Sunday, May 24, 2009

Royal Challengers entered into Finals (IPL 2009)

On Second Semi-final (23rd may, 2009): Royal Challengers won the second semi-final match with Chennai Super Kings and entered into finals.....

Deccan Chargers vs Royal Challengers final match will be held on 24th may, 2009.



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Friday, May 22, 2009

Deccan Chargers entered into Finals (IPL 2009)

On First Semi-final (22nd may, 2009): Deccan chargers won the first semi-final match with delhi dare devils and entered into finals.....

The IPL finals will be held on 24th may, 2009.



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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa (August 26, 1910 – September 5, 1997), born Agnesë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, was an Albanian Roman Catholic nun with Indian citizenship who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata (Calcutta), India in 1950. For over 45 years she ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying, while guiding the Missionaries of Charity's expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries.

By the 1970s she was internationally famed as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and helpless, due in part to a documentary, and book, Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1980 for her humanitarian work. Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity continued to expand, and at the time of her death it was operating 610 missions in 123 countries, including hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counseling programs, orphanages, and schools.

She has been praised by many individuals, governments and organizations; however, she has also faced a diverse range of criticism. These include objections by various individuals and groups, including Christopher Hitchens, Michael Parenti, Aroup Chatterjee, Vishva Hindu Parishad, against the proselytizing focus of her work including a strong stance against abortion, a belief in the spiritual goodness of poverty and alleged baptisms of the dying. Several medical journals also criticised the standard of medical care in her hospices and concerns were raised about the opaque nature in which donated money was spent.

Missionaries of Charity


On September 10, 1946, Teresa experienced what she later described as "the call within the call" while traveling to the Loreto convent in Darjeeling from Calcutta for her annual retreat. "I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them. It was an order. To fail would have been to break the faith." She began her missionary work with the poor in 1948, replacing her traditional Loreto habit with a simple white cotton sari decorated with a blue border, adopted Indian citizenship, and ventured out into the slums. Initially she started a school in Motijhil; soon she started tending to the needs of the destitute and starving. Her efforts quickly caught the attention of Indian officials, including the Prime Minister, who expressed his appreciation.

Teresa wrote in her diary that her first year was fraught with difficulties. She had no income and had to resort to begging for food and supplies. Teresa experienced doubt, loneliness and the temptation to return to the comfort of convent life during these early months. She wrote in her diary:
“ Our Lord wants me to be a free nun covered with the poverty of the cross. Today I learned a good lesson. The poverty of the poor must be so hard for them. While looking for a home I walked and walked till my arms and legs ached. I thought how much they must ache in body and soul, looking for a home, food and health. Then the comfort of Loreto [her former order] came to tempt me. 'You have only to say the word and all that will be yours again,' the Tempter kept on saying ... Of free choice, my God, and out of love for you, I desire to remain and do whatever be your Holy will in my regard. I did not let a single tear come. ”

Teresa received Vatican permission on October 7, 1950 to start the diocesan congregation that would become the Missionaries of Charity. Its mission was to care for, in her own words, "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." It began as a small order with 13 members in Calcutta; today it has more than 4,000 nuns running orphanages, AIDS hospices, and charity centers worldwide, and caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless, and victims of floods, epidemics, and famine.

In 1952 Mother Teresa opened the first Home for the Dying in space made available by the City of Calcutta. With the help of Indian officials she converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the Kalighat Home for the Dying, a free hospice for the poor. She renamed it Kalighat, the Home of the Pure Heart (Nirmal Hriday). Those brought to the home received medical attention and were afforded the opportunity to die with dignity, according to the rituals of their faith; Muslims were read the Quran, Hindus received water from the Ganges, and Catholics received the Last Rites. "A beautiful death," she said, "is for people who lived like animals to die like angels—loved and wanted." Mother Teresa soon opened a home for those suffering from Hansen's disease, commonly known as leprosy, and called the hospice Shanti Nagar (City of Peace). The Missionaries of Charity also established several leprosy outreach clinics throughout Calcutta, providing medication, bandages and food.

As the Missionaries of Charity took in increasing numbers of lost children, Mother Teresa felt the need to create a home for them. In 1955 she opened the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, the Children's Home of the Immaculate Heart, as a haven for orphans and homeless youth.

The order soon began to attract both recruits and charitable donations, and by the 1960s had opened hospices, orphanages, and leper houses all over India. Mother Teresa then expanded the order throughout the globe. Its first house outside India opened in Venezuela in 1965 with five sisters. Others followed in Rome, Tanzania, and Austria in 1968; during the 1970s the order opened houses and foundations in dozens of countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the United States. Her philosophy and implementation have faced some criticism. While noting how little evidence Mother Teresa's critics were able to find against her, David Scott wrote that Mother Teresa limited herself to keeping people alive rather than tackling poverty itself. She has also been criticized for her view on suffering: according to an article in the Alberta Report, she felt that suffering would bring people closer to Jesus. The quality of care offered to terminally ill patients in the Homes for the Dying has been criticised in the medical press, notably The Lancet and the British Medical Journal, which reported the reuse of hypodermic needles, poor living conditions, including the use of cold baths for all patients, and an anti-materialist approach that precluded the use of systematic diagnosis.

The Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded in 1963, and a contemplative branch of the Sisters followed in 1976. Lay Catholics and non-Catholics were enrolled in the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, and the Lay Missionaries of Charity. In answer to the requests of many priests, in 1981 Mother Teresa also began the Corpus Christi Movement for Priests, and in 1984 founded with Fr. Joseph Langford the Missionaries of Charity Fathers to combine the vocational aims of the Missionaries of Charity with the resources of the ministerial priesthood. By 2007 the Missionaries of Charity numbered approximately 450 brothers and 5,000 nuns worldwide, operating 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120 countries.

International charity


In 1982, at the height of the Siege of Beirut, Mother Teresa rescued 37 children trapped in a front line hospital by brokering a temporary cease-fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas. Accompanied by Red Cross workers, she traveled through the war zone to the devastated hospital to evacuate the young patients.

When Eastern Europe experienced increased openness in the late 1980s, she expanded her efforts to Communist countries that had previously rejected the Missionaries of Charity, embarking on dozens of projects. She was undeterred by criticism about her firm stand against abortion and divorce stating, "No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work."

Mother Teresa traveled to assist and minister to the hungry in Ethiopia, radiation victims at Chernobyl, and earthquake victims in Armenia. In 1991, Mother Teresa returned for the first time to her homeland and opened a Missionaries of Charity Brothers home in Tirana, Albania.

By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries. Over the years, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity grew from twelve to thousands serving the "poorest of the poor" in 450 centers around the world. The first Missionaries of Charity home in the United States was established in the South Bronx, New York; by 1984 the order operated 19 establishments throughout the country.

The spending of the charity money received has been criticized by some. Christopher Hitchens and the German magazine Stern have said Mother Teresa did not focus donated money on alleviating poverty or improving the conditions of her hospices, but on opening new convents and increasing missionary work.

