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RG nonpolitical views

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People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, ( PETA) known for their campaigns against animal cruelty, have put up an advertisement just outside one of America’s top ranked universities, calling on students to drink beer instead of milk.




The ad which gives scientific reasons for PETA’s claims is modelled after the ‘Got Milk?’ ad campaign which promoted milk consumption, and is titled ‘Got Beer?’. It says that while milk causes osteoporosis by depleting bone mass, beer actually protects bones from going brittle.

The genuineness of such ads is questionable.

These ads are made by the top notch companies to seize the market with the help of the scientific and medical team in their pay rolls to certify such things. This has happened and is happening in several cases, later on to be countered by experts
 
I hope all of you enjoyed your Deepavali to the hilt and must now be enjoying the after Deepavali indigestion as well. If not, you haven't enjoyed it in full.

This year's Deepavali has been a disappointment for students and the government employees, since it fell on Saturday-Sunday, the regular weekly holidays, depriving many of an extra holiday for Deepavali.
 
Let us congratulate the Indian hockey team for annexing Asian Champions Trophy

And also Sania for retaining World No. 1 status for second successive year in tennis
 
Are we worthy of our Jawan's sacrifice? When they are giving their lives for the nation, what is it that we give for our nation for return? Are we sincere as Indians and do our duties to our mother country? We are indulging in petty infighting, corruption, evasion of payment of taxes, indulging in raping, murdering for petty causes, cheap and dirty tricks of cheating, stealing and what not. We do not think for a moment of the great sacrifice these jawans do for our sake, but simply write it off as their fate. If they are lax even for a minute, that will change the fate of the entire country. Let us remember that and be the citizens of this country worthy of their sacrifice.
 
Northeast monsoon sets in over Tamil Nadu. News

Welcome news. At least till the monsoon is over, for the next few months, I believe that it will be a smooth run for those who travel from Tamilnadu to Bangalore and viceversa.
 
State directs bus drivers to wear helmets:


Bus passenger hit by stone dies:

News:

It is not enough if bus drivers alone are directed to wear helmets. That rule should preferably be extended to the bus passengers as well. It will be safe if pedestrians also wear helmets in the present situation where stones are freely available for the agitating parties to hurl on anybody and everybody!

Roaring business for helmet manufacturers. Probably those who have mastered the art of throwing stones at all and sundry indulge in this act just to promote helmet business!
 
Three TN youths held for forcing nine-year-old boy to drink liquor. News

I don't understand what sort of a pleasure these youths derive by compelling a young boy to drink liquor. Some youths when they join as a group, think they are above law and start behaving in the most irresponsible way in public. Such instances are rampant and so far as this youth's group psychology is within limits, it can be excused as their pranks. When it exceeds the limit of decency, they have to be taken to task. It is usual to see a group of college boys harassing and teasing the girls and women travelling in the bus as if it is their birth right. Stringent action is called for in preventing this mental aberration of youths in groups. Parents have an important role to play in the breeding of their children.
 
Off the track

Every festival in our country is associated with a particular God or Goddess and being humans, we made the festivals more enticing and appealing by some rituals followed by some eatables specific for particular Gods. Vinayaka Chathurthy means, immediately, more than Vinayaka, it is the Kozhukattai that comes to your mind. Gokulashtami means seedai, murukku , Navarathri loses its glamour without sundal and Deepavali means an assortment of sweets and savouries and so on. Lord krishna was fond of butter and about other Gods we don't have any specific information. What we like, we offer to God and so there us nothing wrong in our preferences of offering to the Gods depending upon the season and availability of the ingredients. A special prayer to Hanuman goes with Vadaimalai, Bajanai means sundal and so on. In the good old days, these festivals were the sole occasions when these specific Bakshanas will be prepared at home and the festival gets fulfilled only by offering these things to the Gods or Goddesses concerned and then consuming them religiously. Children, why children alone, adults and old also used to await the festivals mostly for this purpose. So the festivals were something of extraordinary interest for most of us except of course to the ladies in the house who however associate these eatables with the sanctity of the festival and so unmindful of the troubles involved, start preparing them most sincerely prior to these festive days. But to day the case is different. Any of these snacks and eatables are available round the year in shops and there is no need for one to wait for the festivals to satisfy one!'s cravings. Anytime one can purchase these things and enjoy and this one aspect has taken the thrill away from most of the festivals. In addition, the present day ladies are not conversant with the preparation of these varieties and it has now become the exclusive privilege of a few enter into a contract with famous shops for supply of the snacks on a regular basis. Thus it has become a money minting profession for many ladies. The rush in such stalls dealing with sweets and savouries during festival times is mind boggling and unbelievable. Still since Sundal and Hanumar Vasai are not seriously marketed, these things have an attraction and I know cases where people pray to Hanuman to garland him with a Vadaimalai of some specific numbers for the simple reason they have a craving for those vadas. During Bajanai times sundal is offered in many cases which attracts a sizeable crowd. Even for such occasions, there are individuals now who place a bulk order with some shops or persons who do it on a contract basis. The unfortunate thing is that this culinary art has become a profession and most of the present day ladies and gents have totally written off this great art. So an art that came from mother to daughter from generation to generation has changed colours and has become a thing of the past. Today i find that there are already classes to teach bread baking, cake making, icing and so on and the day is not too far off when classes for the various snacks will also be conducted. Already our TVs are all doing it everyday everywhere. But most ladies being employed, these TV shows are seen only by those home makers who stay at home, noting down the recipe and trying them at home at our risk. This is a great art and should not be allowed to die.
 

