West."

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3 Interview Questions That Reveal Everything

Employee fit is crucial. Here's a simple way to know if a job candidate is right for your business.

Interviewing job candidates is tough, especially because some candidates are a lot better at interviewing than they are at working.

To get the core info you need about the candidates you interview, here's a simple but incredibly effective interview technique I learned from John Younger, the CEO of Accolo, a cloud recruiting solutions provider. (If you think you've conducted a lot of interviews, think again: Younger has interviewed thousands of people.)

Here's how it works. Just start from the beginning of the candidate's work history and work your way through each subsequent job. Move quickly, and don't ask for detail. And don't ask follow-up questions, at least not yet.

Go through each job and ask the same three questions:

1. How did you find out about the job?

2. What did you like about the job before you started?

3. Why did you leave?

"What's amazing," Younger says, "is that after a few minutes, you will always have learned something about the candidate--whether positive or negative--that you would never have learned otherwise."

Here's why:

How did you find out about the job?

Job boards, general postings, online listings, job fairs--most people find their first few jobs that way, so that's certainly not a red flag.

But a candidate who continues to find each successive job from general postings probably hasn't figured out what he or she wants to do--and where he or she would like to do it.

He or she is just looking for a job; often, any job.

And that probably means he or she isn't particularly eager to work for you. He or she just wants a job. Yours will do--until something else comes along.

"Plus, by the time you get to Job Three, Four, or Five in your career, and you haven't been pulled into a job by someone you previously worked for, that's a red flag," Younger says. "That shows you didn't build relationships, develop trust, and show a level of competence that made someone go out of their way to bring you into their organization."

On the flip side, being pulled in is like a great reference--without the letter.

What did you like about the job before you started?
In time, interviewees should describe the reason they took a particular job for more specific reasons than "great opportunity," "chance to learn about the industry," or "next step in my career."

Great employees don't work hard because of lofty titles or huge salaries. They work hard because they appreciate their work environment and enjoy what they do. (Titles and salary are just icing on the fulfillment cake.)

That means they know the kind of environment they will thrive in, and they know the type of work that motivates and challenges them--and not only can they describe it, they actively seek it.

Why did you leave?

Sometimes people leave for a better opportunity. Sometimes they leave for more money.

Often, though, they leave because an employer is too demanding. Or the employee doesn't get along with his or her boss. Or the employee doesn't get along with co-workers.

When that is the case, don't be judgmental. Resist the temptation to ask for detail. Hang on to follow-ups. Stick to the rhythm of the three questions. That makes it natural for candidates to be more open and candid.

In the process, many candidates will describe issues with management or disagreements with other employees or with taking responsibility--issues they otherwise would not have shared.

Then follow up on patterns that concern you.

"It's a quick way to get to get to the heart of a candidate's sense of teamwork and responsibility," Younger says. "Some people never take ownership and always see problems as someone else's problem. And some candidates have consistently had problems with their bosses--which means they'll also have issues with you."

And a bonus question:

How many people have you hired, and where did you find them?

Say you're interviewing candidates for a leadership position. Want to know how their direct reports feel about them?

Don't look only for candidates who were brought into an organization by someone else; look for candidates who brought employees into their organization.

"Great employees go out of their way to work with great leaders," Younger says. "If you're tough but fair, and you treat people well, they will go out of their way to work with you. The fact that employees changed jobs just so they could work for you speaks volumes to your leadership and people skills."

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Indian-origin teacher sues UK school for racism

London: An Indian-origin model-turned teacher, once named one of Britain's top 20 hottest men, has sued his school for over 100,000 pounds after he was called a "Paki" in a volley of racial abuses and the national tri-colour was removed from his classroom and dirtied.

Haresh Sood, 35, claims racist notes and pictures were put in his staff pigeonhole, including a scribbled drawing of his face captioned 'Farewell Bollywood!', shortly before he was axed from his post at Nottingham's Christ the King School.

The teacher, an Indian ex-model who was once named one of Britain's most eligible bachelors, complained that another note read "Good Riddance Turbanator!"

Sood said his school register was torn and his national flag removed from his classroom and dirtied, the Daily Mail reported.

He claims some pupils called him a "Paki n*****", "black b******" as well as "vindaloo" and "chicken curry".

Sood said a colleague at the Catholic secondary school told him to shave an Indian flag into his hair and called him a 't***'.

A tribunal heard how school chiefs called a staff meeting and demanded that the 'gutless wonder' responsible for the racist notes own up.

When no-one came forward, they compared the notes to handwriting samples from all staff and called in police, but the culprit was never caught.

Sood, of Nottingham, said he was made redundant from his 22,000 pounds-a-year post in August 2008 after complaining of harassment.

He is suing the school for race discrimination, harassment, unfair dismissal and victimisation.

He is seeking more than 100,000 pounds in compensation for lost earnings, aggravated damages and injury to feelings.

Nine years ago, before he became a teacher, Sood made headlines internationally when New Woman magazine featured him as one of Britain's top 20 hottest men.

Sood, who is still single, turned his back on acting and modelling and joined Christ the King School in September 2006 on its graduate teacher training programme.

He made his explosive racism allegations during preliminary legal arguments at Nottingham employment tribunal and the Employment Appeal Tribunal.

He allegedly suffered the racist abuse from children in May 2008 and said the school failed to deal with it.

Christ the King School strenuously denies Sood's allegations and is vigorously contesting his case, which is due to take place at Nottingham employment tribunal later this year.

Sood, a University of Leicester law graduate, later joined another school, Rushcliffe Sixth Form, in Nottingham as a law department teacher.

He was also made redundant by Rushcliffe in 2010.

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Sally Ride, first US woman in space is no more

Washington/USA: Sally Ride, who blazed trails into orbit as the first American woman in space, died on Monday of pancreatic cancer. She was 61.