Additionally, the sources of some donations accepted have been criticized. Mother Teresa accepted donations from the autocratic and corrupt Duvalier family in Haiti, and openly praised them. She also accepted 1.4 million dollars from Charles Keating, involved in the fraud and corruption scheme known as the Keating Five scandal, and supported him before and after his arrest. The Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles, Paul Turley, wrote to Mother Teresa asking her to return the donated money to the people Keating had stolen from, one of whom was "a poor carpenter". The donated money was not accounted for, and Turley did not receive a reply.

Colette Livermore, a former Missionary of Charity, describes her reasons for leaving the order in her book Hope Endures: Leaving Mother Teresa, Losing Faith, and Searching for Meaning. Livermore found what she called Mother Theresa's "theology of suffering" to be flawed, despite being a good and courageous person. Though Mother Theresa instructed her followers on the importance of spreading the Gospel through actions rather than theological lessons, Livermore could not reconcile this with some of the practices of the organization. Examples she gives includes unnecessarily refusing to help the needy when they approached the nuns at the wrong time according to the prescribed schedule, discouraging nuns from seeking medical training to deal with the illnesses they encountered (with the justification that God empowers the weak and ignorant), and imposition of "unjust" punishments, such as being transferred away from friends. Livermore says that the Missionaries of Charity "infantilized" its nuns by prohibiting the reading of secular books and newspapers, and emphasizing obedience over independent thinking and problem-solving.

Declining health and death

Mother Teresa suffered a heart attack in Rome in 1983, while visiting Pope John Paul II. After a second attack in 1989, she received an artificial pacemaker. In 1991, after a battle with pneumonia while in Mexico, she suffered further heart problems. She offered to resign her position as head of the Missionaries of Charity. But the nuns of the order, in a secret ballot, voted for her to stay. Mother Teresa agreed to continue her work as head of the order.

In April 1996, Mother Teresa fell and broke her collar bone. In August she suffered from malaria and failure of the left heart ventricle. She had heart surgery, but it was clear that her health was declining. Another controversy surrounding her is that when she fell ill instead of being treated at one of her clinics she opted to be treated at a well-equipped hospital in California.[citation needed] On March 13, 1997, she stepped down from the head of Missionaries of Charity and died on September 5, 1997. The Archbishop of Calcutta, Henry Sebastian D'Souza, said he ordered a priest to perform an exorcism on Mother Teresa with her permission when she was first hospitalized with cardiac problems because he thought she may be under attack by the devil.

At the time of her death, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters, an associated brotherhood of 300 members, and over 100,000 lay volunteers, operating 610 missions in 123 countries. These included hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counseling programs, personal helpers, orphanages, and schools.

Global recognition and reception

Reception in India

Mother Teresa had first been recognised by the Indian government more than a third of a century earlier when she was awarded the Padma Shri in 1962. She continued to receive major Indian rewards in successive decades including, in 1972, the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding and, in 1980, India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.

Her official biography was authored by an Indian civil servant, Navin Chawla, and published in 1992.

Indian views on Mother Teresa were not uniformly favourable. Her critic Aroup Chatterjee, who was born and bred in Calcutta but lived in London, reports that "she was not a significant entity in Calcutta in her lifetime". Chatterjee blames Mother Teresa for promoting a negative image of his home city. Her presence and profile grated in parts of the Indian political world, as she often opposed the Hindu Right. The Bharatiya Janata Party clashed with her over the Christian Dalits, but praised her in death, sending a representative to her funeral. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, on the other hand, opposed the Government's decision to grant her a state funeral. Its secretary Giriraj Kishore said that "her first duty was to the Church and social service was incidental" and accused her of favouring Christians and conducting "secret baptisms" of the dying. But, in its front page tribute, the Indian fortnightly Frontline dismissed these charges as "patently false" and said that they had "made no impact on the public perception of her work, especially in Calcutta". Although praising her "selfless caring", energy and bravery, the author of the tribute was critical of Mother Teresa's public campaigning against abortion and that she claimed to be non-political when doing so. More recently, the Indian daily The Telegraph mentioned that "Rome has been asked to investigate if she did anything to alleviate the condition of the poor or just took care of the sick and dying and needed them to further a sentimentally-moral cause."

Mother Teresa lay in state in St Thomas, Kolkata for one week prior to her funeral, in September 1997. She was granted a state funeral by the Indian Government in gratitude for her services to the poor of all religions in India.

Reception in the rest of the world

In 1962, Mother Teresa received the Philippines-based Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, given for work in South or East Asia. The citation said that "the Board of Trustees recognizes her merciful cognizance of the abject poor of a foreign land, in whose service she has led a new congregation". By the early 1970s, Mother Teresa had become an international celebrity. Her fame can be in large part attributed to the 1969 documentary Something Beautiful for God, which was filmed by Malcolm Muggeridge and his 1971 book of the same title. Muggeridge was undergoing a spiritual journey of his own at the time. During the filming of the documentary, footage taken in poor lighting conditions, particularly the Home for the Dying, was thought unlikely to be of usable quality by the crew. After returning from India, however, the footage was found to be extremely well lit. Muggeridge claimed this was a miracle of "divine light" from Mother Teresa herself. Others in the crew thought it was due to a new type of ultra-sensitive Kodak film. Muggeridge later converted to Catholicism.

Around this time, the Catholic world began to honor Mother Teresa publicly. In 1971, Paul VI awarded her the first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize, commending her for her work with the poor, display of Christian charity and efforts for peace. She later received the Pacem in Terris Award (1976). Since her death, Mother Teresa has progressed rapidly along the steps towards sainthood, currently having reached the stage of having been beatified.

Mother Teresa was honoured by both governments and civilian organizations. She was appointed an honorary Companion of the Order of Australia in 1982, "for service to the community of Australia and humanity at large". The United Kingdom and the United States each repeatedly granted awards, culminating in the Order of Merit in 1983, and honorary citizenship of the United States received on November 16, 1996. Mother Teresa's Albanian homeland granted her the Golden Honour of the Nation in 1994. Her acceptance of this and another honour granted by the Haitian government proved controversial. Mother Teresa attracted criticism, particularly from the left, for implicitly giving support to the Duvaliers and to corrupt businessmen such as Charles Keating and Robert Maxwell. In Keating's case she wrote to the judge of his trial asking for clemency to be shown.

Universities in both the West and in India granted her honorary degrees. Other civilian awards include the Balzan Prize for promoting humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples (1978), and the Albert Schweitzer International Prize (1975).

In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace." She refused the conventional ceremonial banquet given to laureates, and asked that the $192,000 funds be given to the poor in India, stating that earthly rewards were important only if they helped her help the world's needy. When Mother Teresa received the prize, she was asked, "What can we do to promote world peace?" She answered "Go home and love your family." Building on this theme in her Nobel Lecture, she said: "Around the world, not only in the poor countries, but I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove. When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread, I have satisfied. I have removed that hunger. But a person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out from society—that poverty is so hurtable [sic] and so much, and I find that very difficult." She also singled out abortion as 'the greatest destroyer of peace in the world'.