[h=5]Guruswamy Ramachandran[/h]29 mins ·









Using a loo in a mall can apparently be an ‘exclusive’ experience provided you have big bucks. A shopping centre in Viman Nagar, Pune, is said to be offering visitors entry to their ‘exclusive loos’ if they spend a certain amount of money on shopping or happen to own a car. Of course there are other loos for the visiting public. But what can be so special about this exclusive loo?
Nothing great. This is one way of fooling people.


 
A cat has nine lives. Here is an in ident stranger than fiction.
Shekar Goud is truly destiny’s child. Having been pronounced dead after a road accident in 2006, his ‘body’ remained unclaimed. Nine hours later, he regained consciousness only to find himself in the mortuary of a government hospital in Nalgonda, Telangana. He had been lying in the mortuary for nine hours! It was hunger pangs that made Shekar walk out of the mortuary much to the shock and surprise of the people in the hospital. “When I woke up hungry after nine hours in the mortuary, the dead bodies around me scared me. I was not sure where I was, so I walked out to everyone’s surprise,” he recalls.




www.thehindu.com
thehindu.com
 
India is the second largest number of tobacco users in the world. Nearly 27.5 crores of adults here consume tobacco in its varied forms knowing pretty well that it causes severe health problems like cancer. It is very unfortunate that while this awareness has weaned away many smokers from smoking, in India it doesn't seem to have made even a dent. The most unfortunate part of it is some of the women in high circles and college girls also fall in this trap as a matter of fashion. Woe unto them. Every government so far has been increasing the tax on tobacco products in its annual budget to discourage people from using tobacco oroducts. When that is the case, I don't understand why the GST tax tobacco products is kept so low now? There is a spurious argument that beedis being used by the poor, the rates have been reduced in order to help them. Probably government wants to reduce the population of the poor this way. In the interest of the overall public health of the nation, as advised by experts, the tax rate should be increased to 40% or more.






26 per cent GST on tobacco will encourage smoking: Experts
Tobacco uses also extracts enormous health and economic costs on the country.
deccanchronicle.com
 
Stalked girl ends life, 2 youths held in Warrangal Urban. News

Not a day passes without the news of girls tortured or committing suicide as a result of stalking or jilted love. While the girls' parents are concerned over this issue, there was a talk show in Vijay with the girls opposed to stalking and one sided love against boys who support it. Most of the boys who supported their side were dirty stupid. The judges for the show were a cine director and a cine lyricist both supporting one sided love and giving idiotic suggestion to confuse the ladies. If a show of this nature is organised, one of the judges must be a dispassionate thinker and not the one who tinkers and makes money fooling the young.
 
Campaign to boycott popcorn in multiplexs of Hyderabad
I think the same thing must be true with all multiplexes over the country.
"It is no less than a mafia, the actual cost of these packs of popcorn should be not more than Rs 50, that includes various other costs involved, and vendors can charge Rs 20 or Rs 30 more, but they are charging 300 per cent of the cost. One average show at one screen has at least 200 people and if 100 people buy this popcorn, they easily make Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 in one show; vendors are earning in lakhs per day,” says Mr Shashank Agarwal, a chartered accountant. Since no edibles or even drinking water are permitted to be brought into the theatre premises, this amounts to exploitation. When they allow it, that creates a mess. So some sort of a via media must be arrived at.
Instead the justification given by the vendors is when there are people prepared to purchase at any price, why should they reduce the price. They are right. For three hours can't one control his tongue or stomach? If a large number of people avoid them, only then the vendors will see reason. Till then it will be their market. When fools and bigwigs are there to purchase at any price, will the vendors reduce the price? It seems per show these people make Rs 15,000/-to 20,000/-. But I don't understand whether and how they escape the clutches of the IT department.
 