Ride died at her home in the San Diego suburb of La Jolla, said Terry McEntee, a spokeswoman for her company, Sally Ride Science. She was a private person and the details of her illness were kept to just a few people, she said.

Ride flew into space on the space shuttle Challenger on June 18, 1983, when she was 32. Since then, 42 other American women followed her into space.

"Sally was a national hero and a powerful role model. She inspired generations of young girls to reach for the stars," President Barack Obama said in a statement.
When shuttles started flying frequently with crews of six or seven, astronauts became plentiful and anonymous. Not Ride.

"People around the world still recognize her name as the first American woman in space, and she took that title seriously even after departing NASA," Eileen Collins, the first female space shuttle commander, said in a statement. "She never sought media attention for herself, but rather focused on doing her normally outstanding job."

When Ride first launched into space, feminist icons such as Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda were at Kennedy Space Center and many wore T-shirts alluding to the pop song with the refrain of the same name: "Ride, Sally Ride."

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, a former astronaut, said Ride "broke barriers with grace and professionalism - and literally changed the face of America's space program."

"The nation has lost one of its finest leaders, teachers and explorers," he said in a statement.

Ride was a physicist, writer of five science books for children and president of her own company. She had also been a professor of physics at the University of California in San Diego.

In 1978, NASA included women in the astronaut corps, selecting Ride and five other women to join the club, which had been dominated by male military test pilots. Ride beat out fellow astronaut candidates to be the first American female in space. Her first flight came two decades after the Soviets sent a woman into space and less than a year after a second Soviet woman flew.

"On launch day, there was so much excitement and so much happening around us in crew quarters, even on the way to the launch pad," Ride recalled in a NASA interview for the 25th anniversary of her flight in 2008. "I didn't really think about it that much at the time - but I came to appreciate what an honor it was to be selected to be the first to get a chance to go into space."

Ride flew in space twice, both times on Challenger in 1983 and in 1984, logging 343 hours in space. A third flight was cancelled when Challenger exploded in 1986. She was on the commission investigating that accident and later served on the panel for the 2003 Columbia shuttle accident, the only person on both boards.

She also was on the president's committee of science advisers.

The 20th anniversary of her first flight also coincided with the loss of Columbia, a bittersweet time for Ride, who discussed it in a 2003 interview with The Associated Press. She acknowledged it was depressing to spend the anniversary investigating the accident, which killed seven astronauts.
"But in another sense, it's rewarding because it's an opportunity to be part of the solution and part of the changes that will occur and will make the program better," she said.

Later in the interview, she focused on science education and talked about "being a role model and being very visible."

"She was very smart," said former astronaut Norman Thagard, who was on Ride's first flight. "We did have a good time."

It was all work on that first flight, except for a first-in-space sprint around the inside of the shuttle, Thagard recalled by phone on Monday. He didn't know who won.
Born on May 26, 1951, in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, Ride became fascinated with science early on, playing with a chemistry kit and telescope. She also excelled in tennis and competed in national junior tournaments.

She earned bachelor's degrees in physics and English from Stanford University in 1973 and a master's in 1975. She saw an ad in the student newspaper calling for scientists and engineers to apply to become astronauts. She was chosen in 1978, the same year she earned her doctorate in physics from Stanford.

Ride was married to fellow astronaut Steve Hawley from 1982 to 1987. Hawley said Ride was never fully comfortable being in the spotlight.

"While she never enjoyed being a celebrity, she recognized that it gave her the opportunity to encourage children, particularly young girls, to reach their full potential," Hawley said in a statement released by NASA.

One of Ride's last legacies was allowing middle school students to take their own pictures of the moon using cameras aboard NASA's twin Grail spacecraft in a project spearheaded by her company.

"Sally literally could have done anything with her life. She decided to devote her life to education and to inspiring young people. To me, that's such a powerful thing. It's extraordinarily admirable," said Maria Zuber, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who heads the Grail mission.

Ride's office said she is survived by Tam O'Shaughnessy, her partner of 27 years; her mother, Joyce; her sister, Bear, a niece and a nephew.

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Pranab Mukherjee is going to be the 13th President of India

New Delhi: Pranab Mukherjee's occupancy rights to Rashtrapati Bhawan will near-certainly be legitimized today. In a few hours, he is expected to be announced India's 13th President; the ruling coalition led by the Congress expects a pulsing 70% of the vote.

While his party has not in the past checked his promotion, this time it threw its weight behind its man after some initial dithering over whether he would be its nominee.

Mr Mukherjee, however, has been the engineer of his own ascent through skills and commitment that have earned him lavish praise from the Opposition, and a reprimand from his family. In 2009, in an interview to a news channel, Mr Mukherjee admitted that a journey bereft of roads less traveled has meant he was a lesser husband and father.

"I have no personal life even though I am a family man ... days together it may happen living under the same roof hardly I see my wife though she is sick. Because sometimes in the morning or late night I normally leave my table, working table, after one in the morning. And before I go to my bedroom I just see, touch her forehead she is in deep sleep."

He began his political career in 1969; and has served in every Congress cabinet since Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister. He has served as Home, Finance, External Affairs Minister. In 1969, he became a Rajya Sabha member. As a then rookie MP, he impressed Indira Gandhi with his speech in Parliament on the nationalization of banks.

By 1973, he was a minister in her cabinet. He has described her as his mentor.

"She built me up. She gave me the opportunities. I became Finance Minister at the age of 46-47. She allowed me to preside over the Cabinet in her absence, when there were many senior to me," Mr Mukherjee told once at an Interview to a channel.
His introduction to politics was made by his father, a freedom fighter and a member of the Bengal Legislative Council. As a young student, Mr Mukherjee got a law degree from Calcutta University and began teaching, but soon switched to politics

When Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984, he made a legendary mis-step. When her son, Rajiv, asked him who would become the new Prime Minister, Mr Mukherjee reportedly replied, "The senior-most minister." That comment was seen within the party as a rare expression of fierce ambition, and many believe it has underpinned his relationship ever since with the Congress' first family.