Towards the end of her life, Mother Teresa attracted some negative attention in the Western media. The journalist Christopher Hitchens has been one of her most active critics. He was commissioned to co-write and narrate the documentary Hell's Angel about her for the British Channel 4 after Aroup Chatterjee encouraged the making of such a program, although Chatterjee was unhappy with the "sensationalist approach" of the final product. Hitchens expanded his criticism in a 1995 book, The Missionary Position.

Chatterjee writes that while she was alive Mother Teresa and her official biographers refused to collaborate with his own investigations and that she failed to defend herself against critical coverage in the Western press. He gives as examples a report in The Guardian in Britain whose "stringent (and quite detailed) attack on conditions in her orphanages ... [include] charges of gross neglect and physical and emotional abuse", and another documentary Mother Teresa: Time for Change? broadcast in several European countries. Both Chatterjee and Hitchens have themselves been subject to criticism for their stance.

The German magazine Stern published a critical article on the first anniversary of Mother Teresa's death. This concerned allegations regarding financial matters and the spending of donations. The medical press has also published criticism of her, arising from very different outlooks and priorities on patients' needs. Other critics include Tariq Ali, a member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review, and the Irish-born investigative journalist Donal MacIntyre.

Her death was mourned in both secular and religious communities. In tribute, Nawaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan said that she was "a rare and unique individual who lived long for higher purposes. Her life-long devotion to the care of the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged was one of the highest examples of service to our humanity." The former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar said: "She is the United Nations. She is peace in the world." During her lifetime and after her death, Mother Teresa was consistently found by Gallup to be the single most widely admired person in the US, and in 1999 was ranked as the "most admired person of the 20th century" by a poll in the US. She out-polled all other volunteered answers by a wide margin, and was in first place in all major demographic categories except the very young.

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Indian Institute of Technology

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), are a group of thirteen autonomous engineering and technology-oriented institutes of higher education established and declared as Institutes of National Importance by the Parliament of India. The IITs were created to train scientists and engineers, with the aim of developing a skilled workforce to support the economic and social development of India after independence in 1947. The students and alumni of IITs are colloquially referred to as IITians.

In order of establishment, they are located in Kharagpur (1950; as IIT 1951), Mumbai (1958), Chennai (1959), Kanpur (1959), Delhi (1961; as IIT 1963), Guwahati (1994), Roorkee (1847; as IIT 2001), Bhubaneswar (2008), Gandhinagar (2008), Hyderabad (2008), Patna (2008), Punjab (2008) and Rajasthan (2008). The Government of India has announced plans to add three more IITs, to be established at Indore, Mandi and Varanasi (via conversion of the IT BHU). Some IITs were established with financial assistance and technical expertise from UNESCO, Germany, the United States, and Soviet Union. Each IIT is an autonomous university, linked to the others through a common IIT Council, which oversees their administration. They have a common admission process for undergraduate admissions, using the Joint Entrance Examination (popularly known as IIT-JEE) to select around 4,000 undergraduate candidates a year. Postgraduate Admissions are done on the basis of the GATE, JMET, JAM and CEED. About 15,500 undergraduate and 12,000 graduate students study in the IITs, in addition to research scholars.

IIT alumni have achieved success in a variety of professions. Owing to the autonomy of the IITs, these institutes are among those few institutes (the other institutes being NITs) in India that offer degrees in technology (B. Tech.) at the undergraduate level as opposed to the Bachelor of Engineering (BE) degrees awarded by most other Indian universities. Most of the IITs were created in early 1950s and 1960s as the Institutes of National Importance through special acts of Indian Parliament. The success of the IITs led to the creation of the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIIT) in the late 1990s and in the 2000s.

History


The history of the IIT system dates back to 1946 when Sir Jogendra Singh of the Viceroy's Executive Council set up a committee whose task was to consider the creation of Higher Technical Institutions for post-war industrial development in India. The 22-member committee, headed by Nalini Ranjan Sarkar, recommended the establishment of these institutions in various parts of India, with affiliated secondary institutions. The committee felt that such institutes should not only produce undergraduates, but researchers and academics. The institutes were expected to maintain high educational standards.

With these recommendations in view, the first Indian Institute of Technology was founded in May 1950 at the site of the Hijli Detention Camp in Kharagpur. On September 15, 1956, the Parliament of India passed the Indian Institute of Technology (Kharagpur) Act, declaring it as an Institute of National Importance. Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of India, in the first convocation address of IIT Kharagpur in 1956 said:

Here in the place of that Hijli Detention Camp stands the fine monument of India, representing India's urges, India's future in the making. This picture seems to me symbolical of the changes that are coming to India.

On the recommendations of the Sarkar Committee, four campuses were established at Mumbai (1958), Chennai (1959), Kanpur (1959), and Delhi (1961). The location of these campuses was chosen to be scattered throughout India to prevent regional imbalance. The Indian Institutes of Technology Act was amended to reflect the addition of new IITs. Student agitations in the state of Assam made Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi promise the creation of a new IIT in Assam. This led to a sixth campus at Guwahati under the Assam Accord in 1994. The University of Roorkee, India's oldest engineering college, was conferred IIT status in 2001.
Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University) is a candidate to become an IIT.

Over the past few years, there have been a number of developments toward establishing new IITs. On October 1, 2003, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced plans to create more IITs "by upgrading existing academic institutions that have the necessary promise and potential". Subsequent developments led to the formation of the S K Joshi Committee in November 2003 to guide the selection of the five institutions which would become the five new IITs. Based on the initial recommendations of the Sarkar Committee, it was decided that further IITs should be spread throughout the country. When the government expressed its willingness to correct this regional imbalance, 16 states demanded IITs. Since the S K Joshi Committee prescribed strict guidelines for institutions aspiring to be IITs, only seven colleges were selected for final consideration. Plans are also reported to open IITs outside India, though not enough progress has been made in this regard. Eventually in the 11th Five year plan, eight states were identified for establishment of new IITs, and IT-BHU was recommended to be converted in to IIT.

Entrance examinations


Admission to undergraduate programs in all IITs is tied to the Joint Entrance Examination, popularly known as IIT-JEE. Candidates opting for the B.Arch. (Bachelor of Architecture) program in IIT Kharagpur, and the B.Des. (Bachelor of Design) program in IIT Guwahati, have to clear an aptitude test as well. Candidates who qualify admission via IIT-JEE can apply for admission in B.Tech. (Bachelor of Technology), Dual Degree (Integrated Bachelor of Technology and Master of Technology) and Integrated M.Sc. (Master of Sciences) courses in IITs, IT-BHU and ISM Dhanbad. IIT-JEE is a science-oriented entrance exam, testing candidate's knowledge of mathematics, physics and chemistry. It is conducted by an IIT chosen by a policy of rotation. Admission is very competitive, given the huge population of India; the undergraduate acceptance rate through JEE has a low ratio (around 1 in 60) with about 300,000 annual test takers for about 5,500 seats. Only about 4,000 of these seats are offered by IITs, the rest belonging to other institutes that use IIT-JEE. Only students who have completed their 12th and secured at least 60% in their exam (higher secondary studies from a recognised educational board) are allowed to appear for IIT-JEE. The IIT-JEE is well known for frequently changing the types of questions asked in order to discourage study by rote. In recent years, though the level of questions have become easier, the competition for a seat in an IIT has grown exponentially. Since IIT-JEE 2006, the format of the question paper was changed to a single objective test-based paper, replacing the earlier system that employed two tests. The candidates belonging to the general category must secure a minimum aggregate of 60% marks in the qualifying examination of the XIIth standard organised by various educational boards of India. Candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Physically Disabled (PD) categories must secure a minimum aggregate of 55% in the qualifying examination. The upper age limit for appearing for the [IIT-JEE] is 25 years. The age limit is relaxed to 30 years for candidates classified in the SC, ST and PD categories. Starting with IIT-JEE 2007, a candidate can take IIT-JEE a maximum of two times, and students who are selected for an IIT cannot attempt the examination again. Students select their institute and department of study based on what is available at the time of their counselling and interview that follows the IIT-JEE result. The interviews are usually spread over five days.

The admissions into the postgraduate programmes are made through various exams, primarily the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) for Ph.D., M.Tech., and some MS courses. This exam tests the conceptual clarity in technical subjects and is one of the most difficult in the country. Other prominent entrance exams include JAM (Joint Admission to M.Sc.) for M.Sc., and JMET (Joint Management Entrance Test) for Management Studies.

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Birla Institute of Technology and Science

Birla Institute of Technology & Science, (known as BITS Pilani) is a science and technology school located in Pilani, Rajasthan, India. In addition to Pilani, BITS has campuses in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Goa, India and Hyderabad, India and an extension center in Bangalore, India. The institute is privately supported and fully residential.

The institute was founded by Ghanshyam Das Birla in 1929 as an intermediate college. During World War II, the Government of India established a technical training center at Pilani for the supply of technicians for defence services and industry. In 1946, it was converted into the Birla Engineering College with degree programmes in electrical and mechanical engineering.

In 1964, the Birla Colleges of Arts , Commerce, Engineering, Pharmacy and Science were merged to form the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS). In this period of inception (especially during 1964–1970), BITS Pilani received support from the Ford Foundation and benefited from an alliance with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology BITS Pilani started to expand in India and abroad since 2000. New campuses were established in Dubai (2000), Goa, India (2004) and Hyderabad, India (2008). The fourth campus was opened in 2008 at Jawaharnagar (near Hakimpet Air Force station), Hyderabad, India. BITS also runs a virtual university and an extension center in Bangalore.

Admission

Pilani,Goa and Hyderabad Campuses


The admission to these campuses since 2005 are through revised admission procedure via National Entrance Examination called BITS Admission Test (BITSAT). BITSAT is a test conducted online held between May 1 and June 10 in many cities all over India. The exam tests subject-content in English, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Logical reasoning, and is focused on higher secondary curriculum in India and abroad. Prospective students are required to obtain a minimum aggregate of 80% marks in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics (subject to a minimum of 60% in each of these three subjects) in their higher secondary examinations to be eligible for admission.

Toppers of higher secondary examinations of each single board are exempted from taking BITSAT test and are considered for direct admission. This exemption helps ensure that BITS-Pilani retain the significant number (about 20-25) of first rank holders from across the country who join BITS every year.

The Admission Test to Enter BITS is not the Conventional Written type of Examination. But it is an online exam which takes place in more than 20 places all over India.As all the students (nearly 2 lakhs) cannot appear on same day,this exam is conducted on a period of 25 days.You can choose the date on which you wan't to give the exam.There are arround 50 sets of papers and necessary precautions are taken to maintain uniformity in level of difficulty of all these sets.This Online exam is unique and the only one of it's type in India.

Acceptance rate in BITS is very low, making it the most selective and one of the toughest schools in India to get admission into. Also as the admission is purely on the basis of merit and not caste based reservation is there in the process , the student quality of BITS is highly maintained. For more information, see BITS Admission.

Dubai Campus


The admission to Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani - Dubai is based on the marks secured at the 12th standard qualifying exam. However they are planning to make admissions through the main entrance test for the year 2008 and also to give importance for local rankings to encourage GCC student.

Student Life


Located away from the urban jungle, the Pilani campus has a culture very unique to itself. Being provided all the amenities within the campus itself, students seldom leave the campus.

Elections are held about a month after the start of the academic year. There is a nominated body of students who are responsible for fair conduct of the elections. Every student on campus has the right to vote.

The Students Union consists of the President, the General Secretary and Hostel Representatives, along with a Day-Scholar Representative. The actions of the Union are governed by a Constitution, and the Union is responsible for all non-academic related activities of the students.

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Christian Medical College and Hospital

Christian Medical College & Hospital, Vellore, known simply as "CMC Vellore", was founded by Ida S. Scudder, and located in the city of Vellore in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, South India.

The idea of starting a hospital occurred to Ida Sophia Scudder in the late 1800s, when Ida visited her medical missionary father, John Scudder, at his post in Tamil Nadu. One night, Ida was asked to help three women from different families struggling in difficult childbirth. Custom prevented their husbands from accepting the help of a male doctor and being without training at that time, Ida herself could do nothing. The next morning she was shocked to learn that each of the three women had died. She believed that it was a calling and a challenge set before her by God to begin a ministry dedicated to the health needs of the people of India, particularly women and children. Consequently, Ida went back to America, entered medical training (practically unheard of for women at that time) and, in 1899, was one of the first women graduates of the Weill Medical College of Cornell University;

Shortly thereafter, she returned to India and opened a one-bed clinic in Vellore in 1900. Two years later, in 1902, she built a 40-bed hospital, the forerunner of today's 2234-bed medical center. In 1909, she started the School of Nursing, and in 1918, a medical school for women was opened under the name Missionary Medical School for Women. With the training of these women as doctors and nurses, Indian women would now begin to have access to health care professionals. The medical school was upgraded into a university affiliated medical college granting the degree of M.B.B.S. in 1942, under the name Christian Medical College. Men were admitted to this college in 1947, ten in a class of 35.

In addition to the care of women, Ida Scudder saw the need for bringing health care to the poor, the disabled, and the neglected of India. She traveled regularly to outlying villages, bringing medical care to the doorstep of poor villagers, starting CMC's first "roadside" dispensary in 1916. Over the years, these roadside dispensaries have developed into extensive rural health and development programs that have become internationally acclaimed in the Community health field.

The 100 years since Ida Scudder opened the first small clinic have seen considerable growth. Today, there are 3,000 outpatients per day, 1,000 inpatients, 55 operations, 22 clinics, and over 30 births every day. Ten bible classes are held each day and 380 patients are visited by a chaplain. In addition, there is the work of CHAD, CONCH, and RUHSA, which go out to the villages and rural areas bringing methods of disease prevention, health care and community empowerment to tens of thousands more.

Unlike the case with many other missionary physicians who focused primarily on service, "Aunt Ida" also believed in maintaining a high standard of excellence in academics and research. CMC now employs over 4300 people, and is widely acknowledged to be one of the top Medical schools in India, not only for its achievements in teaching and service, but also in many areas of basic and applied research.