It was the political novice Rajiv Gandhi who filled his mother's shoes to head party and government; he did not accommodate Mr Mukherjee in his Cabinet. In 1986, the forever Congressman left the Congress and floated his own party - the Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress. The stint away was not Mr Mukherjee's best moment and he was back in the Congress three years later. In 1991, when PV Narasimha Rao became Prime Minister, he appointed Mr Mukherjee as Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission. Pranab Mukherjee's career was back on track.

In 2004, when the Congress-led coalition first came to power, Mr Mukherjee was seen as a contender for Prime Minister. But his boss, Sonia Gandhi, chose Dr Manmohan Singh instead, and even his close supporters began to believe that their leader would be the eternal bridesmaid.


In 2007, he allegedly hoped for an entry to Rashtrapati Bhawan. But his party refused to release him. On record, it said that Mr Mukherjee was indispensable to the daily management and agenda of the Congress and the government. There was plenty of evidence that this was not an exaggerated claim.


Of 1983 Groups of Ministers formed by the UPA, at least 80 were chaired by Mr Mukherjee.
He led the committees that dealt with the most volatile political issues - including those that handled the anti-graft Lokpal Bill and statehood for Telangana. When Parliament was stalled by the opposition, or on legislation where its support was necessary, it was Mr Mukherjee who was assigned to cross the party line and strike a deal. Despite his famous outbursts and short temper, seen occasionally in parliament, leaders like LK Advani and Arun Jaitley have praised him time and time again.

His all-access pass to Rashtrapati Bhawan may be the result of a rather one-sided fight - opposition candidate PA Sangma is expected to poll barely 30% of the vote- but Mr Mukherjee could have done without the controversies that unfolded in his election.

His party kept him waiting while it chose between Vice-President Hamid Ansari and him as their nominee. When its key ally, Mamata Banerjee, made it clear that she would not endorse him, Mr Mukherjee's chances of being the UPA candidate appeared bleak. Support from Mulayam Singh Yadav, who provides external support to the coalition, may have helped clinch the deal. And on June 15, Mr Mukheree's nomination was officially announced at a meeting of the UPA where Ms Banerjee was conspicuous by her absence. She eventually came around just two days before the vote on July 19, and even at that late stage, she made it clear that Mr Mukherjee was not the best man for the job in her estimate.

"We wanted (former President) APJ Kalam to be President...we would have done everything to make him win...but it is our misfortune that he refused to run," Ms Banerjee said, adding that she wishes she "could have voted for Mr Mukherjee with a smile on her face, but that is not the case."

Mr Sangma and parties like the BJP which backed him challenged Mr Mukherjee's nomination on the ground that he held an office of profit at the Indian Statistical Institute. But the Election Commission ruled in his favour. Then Mr Sangma said that "Rashtrapati Bhawan had become a dumping ground for failures" a caustic reference to Mr Mukherjee's tenure as Finance Minister. The criticism wasn't mitigated by the fact that after taking over the Finance portfolio, the Prime Minister appeared to be reversing controversial announcements by Mr Mukherjee in the union budget that had sent investor sentiment into a spin.

Mr Mukherjee had made it clear that he would not fight another election and that he would not be a part of the next cabinet, if the Congress returned to power in 2014. He has said that his party must find and promote new and younger leaders. Last month, he said he does not agree with those who say his party has been late in giving him his due. "I have been an MP for almost 4 decades ... I was a Minister for 22 years. Therefore, I don't regret. I am rather quite happy and satisfied that the party has given me enough. Rather I have not done that much as what the party has given me," he said.

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London Celebrating for the Olympic torch arrival

London -- The Olympic torch arrived London on Friday, descending via a 180-foot line from a helicopter to the historic Tower of London.

The torch's arrival in the capital begins the final week before the Games open and the final stage in its long journey.

More than 10 million people have already l Eighteen torchbearers will carry the flame on the final day of the relay, with seven of them traveling with it down the River Thames on the royal barge Gloriana, which played a central role in the Diamond Jubilee river pageant for Queen Elizabeth II.

The torch's arrival at the Tower of London on Friday evening promises to be eye-catching.

A Royal Marine commando, carrying the flame in a lantern, will abseil -- the technique known as "rappel" in the United States -- 180 feet from a Royal Navy Sea King helicopter into the grounds, where London Mayor Boris Johnson will be waiting to greet it.

The torch will be carried around the Tower, which dates back to the 11th century, before spending the night in the safekeeping of the Jewel House, home of the Crown Jewels.

The buildup to the Olympics has been overshadowed by a security fiasco caused by the failure of contractor G4S to supply enough guards for the Games.

2012 Olympic flame lit in ancient stadium

But Johnson gave an impression that while London authorities are not complacent, he is confident in their ability to keep visitors safe.

"We do everything in our power to maximize security at the venues and that's working well now -- the army, the military as well as G4S are providing very safe conditions on the site, plus there is a huge amount of work that nobody has seen involving the intelligence service," the mayor said

"That's something about an event like this -- you listen out for what may or may not be happening on the Internet, you try as hard as you possibly can to monitor the potential suspects."

Johnson said it is impossible to guard against all "unknown unknowns" and that's why strong security is needed at venues.

"At no stage can you guarantee that someone won't do something moronic, stupid, violent and tragic, not just in London but the whole of the UK is a potential target in this period," he said.

ined the streets of more than 1,000 communities around Britain to see the torch, which has been carried by more than 7,000 torchbearers, Olympic organizers said.

Nearly 1,000 more will carry the torch along nearly 200 miles of London streets over the coming week, before it takes a starring role at the opening ceremony at the Olympic Park on July 27.

But at the same time, he said, "the intelligence is as reassuring as it could be under the circumstances. The threat level as far as we are aware has slightly come down in the last 12 months, but you can never be certain."

Authorities said Thursday that an additional 1,200 British troops were being placed on standby for the Olympic Games.

The company's recruitment shortfall had already forced the government to call in 3,500 extra military personnel to help.

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, the minister in charge of overseeing the Games, said that there was no need to deploy extra troops but that putting 1,200 on standby means they can be moved within 48 hours rather than seven days if required.

G4S has a £284 million ($444 million) government contract to provide 10,400 security staff for the Olympic Games, but only about 4,000 guards are trained and ready.

It expects to provide at least 7,000 by the time the Games start, chief executive Nick Buckles told lawmakers earlier this week.

Home Secretary Theresa May gave more details on how the fiasco unfolded in a letter sent to the head of Parliament's Home Affairs Committee on Thursday.

Although the Home Office did not become aware of the full extent of the shortfall until July 11, G4S had alerted the government to "scheduling problems" affecting staff numbers on June 28, she said.

Once it became clear how large the shortfall would be, the government put its contingency plans into operation, she wrote.

"G4S will still be making a substantial contribution to venue security," she wrote.

"All G4S personnel working on venue security duties will have had training for the role they are undertaking," May added.

The G4S recruits are supposed to perform tasks including venue perimeter security, such as manning X-ray machines, searching people, searching vehicles and operating closed-circuit television systems, the company said.

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Maruti's Manesar plant GM (HR) burned to death, 91 workers arrested till yet

MANESAR/INDIA: Maruti Suzuki's General Manager Human Resources was burned to death in the violence in its car plant here allegedly triggered by workers yesterday for which 91 workers were arrested.

A tense calm prevailed today as the plant was shut following large scale arson in which Awanish Kumar Dev, general manager (human resource), was burnt beyond recognition while 100 others were injured. Kumar's body was identified by his family today and the company alleged that the violence was an orchestrated act of mob, which has implications beyond one company or region.

91 employees, who were arrested, were produced before a local magistrate who remanded them to 14 days judicial custody. They have been accused of various charges including rioting with weapons, murder, attempt to murder, unlawful assembly, assault and trespass. The violence in which several executives, managers and supervisors were attacked and office facilities, security office and fire safety section gutted arose out of an alleged casteist remarks by an official against a worker.

The worker allegedly beat him up following which he was suspended and that triggered the large scale violence. Haryana government and police pledged to take stringent action against those responsible for violence.


Maruti Suzuki said the violence is a negative negative trigger for existing companies and regions across the country as also for prospective investors and job seekers. The firm, which witnessed strikes on three occasions last year, has already announced plans to set up a new plant in Gujarat at an investment of Rs 4,000 crore, a move which was interpreted as coming against the backdrop of violence in the region.

Gurgaon, an industrial hub neighbouring the national capital, was the scene of large scale violence by workers and outside forces at the Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India's unit and subsequent strikes in other units.

'Business confidence intact'

Terming violence at the Maruti Suzuki plant as "tragic and unfortunate", commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma on Thursday said such incidents will not shake confidence of the industry.

"It is a tragic and unfortunate incident. It should have never happened. The state government acted promptly last night itself," Sharma told reporters in Chandigarh.

"I do not see that one incident would shake industry's confidence," he said, adding the state government is capable of handling the situation and protecting the industry and investments.

Labour unrest has been erupting in the area frequently. Maruti had witnessed troubles on three occasions in the last one year causing a total production loss of about Rs 2,300 crore.

With Maruti Suzuki India's share price tanking close to 9 per cent today, its investor wealth eroded by Rs 3,183 crore in the stock market.

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8 ‘worst’ Indian government websites which are trying to be the best of picking to be best

NEW DELHI/INDIA: Indian government is very actively working towards e-governance and the citizens with access to internet-enabled computers and smartphones too look forward to an easier life. After all, who doesn't like to use the online option provided by almost all the organizations and save time by avoiding the long queues at different utilities and departments.

However, the biggest irony is that many government or PSU websites that offer online solutions for public or enterprises are more of an online headache for them. Some of these have navigational issues, others are updated only once in few months, while many others have serious design or usability flaws.

Here are some of government websites that vie for the top honours in 'unfriendliness' and are bound to irk you:

IRCTC
IRCTC has been claimed by many as one of the best government websites but all that glitters is not gold. Even though the booking time under Tatkal quota has been reduced to 24-hours, but logging in the IRCTC website during the early morning hours is simply next to impossible.

What is worse, it has been so for a long time without being addressed. A site that should be optimised for all type of internet connections, including the slower ones, isn't so. Hence, you will find a lot of issues in opening the site and being able to effectively search and/or book and cancel a ticket quite an ordeal.

The site is quite content heavy. In fact, it is heavy because of the number of advertisements displayed on it. Also, it takes a lot of time to fill up the information like 'To' and 'From' information and then viewing the trains available etc and if you successfully manage to log-in and fill up the form, by then safely expect the tickets to be 'sold out'. Why not have basic pre-filled information being retained for each login?

BSNL
BSNL's website is as patchy as its cellular network. Though seemingly more regularly updated as compared to other Sarkari websites, BSNL's website is a labyrinth in itself. The content on the website is badly sorted and the developers have left it for the visitors to sift through the information useful to them.

In case you are looking for broadband plans, then be prepared for this: A journey through multiple tabs, jargons and convoluted information that might leave you pulling you hair than enlightening you about BSNL's over-priced plans. If you click on Home BB Plans, a pop-up will open with BSNL assuming all Indians live in Maharashtra!

Passport
Planning to travel abroad? Getting your passport renewed online? Then make sure your computer or your laptop and internet do not suffer any glitches. In case any tech issue happens while you are filling up your form, you have to fill all the information all over again.

And that would be quite a journey in itself given how much of precise detail needs to be filled!