Christian Medical College


The Christian Medical College has come to occupy a prominent place among the medical institutions in India. CMC is unique in being both, a centre attending to the needs of the disadvantaged, and a leading referral tertiary care hospital. CMC fosters wholeness of healing and integrates physical and spiritual care. The combination of technical competence and the urge to be relevant to the needs of people and their environment influence the research and development activities. CMC’s principal achievement is creation of hundreds of health care personnel who, having studied and worked here, have imbibed the spirit of compassionate care and a self-giving culture. CMC's present team of doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, engineers, chaplains and others are engaged in making health care relevant to the changing times. Today, CMC’s graduates form a large number of trained health care personnel for the Christian medical network in India. CMC is a healing arm of the church in India.

The College is the parent organisation in the legal and organisational sense. The CMC Hospital and all its related clinical and health care facilities are teaching facilities of the College. The College is owned and administered by the Christian Medical College Vellore Association which is a Society registered under the Societies Registration Act of India. The Association is made up of 54 churches and other Christian organisations engaged in medical/health care activities. The governance is vested in the Christian Medical College Council which is made up of all the members of the Association plus a number of other organisations in India and abroad with similar interests.

In 1918 Dr.Ida Scudder established a Medical School for Women, which was upgraded to a College in 1942 and became coeducational in 1947. Each year 60 students, of which at least 25 are women, are admitted for the undergraduate medical course (M.B.B.S. of The Tamil Nadu Dr.M.G.R.Medical University). The churches and Christian organisations which are members of the Christian Medical College Vellore Association (see above) are entitled to accredit Christians among the applicants as being eligible to the proportion of places (currently 50 out of 60) reserved for the Christian "minority" as provided in the Constitution of India.

The student body is a wholesome mix of various regions, religions and communities of India and other Asian countries. The tution fees in the college are exceptionally low so as to ensure that finances are not a constraint to the coveted education in this institution. In addition, scholarships are available to students who need such assistance. Students and faculty live together like a family in a residential campus. A major emphasis in the curriculum is training in Community Medicine, a part of which includes living in a village for several weeks and participating in activities designed to provide practical knowledge and experience related to the life and health of rural people. Immediately after graduation, all the medical graduates of CMC are required to serve for at least two years in health care facilities accredited by the institution to be meeting social needs. Trainees who join for postgraduate courses are fulltime members of the staff, actively working in the wards and laboratories while learning under the guidance of senior colleagues.

CMC has been given a five star rating by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council[citation needed], an autonomous arm of the University Grants Commission, in recognition of its quality of medical education and health care. CMC has been assigned the H1 grading by the Investment Information and Credit Rating Agency (ICRA) Ltd[citation needed]. The H1 grading implies that the institution has resources and processes consistent with those required to deliver the highest quality of care. The grading reflects the institution’s broadly adequate infrastructure and equipment, its committed medical and nursing staff, its well-structured governance and management processes and its track record in medical techniques and procedures. The span of ICRA’s health care grading service broadly covers primary, secondary, tertiary healthcare providers and teaching hospitals.

CMC has been consistently ranked among the best medical colleges in India. Independent surveys published in 2006 by both India today-ORG MARG and Outlook-Cfore ranks CMC second in the overall survey of the best medical colleges in India next only to AIIMS Delhi.

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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Introducing interest-based advertising - action required for your AdSense account

We're writing to let you know about the upcoming launch of interest-based advertising, which will require you to review and make any necessary changes to your site's privacy policies. You'll also see some new options on your Account Settings page.

Interest-based advertising will allow advertisers to show ads based on a user's previous interactions with them, such as visits to advertiser website and also to reach users based on their interests (e.g. "sports enthusiast"). To develop interest categories, we will recognize the types of web pages users visit throughout the Google content network. As an example, if they visit a number of sports pages, we will add them to the "sports enthusiast" interest category. To learn more about your associated account settings, please visit the AdSense Help Center at http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=20310.

As a result of this announcement, your privacy policy will now need to reflect the use of interest-based advertising. Please review the information at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=100557 to ensure that your site's privacy policies are up-to-date, and make any necessary changes by April 8, 2009. Because publisher sites and laws vary across countries, we're unfortunately unable to suggest specific privacy policy language.

For more information about interest-based advertising, you can also visit the Inside AdSense Blog at http://adsense.blogspot.com/2009/03/driving-monetization-with-ads-that.html.

- Update from Adsense

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Google AdSense video units to be retired

We're writing to let you know that we'll be retiring AdSense video units at the end of April. After reviewing this feature, we've found that it hasn't been performing as well as we had hoped, so we've decided to focus our efforts on other opportunities to help publishers monetize their sites.

We recommend that you begin removing the video unit code from your pages as soon as possible, to ensure that you can take advantage of the available ad space on your pages. At the end of April, any remaining Leaderboard or Skyscraper video units will begin directing users to YouTube.com, while other video unit sizes will automatically be changed to standard embedded YouTube players. These standard video players will display top YouTube videos, but you won't generate earnings from them once this change occurs.

If you'd still like to display free video content from YouTube, you can do so through YouTube.com directly: visit any specific video page for the embed code, or sign in to your YouTube account to create a playlist. For more information about embedding YouTube videos, please visit http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=57788. Alternatively, if you have less than three ad units on your page, you may prefer to replace your video unit with a regular ad unit.

Although video units are being retired, other video offerings within AdSense aren't affected. Video ads may still appear on your pages and AdSense for video is still available for eligible publishers. If you'd like more information about the retiring of video units, please visit our Help Center at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=12182.

- Update from Google Adsense



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Monday, May 18, 2009

Chiranjeevi (megastar)

Chiranjeevi (Konidela Shiva Shankara Vara Prasad) born on August 22, 1955), is a popular Tollywood film personality. He has received the Padma Bhushan award, the second highest padma award bestowed by the Government of India. He is the only Tollywood actor to receive seven Filmfare Best actor awards. He has a huge fan following in Andhra Pradesh. He announced his formal entry into politics on August 26 and founded the political party named Praja Rajyam.

Early Life

Vara Prasad is the son of Late Sri Venkat Rao and Srimathi Anjana Devi. He was born on 22 August 1955 in Mogallturu, a town on the Banks of River Godavari in the West Godavari District of Andhra Pradesh in India. His father worked as a constable and got transferred on a regular basis. He spent his childhood in his native village with his grand parents. He has two sisters and two brothers. His younger brother, Nagendra Babu is a film producer and an actor. His youngest brother, Pawan Kalyan, is also an actor. Chiranjeevi did his schooling in Nidadavolu, Gurajala, Bapatla, Ponnuru, Mangalagiri and Mogalturu. After high school he studied in C.S.R.Sharma Junior College at Ongole. He then graduated from Y.N. College in Narasapur with a B.Com degree.[3] Chiranjeevi known as annayya, chiru, Megastar of telugu cinema is considered legend in film arena. Chiranjeevi founded Chiranjeevi Charitable trust (CCT) in 1998 later the trust extended its wings to Blood bank and Eye bank . He and his CCT is always close to people of Andhra Pradesh. He was an NCC cadet. Chiranjeevi had participated in the Republic Day Parade in New Delhi as an NCC cadet in the early 70s. In 1977, after his graduation at Y.N. College in Narsapuram, Chiranjeevi moved to Chennai to seek a career in acting

Chiranjeevi was a student at the Madras Film Institute and an amateur stage actor. Before completing his training at the film institute, he attended auditions and selected for the film Punaadi Raallu(1978). However, Pranam Khareedu was his first film released in theaters. His first public performance was in the Republic Day parade ballet of Andhra Pradesh on 26 January, 1976.In the film Paleru Narsayya, he acted without makeup and impressed the prominent members of the industry. Famous directors Bapu and K Balachandar, who had attended the preview of this film, offered the roles in their respective movies. In Balachander’s Idi Katha Kaadu he acted in a negative role, but in Bapu’s Manavoori Pandavulu he played one important role. For this movie he received a remuneration of Rs.1116.Towards the end of 1979, Chirajeevi started gaining pace in the industry with eight releases in the year. In Kothala Rayudu, a film released during this period, he played the title role for the first time. In 1980, a record fourteen films starring Chiranjeevi hit the theaters, establishing a solid base for him in the industry. In the next two years Chiranjeevi acted in several films in leading, supporting and even in negative roles.