MTNL
The state-run MTNL website gives you an impression as if you are viewing a page straight out of a website that belonged to the beginning of this millennium.

Though almost all information is available on its page, the website has navigational challenges. For example, if you are navigating through the tabs provided on the top, the drop down menu hides behind the advertisements running below and you can't see the last drop-down menu option.

NDMA
NDMA website is a 'disaster' in itself. The name of the website overlaps the tabs which are given below. As you move over the tabs, especially 'About us' and 'NDRF', instead of a standard cursor for hyperlink, it shows you 'I' cursor which is generally viewed while highlighting.

Immediately below it, you can see a poorly done slideshow accompanied by incomplete caption and two almost unrecognizable buttons for 'previous' and 'next'. Well that is quite a quake for the user.

Environment ministry
If you think environment ministry is 'idle' then it indeed is. Other than the website's homepage, the website suffers from serious update issues. The events and the press section do not seem to be updated at all. Incidentally, the 'Events' section was last update in March 2010. So much for a caring ministry that prides itself in saving India's dwindling ecology!

Agricultural Marketing Information Network
If you have to check the daily prices for the cereals, vegetables etc, and you happen to visit the Agmarknet website, you can imagine landing in a (vegetable) soup, or may be a fish market.

Department of Health and Family Welfare
Running under the government of India and ministry of health and family welfare, this departmental website seems to offer over 50 active links.

But upon clicking them, you'll be redirected to a blank page on the same link with an arrow marking 'Back'. It is as 'unhealthy' as any modern-day website can get.

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Predication says Its being a pinch to the IT Companies for the Huge Visa Rates

NEW DELHI/INDIA: Indian IT companies, including market leaders TCS and Infosys, may have to bear huge costs towards employee visa fees going ahead, which in turn can put pressure on their profit margins.

Difficult visa norms, particularly in the US -- one of the most important markets for the Indian software companies -- have already made an adverse impact on their operating margins in the first quarter of the current fiscal and the trend is likely to continue in the coming quarters.

The companies are being hit hard by the double whammy of higher visa rejection rate and increased visa costs, but the changing dynamics of the outsourcing business might lead to the Indian IT companies seeking even larger number of visas for their employees going ahead, experts say.

India's largest software firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has applied for 5,900 H-1B visas for the US this year, up 1,400 from last year's 4,500 applications.

TCS' executive vice-president and global human resources head Ajoy Mukherjee said the company is now looking at more H-1B visas, given the higher risks of visa rejections in the L1 category.

According to officials at industry body Nasscom, the visa rejection rates are as high as 40 per cent in the US. The grouping has expressed concern about the issue in the past and has been involved in discussion with the US administration seeking further clarity in regulations and interpretations pertaining to visa rules.

For Indian IT firms, the most common visa categories are L1 (meant for intra-company transfers of employees to the US offices from other locations) and H-1B (non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations).

The fees were raised for both the categories in August 2010, while changes are being anticipated in the immigration rules of the US.

The US accounts for about 60 per cent of the Indian IT sector's overall revenues. As a result, Indian companies account for a significant portion of the professional visa applications in the US.

Among Indian companies, Infosys incurred $7 million in visa costs during the quarter ended March 31, 2012. However, these costs could vary by a wide margin, as the number of available visas in the US tends to vary substantially from quarter to quarter.

Infosys' visa costs were as high as $15 million in July-September quarter of 2011. The company incurred total visa charges of Rs 202 crore (0.6 per cent of revenue) last fiscal ended March 31, 2012 -- up from Rs 184 crore in FY2011.

Announcing its first quarter results last week, TCS chief N Chandrasekaran said the company's margin was impacted by factors like wage increases and higher visa fees on account of a "significant number of visas" it had applied for.

Similar comments were made by Infosys and iGate while announcing their financial results.

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"Amarnath Yatra" Have to go even once in life says Puranas

Amarnath Cave Pilgrimage is an annual pilgrimage made to the Amarnath cave by lakhs of Hindu devotees on challenging mountainous terrain in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Located in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, Amarnath cave is a famous shrine in Hinduism. It is dedicated to Shiva. The shrine forms an important part of Hinduism, and is considered to be one of the holiest shrines in Hinduism. The cave is surrounded by snowy mountains. The cave itself is covered with snow most time of the year except for a short period of time in summer when it is open for pilgrims.

Inside the 130 feet high Amarnath cave that faces south, is the Shiva Linga, which waxes during May to August and gradually wanes thereafter. This lingam is said to grow and shrink with the phases of the moon, reaching its height during the summer festival.

According a Hindu legend, this is the cave where Shiva explained the secret of life and eternity to his divine consort Parvati. Two other ice formations represent Parvati and Shiva's son, Ganesha.

The cave is situated at an altitude of 3,888 m (12,756 ft), about 141 km (88 mi) from Srinagar, the capital of Jammu and Kashmir and reached through Pahalgam town.

The Lingam

The main purpose of the pilgrimage is to see the Lingam. In fact, the formation is basically an ice stalagmite. The water thawing from the roof does not fall on the lingam itself which brings in doubt the stalagmite theory.

History

The Amarnath Cave has been a place of worship since times immemorial. There are references to one Aryaraja (32BCE-17CE) who used to worship a lingam formed of Ice in Kashmir. The book Rajatarangini (Book VII v.183) refers to Amareshwara or Amarnath. It is believed that Queen Suryamathi in the 11th century AD gifted trishuls, banalingas and other sacred emblems to this temple. Rajavalipataka, begun by Prjayabhatta has detailed references to the pilgrimage to Amarnath Cave. Other than this there are further references to this pilgrimage in many other ancient texts.
Discovery of Holy Cave

It is believed that after the middle ages, this cave was forgotten by people before it was discover by a shepherd in the 15th century once again. However there are many stories about the discovery of this cave. One story states that once a Gujjar (Shepherd) named Buta Malil was given a bag full of coal by a holy man. When he reached home, he found that the bag contained not coal, but gold coins. Overjoyed he ran back to the place where the he had met the Holy man. However the holy man had disappeared and Buta Malik instead discovered the cave and the Lingam.

  Another story relates to Bhrigu Muni. Long time ago it is believed that The Vale of Kashmir was submerged under water and Kashyapa Muni drained it through a series of rivers and rivulets. Therefore when the waters drained, Bhrigu Muni was the first to have Darshan of Lord Amarnath. Thereafter, when people heard of the Lingam, it became an abode of Lord Bholenath for all believers and a pilgrimage which is done by lacs of people each year.

Yatra

The temple is a popular yatra destination for some Hindus. In 2011 it received about 634,000 persons, the highest recorded number for the site. Pilgrims visit the holy site during the 45-day season around the festival of Shravani Mela in July–August, coinciding with the Hindu holy month of Shraavana.

The beginning of the annual pilgrimage, called Amarnath Yatra, to the Himalayan cave shrine is marked by 'pratham pujan' to invoke the blessings of Shri Amarnathji.

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Micrsoft with its new Office15(MS Office 15)

Microsoft is expected to show off Office 15, the next version of the company's productivity suite, on Monday at an event in San Francisco, according to numerous reports.

Office has been available to a select group of users in a technical preview since January. It's not clear whether a public beta of Office might be available Monday, or whether it will arrive later this summer.

Few details have seeped out about Office 15. Several reports claim Windows XP and Windows Vista won't be able to run Office 15. Microsoft is scheduled to stop supporting XP in 2014 and Vista support is expected to run out in 2017.

If XP and Vista won't run the new Office, that leaves only Windows 7 and 8 PCs to run Microsoft's newest productivity suite. Of course, rumors persist that Microsoft will bring Office to the iPad with native Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps. Microsoft in late 2011 released OneNote for the iPad.

Nor has Microsoft said whether it will offer a touch-only Metro version of Office on Windows 8, the next version of the operating system, scheduled for release in October. So far, only desktop UI versions of Office 15 have surfaced online. Microsoft is building Office 15 into Windows RT (the version of Windows 8 for ARM slates), but it too will feature the desktop versions.

Some news About Office 15

Based on leaks from the Technical Preview, it appears Metro, the main design language for Windows 8 and Windows Phone, will figure prominently in the look and feel of Office 15.

This includes bold, basic colors, and square edges. Office's famous Ribbon UI will reportedly be hidden by default, giving Office 15 a more stripped-down and basic look.

The new version of Office will also feature integration with cloud services such as Facebook, Flickr, Hotmail, and SkyDrive. Microsoft is reportedly preparing an Office Marketplace for extensions and tools, and Office 15 will also feature a touch-optimized mode for tablets and all-in-one touchscreens.

In January, PJ Hough, vice president of development for Office, called Office 15 "the most ambitious undertaking yet for the Office Division."

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'Pithamaha' (godfather) of carnatic music"Kakarla Tyagabrahmam"

Kakarla Tyagabrahmam (Telugu: త్యాగరాజు) (May 4, 1767–January 6, 1847), colloquially known as Tyagayya and Tyāgarājar, was one of the greatest composers of Carnatic music or classical South Indian music. He is known as the 'pithamaha' (godfather) of carnatic music. He, along with his contemporaries Muthuswami Dikshitar and Shyama Shastry, forms the Trinity of Carnatic music. He was a prolific composer and highly influential in the development of the South Indian classical music tradition. Tyagaraja composed thousands of devotional compositions, most of them in praise of Lord Rama — most of which remain very popular even today. Of special mention are five of his compositions called the Pancharatna Krithis (English: 'five gems'), which are often sung in programs in his honor.

Personal life and background

Tyagaraja was born in 1767 in Tiruvarur, Tiruvarur district, in what is now called Tamil Nadu, to Kakarla Ramabrahmam and Sitamma in a Telugu Brahmin family of the Mulukanadu subsect. He was named Tyagaraja, after Lord Tyagaraja, the presiding deity of the temple at Tiruvarur. Tyagaraja was born at his maternal grandfather Giriraja Kavi’s house. Giriraja Kavi was a poet-composer in the court of the king of Thanjavur.
 
Musical career

Tyagaraja began his musical training under Sri Sonthi Ramanayya, a noted music scholar, at an early age. He regarded music as a way to experience God's love. His objective while practising music was purely devotional, as opposed to focusing on the technicalities of classical music. He also showed a flair for composing music and, in his teens, composed his first song Namo Namo Raghavayya in the Desika Todi ragam and inscribed it on the walls of the house.

After some years, Sri Sonthi Ramanayya invited Tyagaraja to perform at his house in Thanjavur. On that occasion, Tyagaraja sang Endaro Mahaanubhavulu, the fifth of the Pancharatna Krithis. Pleased with Tyagaraja's composition,Sri Sonthi Ramanayya informed the King of Thanjavur about Tyagaraja's genius. The king sent an invitation, along with many rich gifts, inviting Tyagaraja to attend the royal court. Tyagaraja, however, was not inclined towards a career at the court, and rejected the invitation outright, composing another gem of a kriti, Nidhi Chala Sukhama (English: "Does wealth bring happiness?") on this occasion.

Angered at Tyagaraja's rejection of the royal offer, his brother threw the statues of Rama Tyagaraja used in his prayers into the nearby Kaveri river. Tyagaraja, unable to bear the separation with his Lord, went on pilgrimages to all the major temples in South India and composed many songs in praise of the deities of those temples.