Most notably, his performances in Punnami Naagu(1980) and Nyayam Kavali(1981), albeit having negative shades, were acclaimed by critiques and audience alike. The year 1983 was a major turning point in Chiranjeevi’s career. Khaidi, which was released in October of this year, brought immediate stardom to Chiranjeevi and marked the beginning of his dominance in the industry. Many film critiques believe that the film has influenced the Telugu Cinema much the same way as the Hindi film Sholay influenced Bollywood. Inspired heavily by the Hollywood flick “First Blood”, Khaidi increased the demand for the director and writers also, besides turning the combination of the duo - director A Kodanda Rami Reddy and Chiranjeevi – into one of the most successful combinations in the industry. This duo went on to work together in 23 films in total, most of them being huge box office blockbusters. Also in this year, with the legendary Telugu film star NTR entering politics, the unofficial number one position in the industry is left vacant.


Actor to 'Megastar'



With several other super hits in the year like Abhilasha apart from Khaidi, Chiranjeevi appeared to be an obvious choice for this position. Indeed, he would occupy this position within the next few years and, as even his competitors agree, he remained there for more than two decades. Leading Telugu Actor Venkatesh said in an Interview to India Today that Chiranjeevi has been the undisputed No. 1 since 1987. Chiranjeevi continued to enjoy commercial success in the following years with hits like Challenge, Rustum and Jwala.

However, the ‘85 released film Adavi Donga was another important movie in his career in that it marked the beginning of his association with another senior director K Raghavendra Rao. Chiranjeevi acted in his direction for most number of films, after A Kodanda Rami Reddy. In '87 release Pasivadi Pranam, Chiranjeevi introduced Break Dance to Telugu Cinema, a dance that drove his fans into craziness. While the industry obsessed with break dance for several years, the film has increased his market value hugely. By this time an already number one in the Telugu cinema, Chiranjeevi cemented his place as the undisputed king of box office with super hits like Donga in 1985, Yamudiki Mogudu, Marana Mrudangam in 1988, and State Rowdi, Attaku Yamudu Ammayiki Mogudu in 1989. During this period, he was promoted with what is now a popular title “Megastar” in his movies, replacing his old title Supreme Hero. Chiranjeevi’s mass following continued to grow bigger and bigger with each passing year and so did his remuneration.

Bigger than Bachchan(1992)


Extending through the early 90s, Chiranjeevi delivered two super duper blockbusters movies Kondaveeti Donga and Jagadeka Veerudu Athiloka Sundari in 1990. And in next continue three major blockbusters Gang Leader, Rowdi Alludu, and Gharana Mogudu in succession. These films have collected and created box office records, while turning the Telugu film industry a multi-crore business. At this point, his remuneration crossed ten million first, and later turned more, making Chiranjeevi is the highest paid actor in India. Befittingly, Film Fare magazine published about him a cover story “Higher than Amithab Bachan” in 1992. The film Mutha Mesthri released in the following year did created many commercial records, but it also shown Chiranjeevi as a political power, raising the speculation of his entry into politics.

Since then Chiranjeevi’s entry into politics has been widely debated in Andhra Pradesh, but his floating a political party remained uncertain until 2008 when he finally forayed into politics. The mid 90s, much to the surprise of everyone and contrary to his golden period in the early 90s, witnessed biggest flops of his career. Films like Mechanic Alludu, Big Boss and Rikshavodu have not only disappointed his fans but also have utterly failed at the box office. Although the ’95 film Alluda Mazaka was a commercial success, it was severely censured by common public and critiques alike for its excessive sexual scenes and double-entendres.

These films remained as indelible stains in his otherwise glorious career. Successive failures have forced Chiranjeevi to rethink on his films, which until then used to have overdose of mass elements and weak scripts. Taking a break of more than one year, he came out with a family and sentiment story Hitler in 1997. The film revived his box office success, marking the second innings of his career, allowed to find his lost image and even closer to family people. Since then, Chiranjeevi started to work in selective films, one or at most two in a year, to suit to the changes that are rapidly coming in the industry and in the tastes of audience. Same year, in his next movie Master, for the first time he turned to a playback singer for "Thammudu Thammudu" song. Though this movie was different from Hitler but it was well received by people. The Next movies in 1998 Bavagaru Bagunnara,Choodalani Undi were block busters which won many accolades as both were complete family entertainers.


Return to success: 2002


The 2002 release Indra (BlockBuster movie), a film that largely focuses on his ‘mass’ image and bases on the then successful ‘Seema Formula’, broke all previous box office records, proving yet again his dominance over Telugu Cinema. Released with a record number of prints, the film went on run 100days in most number of theaters, a record that, albeit peculiar, is extensively popular in Andhra Pradesh to measure a film’s success. Growing in age and bearing the larger-than-life image, Chiranjeevi tried to intermix entertainment with an underlying message and a social cause in his later films such as Tagore(2003) and Stalin(2006).

His last film Shankar Dada Zindabad(2008) before entering politics, was, however, a commercial failure. Arguably the greatest Telugu ‘mass’ hero of all-time, Chiranjeevi, setting his unparalleled ‘mass’ image aside, has acted in several art-oriented films like Subhalekha, Aaradhana, Swayamkrushi, Rudraveena Apadbhandavudu, that were highly creative but lacked commercial elements. Although these films have won several awards for the star, they had mixed opinions by the audience and fared well at the box office.

Philanthropy

Besides acting, he is widely known for his charity services. On October 2 1998,he founded the Chiranjeevi Charitable Trust (CCT), which includes Chiranjeevi Blood and Eye Banks. It is the state's largest recipient of Blood and Eye Donations. The Blood Bank of the CCT helped over 80,000 people and the Eye Bank has helped about 1000 people in the state of Andhra Pradesh since its opening. So far around 3.5 lakh people have pledged their eyes to CCT, giving 1600 people eye sight through CCT. CCT has also won the "Best Voluntary Blood Bank Award" by the AP State Government for the past 4 years.

On June 10, 2006, The President of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam, inaugurated the Chiranjeevi Charitable Foundation (CCF) at the Jubilee Hills Check post in Hyderabad.