Tyagaraja, who was totally immersed in his devotion to Lord Rama and led the most spartan way of life without bothering in the least for the comforts of the world, did not take any steps to systematically codify his vast musical output. The late Rangaramanuja Iyengar, a leading researcher on Carnatic music, in his work Kriti Manimalai, has described the situation prevailing at the time of death of Tyagaraja. It is said that a major portion of his incomaparable musical work was lost to the world due to natural and man-made calamities. Usually Tyagaraja used to sing his compositions sitting before idols of Lord Rama, and his disciples noted down the details of his compositions in palm leaves. After his death, these palm leaves came in the possession of the disciples, and to several families descending from the disciples. Thus a definitive edition of Thyagaraja's songs did not exist.

However the popularity of his songs was widespread. Great musical experts like Kancheepuram Nayana Pillai, Simizhi Sundaram Iyer and Veenai Dhanammal saw the infinite possibilities for imaginative music inherent in the compositions of Thyagaraja and systematically notated the songs available to them. Subsequently, indefatigable researchers like K. V. Srinivasa Iyengar and Rangaramanuja Iyengar took enormous pains to contact various teachers and families who had the possession of the palm leaves. K. V. Srinivasa Iyengar brought out Adi Sangeetha Rathnavali and Adi Thyagaraja Hridhayam (in 3 volumes). Rangaramanuja Iyengar published Kriti Mani Malai in two volumes. Kriti Mani Malai is a monumental research effort.

Further, Musiri Subramania Iyer, the doyen of Bhava Sangeetham, had a vast collection of books in his library. T. K. Govinda Rao, his disciple, brought out an excellently researched volume of the songs of Tyagaraja in English and the Devanagari script. T. S. Parthasarathy, a leading scholar on Tyagaraja, published the text and meaning of Tyagaraja's songs, very popular among teachers and students alike.

There are many publications in Telugu, too, which are not as comprehensive as the works of Rangaramanuja Iyengar and T. K. Govinda Rao.

Thus, due to the painstaking labour of these musicians and researchers, there now exists a stable and definitive collection of Thyagaraja's music. Out of 24,000 thousand songs said to be composed by Tyagaraja, around 700 songs have survived.

In addition to nearly 700 compositions (kritis), Tyagaraja composed two musical plays in Telugu, the Prahalada Bhakti Vijayam and the Nauka Charitam. Prahlada Bhakti Vijayam is in five acts with 45 kritis set in 28 ragas and 138 verses, in different metres in Telugu. Nauka Charitam is a shorter play in one act with 21 kritis set in 13 ragas and 43 verses. The latter is the most popular of Tyagaraja's operas, and is a creation of the composer's own imagination and has no basis in the Bhagavata Purana.

it is the fact that Tyagaraja's works are some of the best and most beautiful literary expressions in Telugu language ,which every Telugu person who is blessed to know the kritis agrees. Valmiki composed the Ramayana, the story of Rama, with 24,000 verses, and coincidentally Tyagaraja, too, composed 24,000 kritis in praise of the Lord.

K.V. Ramachandran, a well-known 20th-century Indian music critic, wrote: "Tyagaraja is an indefatigable interpreter of the past... but if with one eye he looks backward, with the other he looks forward as well. Like Prajapati, he creates his own media, and adores his Rama not alone with jewel-words newly fashioned, but also with jewel-[like]-music newly created. It is this facet of Tyagaraja that distinguishes him from his illustrious contemporaries." In other words, while Tyagaraja's contemporaries were primarily concerned with bringing to audiences the music of the past, Tyagaraja, apart from doing the same, also pioneered new musical concepts at the same time.

Sarvalaghu is the heart of Tyagraja's music. Tyagaraja's music is melody and rhythm personified. It is easy for children, a challenge for the learned, and a wonder for the genius.

In the publication "The Hindu speaks on music", tribute is paid to the great Carnatic music composer. "In his universality, he is like Shakespeare... Behind that magnificent achievement was a soul that had found itself. Unfashionable as it is to talk of such things, we must insist that one who would ignore the mainspring of Tyagaraja's inspiration, the mystic's love of God, can never hope to understand him or feel a fraction of his haunting charm. A sublime certitude marked the march through life of this humble man who could look with unerring insight into the heart of the peasant and the prince, the footpad and the fashionable roue. He was tempted neither by pomp and power nor by the vanity of wealth. He had antagonism for none, his heart was full of compassion. He yearned to bring to his fellowmen the peace that passeth understanding. In the company of the dedicated spirits of all time - Prahlada, Narada and Sukha - his immortal genius ministers to our need for sweetness and light."
Remembrance

Tyagaraja Aradhana, the commemorative music festival is held every year at Thiruvaiyaru in the months of January to February in Tyagaraja's honour. This is a week-long festival of music where various Carnatic musicians from all over the world converge at his resting place. On the Pushya Bahula Panchami, thousands of people and hundreds of Carnatic musicians sing the five Pancharatna Kritis in unison, with the accompaniment of a large bank of accompanists on veenas, violins, flutes, nadasvarams, mridangams and ghatams.

Popular culture
Films on Tyagaraja (biographical)

As the most famous composer of Telugu kritis or (kirtanas), Tyagaraja, who is fondly remembered as Tyagayya, has caught the imagination of filmmakers in the Telugu film industry. Apart from references to his works, using the kirtanas as songs, two films were made on his life. The legendary Chittor V. Nagaiah made a biographical epic on Tyagaraja titled Tyagayya in 1946 which is still treated as a masterpiece of Telugu cinema. Nagayya's rendition of Endaro Mahanubhavulu and its picturisation is treated as a matchless classic even today. Later, Bapu - Ramana madeTyagayya in 1981 with J. V. Somayajulu in the lead role. Another attempt is being made by Singeetam Srinivasa Rao to picturise the life of Tyagaraja.

Compositions

The term pancharatna in Sanskrit means five gems: The Pancharatnas are known as the five finest gems of carnatic music. All the Pancharatnas are set to adi thalam. They are set in perfect sarvalaghu and contain all the musical and mathematical wonders of carnatic music. So far as Pancharathnas are concerned, fortunately a stable text has been handed over by the earlier musicians to the present day. Several musicians have brought out editions of Pancharatnas. However, Veenai Sundaram Iyer's edition is the most detailed and comprehensive. All the compositions of Tyagaraja show the way for the systematic development of the respective ragas. However, in the Pancharatnas Tyagaraja has given full, exhaustive and complete treatment as to how to systematically and scientifically develop a raga. The Pallavis and anupallavis of the Pancharatnas are absolute musical and rhythmic beauties and an earnest practice of the Pallavis and anupallavis of the Pancjaratna will reveal as to how to develop a raga in a methodical and systematic manner. The two fundamental conditions that must be satisfied for a systematic development of a raga are the arrangement of the solfa swaras in the natural order of Arohanam and Avarohanam of the Ragas so as to satisfy the sound principles of harmony and continuity. Pancharatnas satisfy these scientific principles in an unparalleled manner. The Pancharatnas are composed in perfect sarvalaghu swaras.

 The first pancharatna is Jagadanadakaraka, in the raga nATa. It is composed in the most lucid and poetic Sanskrit. It starts with praising Lord Rama who makes the entire world happy. Originally there were only six charanams for the song and when the disciples examined the song it contained ninety names of Lord Rama in mellifluous Sanskrit. The disciples requested Tyagaraja to slightly expand the song by adding two charanas containing eighteen more names of Lord Rama. The saint acceded to the request of the disciples and that is the reason why the song Jagadanadakaraka contains two mudras containing the name of Tyagaraja while the other four songs contain only one mudra each.

Thus Jagadanandakaraka is a diamond garland for the Lord consisting of His 108 choicest names.

The rhythmic variations of Jagadanandakaraka are amazing.

 The next is Duduku gala in the raga gowlai set to adi talam. In this song Tyagaraja takes the blame upon himself for all the misdeeds of men and ruminates as to who would come and save him from this deplorable situation.

 The third is Sadhinchene in the raga Arabhi set to adi talam. In this song Tyagaraja lovingly cricises Lord Krishna for his cleverness in getting what he wants to be done. Sadhichene is a breathtaking lullaby.

 The fourth song is in the raga varali set to adi talam. In this song Tyagaraja describes the infinite beauty of Lord Rama.

 The fifth pancharatna is Endaro Mahanubhavulu. It is said that a great musician from Kerala, Shatkala Marar visited Tygaraja and performed before him. Tyagaraja was enchanted with his performance and then was born Endaro Mahanubhavulu, the unparallelled rhythmic beauty in Carnatic music.

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HERO behind the "God Particle", did history really forgot him? A small Tribute to the great Scientist "Mr.Satyendranath Bose"

Satyendranath Bose"Legend Behind God Particle"

INDIA — While much of the world was celebrating the international co-operation that led to last week’s breakthrough in identifying the existence of the Higgs boson particle, many in India were smarting over what they saw as a slight against one of their greatest scientists.

Media covering the story gave lots of credit to British physicist Peter Higgs for theorizing the elusive subatomic “God particle,” but little was said about Satyendranath Bose, the Indian after whom the boson is named.

Despite the fact that Bose had little direct involvement in theorizing the Higgs boson itself, in India the lack of attention given to one of their own was seen as an insult too big to ignore.

“He is a forgotten hero,” the government lamented in a lengthy statement, noting that Bose was never awarded a Nobel Prize though “at least 10 scientists have been awarded the Nobel” in the same field.

The annoyance marks yet another case in the ever-growing list of perceived global snubs Indians feel they suffer, from the U.S. airport searches of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan to the naming of a superbug after New Delhi, where it was found.

“Indians are touchy about this. All post-colonial societies are touchy about this,” said political psychologist Ashis Nandy of the Delhi-based think-tank Center for the Study of Developing Societies.

“The sooner we get out of that, the better.”

Nandy, who interviewed Bose before his death in 1974, said the scientist himself was “least concerned about rankings and prizes.”

The boson is named in honour of the Kolkata-born scientist’s work in the 1920s with Albert Einstein in defining one of two basic classes of subatomic particles. The work describes how photons can be considered particles as well as waves — such as in a laser beam. All particles that follow such behaviour, including the Higgs boson, are called bosons.

Higgs, the English physicist, and others proposed the Higgs boson’s existence in 1964 to explain what might give shape and size to all matter. Laymen and the media sometimes call it the “God particle” because its existence is key to understanding the early evolution of the universe.

By then, Bose was living in his Indian city of Kolkata after 25 years running the physics department at Dacca University, in what is now Bangladesh. Bose died aged 80 in 1974. The Nobel is not awarded posthumously.

Indian newspapers decried the fact that Bose was mostly ignored last week when scientists announced the Higgs boson breakthrough, made using a giant atom smasher at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland.

Bose “remains unmentioned in most news stories about this discovery,” read an opinion piece in the Hindustan Times written by Yale University professor Priyamvada Natarajan, who says Western scientists often gain credit for major discoveries.

“It is harder for scientists to be recognized if they are seen as outliers and if their gender, race or work do not let them belong,” she said.

The Sunday Times of India noted other eminent Indian scientists who “never got their due,” including physicist G.N. Ramachandran who died in 2001 after making biological discoveries like collagen’s triple-helix structure and 3-D imaging used in studying the human body.

It also said living Indian scientists, Varanasi-based molecular biologist Lalji Singh and New York-based E. Premkumar Reddy, should be candidates for awards. Both men reportedly said they were not interested in lobbying for prizes.

“Many people in this country have been perplexed, and even annoyed, that the Indian half of the now-acknowledged ’God particle’ is being carried in lower case,” The Economic Times wrote in an editorial Monday. What most don’t realize is that the naming of all bosons after Bose “actually denotes greater importance.”

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