Recently CCT has reached one more landmark by crossing the one lakh mark in collecting the blood and more than 96,000 people were helped with blood by this blood bank.

Politics

Chiranjeevi's foray into politics was highly anticipated in the media and political circles . While it was reported that he was seeking opinion of people during the latter half of 2007, the media also suggested that he would announce the decision in January 2008. Even before the party's launch, several political leaders from the Andhra Pradesh such as Harirama Jogaiah from Congress Party and K. Vidyadhar Rao , B. Nagi Reddy , Tammineni Seetharam , Ganta Srinivasa rao and many more from the Telugu Desam Party openly declared that they would join the party.

Chiranjeevi inaugurated his party office in Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad on August 10, 2008.On August 17, 2008 Chiranjeevi has addressed a press conference in his party office to announce his entry into politics.

On August 26, 2008 in the public meeting held at Avilala near Tirupati, he announced the party name as Praja Rajyam saying the Rajyam(Rule) belongs to Praja (People). He unveiled the party flag in this meeting.

He has completed several trips meeting people all across the three regions of Andhra Pradesh since October 2008.

Awards

Chiranjeevi received Padma Bhushan (India's third highest civilian award) from President Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam in New Delhi

Nandi Awards

* 1987—Best Actor Award for Swayamkrushi
* 1992—Best Actor Award for Aapathbandhavudu
* 2002—Best Actor Award for Indra

Filmfare Awards

* 1982—Filmfare Best Actor (Telugu) for Punnami Naagu
* 1984—Filmfare Best Actor (Telugu) for Subhalekha
* 1993—Filmfare Best Actor (Telugu) for Muta Mesthri
* 1999—Filmfare Best Actor (Telugu) for Sneham Kosam
* 2002—Filmfare Best Actor (Telugu) for Indra
* 2004—Filmfare Best Actor (Telugu) for Shankar Dada MBBS
* 2007- Filmfare Life Time Achievement Award

Special honours

* 2006—Padma Bhushan By Govt of India
* 2006—Doctorate By Andhra University



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DLF IPL 2009 May 17 IPL Delhi vs IPL Rajasthan at OUTsurance Oval, Bloemfontein

May 17, 2009 : IPL 2009 : IPL Delhi won by 14 runs
IPL Delhi vs IPL Rajasthan, 50th Match
OUTsurance Oval, Bloemfontein
Umpires: S Hazare (IND) and I Howell (SA) Third Umpire: K Dharmasena (SL)
Match Referee: J Srinath (IND)
Toss: IPL Delhi (Elected to Bat)
Result: IPL Delhi won by 14 runs
Man of the Match: AB de Villiers




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LTTE Velupillai Prabhakaran (died) get fired by Sri Lankan Army (ltte chapter closed almost)

LTTE Prabhakaran Died, when sri lankan army fired on him
Finally Sri Lankan Army Find the Dead Body as Prabhakaran.

About Velupillai Prabhakaran:
Velupillai Prabhakaran (November 26, 1954 - May 18, 2009) was the founder and leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (the Tamil Tigers), a militant organization that sought to create an independent Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka. Claiming they have faced discrimination at the hands of the sucessive Sri Lankan governments, the Tamil Tigers have waged a violent secessionist campaign in Sri Lanka that has led to them been designated as terrorist organization by 32 countries.

Prabhakaran was wanted by Interpol for terrorism, murder, organized crime and terrorism conspiracy. He also had arrest warrents against him in Sri Lanka and India. After evading capture for 25 years, the Sri Lankan government announced in May 2009 that Prabhakaran and several other senior Tamil Tiger leaders were trapped in a small stretch of land on the Mullaithivu coast. On May 18, 2009, AFP reported that Velupillai Prabhakaran was shot dead while trying to escape advancing troops. Prabhakaran was trying to flee in an ambulance along with two other close aides which tried to drive out of the battle zone, but was attacked and killed.

Biography


Velupillai Prabhakaran was born in the northern coastal town of Velvettithurai. A Hindu[citation needed] by birth, he joined the student group TIP, during the standardization debates. In 1972 Prabhakaran founded an organization named Tamil New Tigers (TNT) which was a successor to many initial organizations that protested against the post colonial political direction of the country that pitted the minority Sri Lankan Tamils against the majority Sinhalese people.Political situation[›]

In 1975, after becoming heavily involved in the Tamil movement, he carried out his first political murder against the mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duraiappah, by shooting him at point blank range while he was about to enter the Hindu temple at Ponnaalai. The assassination was in response to the 1974 Tamil conference incident, and the Tamil radicals had blamed Alfred Duraiappah, because he backed the then Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) implicated in the violence as well as for allegedly betraying the Tamil nationalist sentiments in the Jaffna peninsula.

On May 5, 1976, the TNT was renamed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), commonly known as the Tamil Tigers.

Religion is not a major factor in his philosophy or ideology, but there the LTTE can be characterized as anti-Buddhist. The LTTE is also an organization that does not cite any material from religion or religious texts in any of its ideological documents and propaganda but are driven only by the idea of Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism and considers it as the only single-minded approach and inspiration towards the attainment of an independent Tamil Eelam.

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Sunday, May 17, 2009

Google Adsense

AdSense is an advertisement application run by Google. Website owners can enroll in this program to enable text, image, and more recently, video advertisements on their websites. These advertisements are administered by Google and generate revenue on either a per-click or per-impression basis. Google beta tested a cost-per-action service, but discontinued it in October 2008 in favor of a DoubleClick offering (also owned by Google).

Overview

Google uses its Internet search technology to serve advertisements based on website content, the user's geographical location, and other factors. Those wanting to advertise with Google's targeted advertisement system may enroll through AdWords. AdSense has become a popular method of placing advertising on a website because the advertisements are less intrusive than most banners, and the content of the advertisements is often relevant to the website.

Currently, AdSense uses JavaScript code to incorporate the advertisements into a participating website. If the advertisements are included on a website that has not yet been crawled by the Mediabot, AdSense will temporarily display advertisements for charitable causes, also known as public service announcements (PSAs). (The Mediabot is different from the Googlebot, which maintains Google's search index.)

Many websites use AdSense to monetize their content. AdSense has been particularly important for delivering advertising revenue to small websites that do not have the resources for developing advertising sales programs and sales people. To fill a website with advertisements that are relevant to the topics discussed, webmasters implement a brief script on the websites' pages. Websites that are content-rich have been very successful with this advertising program, as noted in a number of publisher case studies on the AdSense website.

Some webmasters invest significant effort into maximizing their own AdSense income. They do this in three ways:
1. They use a wide range of traffic-generating techniques, including but not limited to online advertising.
2. They build valuable content on their websites that attracts AdSense advertisements, which pay out the most when they are clicked.
3. They use text content on their websites that encourages visitors to click on advertisements. Note that Google prohibits webmasters from using phrases like "Click on my AdSense ads" to increase click rates. The phrases accepted are "Sponsored Links" and "Advertisements".

The source of all AdSense income is the AdWords program, which in turn has a complex pricing model based on a Vickrey second price auction. AdSense commands an advertiser to submit a sealed bid (i.e., a bid not observable by competitors). Additionally, for any given click received, advertisers only pay one bid increment above the second-highest bid.

History

The underlying technology behind AdSense was derived originally from WordNet, Simpli (a company started by the founder of Wordnet, George A. Miller), and a number of professors and graduate students from Brown University, including James A. Anderson, Jeff Stibel, and Steve Reiss. A variation of this technology utilizing WordNet was developed by Oingo, a small search engine company based in Santa Monica founded in 1998 by Gilad Elbaz and Adam Weissman. Oingo changed its name to Applied Semantics in 2001, which was later acquired by Google in April 2003 for US$102 million.

How AdSense works

* The webmaster inserts the AdSense JavaScript code into a webpage.
* Each time this page is visited, the JavaScript code uses inlined JSON to display content fetched from Google's servers.
* For contextual advertisements, Google's servers use a cache of the page to determine a set of high-value keywords. If keywords have been cached already, advertisements are served for those keywords based on the AdWords bidding system. (More details are described in the AdSense patent.)
* For site-targeted advertisements, the advertiser chooses the page(s) on which to display advertisements, and pays based on cost per mille (CPM), or the price advertisers choose to pay for every thousand advertisements displayed.
* For referrals, Google adds money to the advertiser's account when visitors either download the referred software or subscribe to the referred service. The referral program was retired in August 2008.
* Search advertisements are added to the list of results after the visitor performs a search.
* Because the JavaScript is sent to the Web browser when the page is requested, it is possible for other website owners to copy the JavaScript code into their own webpages. To protect against this type of fraud, AdSense customers can specify the pages on which advertisements should be shown. AdSense then ignores clicks from pages other than those specified.

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Problems with Our Health Care System

Given the enormous amount of money that is spent on our health care system and the research that has gone into the various diseases we would be excused if we think that there should be able to trust our health care system to deliver quality health care. Sadly, our Western health care system falls well short of what is desired. Instead of healing and health it largely delivers suffering and further disease. Mendelssohn as far back as 1979 (and he wasn't the first to suggest it) considers that the public has been 'conned' about the benefits delivered by 'scientific medicine'. There is a great deal of myth that surrounds our current system.

A part of the myth is that medical practice has produced an overall increase in health in the past one hundred years. However, historical analysis has found that general improvements in social and environmental conditions provide a more adequate explanation of the changes than the rise of 'scientific medicine'. Factors such as the improvement in diet and nutrition, sanitation and improved general living conditions have made the greatest difference.

Hospitals are deadly. Mistakes/errors, accidents, infections, medical drug disasters, diagnostic equipment including; X-rays, ultrasounds and mammograms make hospitals very dangerous. Hard technology has taken over the central role in modern medicine as it is considered effective and efficient. This has however been questioned. It is considered uneconomic and it also causes an unnecessary amount of pain and suffering. Accidents in hospitals now occur more frequently than in any other industry except mining and high rise construction. In addition to this are the medical doctor caused diseases. They are so common that they have their own name - iatrogenesis. Again the general public is unaware of how common this disease is. All told, iatrogenesis accounts for 784,000 deaths each year in the United States - more American deaths than all the wars of the 20th century combined. 98,000 deaths a year are caused by medical errors alone, and surgical errors account for another 32,000 deaths. These figures include only deaths. Officials admit that medical errors are reported in official data only 5 percent of the time, so the problem is much greater - exactly how much greater, no one really knows.

Research carried out in Australia showed that the equivalent of a jumbo jet load of people died unnecessarily died each week in Australia because of medical interventions - this information was contained in an official Health Department report. It was substantially hushed up - because of the potential impact of the information on the general public! We talk about and work to reduce road accidents and we 'ground' airplanes that are shown to have faults - but the general public is generally unaware of the risks that they take when they come under the care of the medical health care system.

Apart from accidents and medical mistakes adverse drug reactions and infections account for many of the incidences of iatrogenesis. Adverse drug reactions are very common. Some of these reactions can be minor but they can also be deadly. There are five main groups into which these adverse reactions can be placed. Those that:

* adversely affect the blood cells,
* cause toxicity in the liver,
* damage the kidneys,
* affect the skin, and
* affect the unborn baby.

The hazardous side effects listed here do not include allergic reactions or medication errors, but rather the effects of the drugs themselves. Out of the 2.2 million cases of serious adverse reactions to drugs each year, authorities have listed four types of drugs as being the worst offenders for adverse reactions. These are antibiotics (17%), cardiovascular drugs (17%), chemotherapy drugs (15%), analgesics/anti-inflammatory drugs (15%). 198 drugs were approved by the FDA from1976 through 1985 and over 50 percent had serious post-approval reactions. Many adverse reactions were discovered during clinical trials and were covered up by pharmaceutical manufacturers in order to get FDA approval. The FDA is also far from blame free when it comes to giving approval for drugs that have serious reactions. The whole drug approval process has many problems and cannot be relied upon to protect the public from dangerous drugs.

Antibiotics are no longer working on many extremely dangerous bacteria or they only work in doses that that cause serious side effects. The development of these antibiotic resistant 'superbugs' is in the order of a crisis. In the years following the introduction of antibiotics they were (and still are) used for the treatment of common colds and flu and other complaints. Antibiotics, such as tetracycline were used (and still are) over long periods of time for the treatment of acne. Ampicillin and bactrim were used for the wrong reasons and there has been a reliance on antibiotics to treat recurrent bladder infections, chronic ear infections, chronic sinusitis, chronic bronchitis and non-bacterial sore throats. The UK office of health Economics in 1997 (cited in Chaitow) reported the following statistics:

· 5,000 people are being killed every year (in UK hospitals alone) by infections that they caught in hospital.

· A further 15,000 deaths are being contributed to by the infections that they caught in hospital.

· One in 16 patients who goes to hospital for anything will develop a 'hospital acquired infection'.

· Many of the infections acquired involve the difficult to treat 'superbugs'.

· USA figures published more than a decade ago show that 1 in 10 patients develops an infection that they caught in hospital - this involves around 2.5 million people every year.

· Every year 20,000 of these people die from their infections and the deaths of a further 60,000 are contributed to by the hospital acquired infection - a large number of these involve antibiotic resistant 'superbugs'.

The current approach of our health care system is ineffective and can potentially cause more harm and damage than the original condition. Although undoubtedly many lives have been saved by timely medical intervention much medical intervention is unnecessary and alternatives, which don't cause the same devastation, are available. Everyone needs to consider the way they interact with the medical system. Try to avoid the health care system if you can and certainly question your medical practitioner very carefully about any intervention they wish to make. Many will not like this questioning and just want to be seen as the 'all knowing, all wise doctor' - but this they are not! Do not be conned and do not buy into myths about the medical profession and health care.

Having said this it is important that if you are currently taking medication that you don't suddenly stop. Seek information, discover alternatives and discuss changing you approach to health care with a health professional. If your current medical practitioner is uninformed about alternatives (as many are) or unwilling to discuss these with you (as many are) then you may need to seek a different health professional who is prepared to help you improve your health rather than just use medical drug prescriptions or surgery!

By:
- Dr Jenny Tylee

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