probably most of you may have similar experiences


The spelling muddle

The muddle with my name persisted and I was caught unawares when I got my Doctorate degree. I found to my utter dismay that my name was spelt as Guruswami in the degree certificate instead of Guruswamy. Immediately I rushed to the Madras university registrar's office and preferred a complaint stating that my name was wrongly spelt in the degree certificate and that it should be corrected. I was told to bring my Master's or Bachelor's degree certificate or at least my SSLC book as evidence before taking up the correction. I went back and verified all my certificates and other official records ONLY TO FIND THAT IT WAS EITHER GURUSWAMI or GURUSAMI or GURUSAMY with varying spellings in each one of them and NO WHERE it was correctly written as GURUSWAMY, a spelling which I have been using right from my childhood when I learnt to write my name in English.


SO TODAY I AM LIVING WITH SO MANY SPELLINGS FOR A SINGLE NAME, LIKE SO MANY NAMES FOR A SINGLE GOD.

( Again at the time of green card application, I had to go through this problem. In India, we give scant regard for spelling. When I applied for ration card, my name was printed in the ration card as Kuruswami. If foreigners have some problem in following our name and spelling, it is understandable, but our own people working in responsible positions making such stupid mistakes is ridiculous. In the voter card, my wife's name was written as Geethalakshmi, whereas I have very clearly given it as G.Seethalakshmi. I don't know what to say)
 
Approval granted for opening seventeen more engineering colleges in TN: Dr S.S. Mantha, AICTE Chairman. News


There are more engineering seats than students

Many seats in many colleges are falling vacant year after year

There are far less teachers than required

Of them there are only a few who are fully qualified

Buildings are imposing, but the infrastructure is disappointing

The fees are staggering and the facilities are discouraging

These colleges pour out graduates like peanuts from bags

most of whom are either underemployed or unemployed

Still we find more colleges are mushrooming

and AICTE granting permission to start more and more colleges

unmindful of the fate of the products from these colleges.

These colleges have become mere BUSINESS VENTURES AND NOT EDUCATIONAL CENTRE
 
In the present context of air pollution in Delhi, air purifiers seem to enjoy a boom in selling.
Do air purifiers keep out pollution?


Today the subject of air pollution is assuming significance because we are facing this problem in metropolitan and industrial areas. We may reach a stage in which we may have to advise people that if they want to live, they should stop breathing! There are out door standards for air available and no such standard has been set for indoor air. Indoor air can get polluted by the outdoor air itself and you would have observed that by keeping all the doors and windows closed. Still your house accumulates fine dust. Shutting all doors and windows amounts to something worse than incaraeration. ACs help to a small extent and are no substitutes for natural ventilation. When outside air is polluted even natural ventilation carries pollution inside homes. The remedy seems to be worse than the malady. Will air purifiers solve this problem? The companies say "they do". That is their survival mantra. How can any one definitely say that air purifier improves the air inside when no standards have been set ? Then how do they measure the efficiency of the unit. From the experience of some, if it is authentic, we may say it may be helpful, but its acceptance as a unit for air purification, until it is scientifically measured and proved, is only hypothetical. It may help the companies only to market them among people who are not well informed.
 
Former Anna University V-C gets five years jail in graft case. News




As a former alumnus of Anna University and as a staff member who have worked for thirty three years in that University, I am ashamed to see this news of one of its former VC getting arrested on charges of graft. Fortunately for me, I had not known him nor had I seen him for he had come to occupy that chair after my retirement. Whatever it be, is it not a shame that a person holding the highest academically honoured position, who should be a role model to the academicians and students should stoop to this level and get arrested.? It seems he swindled Rs 40,000/- and is imprisoned for 5 years. I immediately started calculating how long will people get imprisoned if they swindle in crores as in the 2G case? Mind boggling. I leave it to you to decide
 
Two Kannada actors drown during film shoot. News

Many professions are associated with what we call "occupational hazards" . It is most unfortunate that two dupe actors gave up their life because of inadequate safety measures observed. Of course in pictures we have seen dupes performing unbelievable acts of heroism on behalf of the heroes, doing extremely dangerous fire rescues, stunts, jumping from hill tops, all for the thrill of the viewers. So far as it goes on well, no problem. It receives applause and it is the hero who gets the cake. What the poor dupe gets is proportionately nothing. This is a real occupational hazard of the dupes and in some cases for the daring actors, be they heroes or villains. At times viewing a picture itself is an occupational hazard for some. It is necessary that suitable provisions should be made and precautions taken for which the director and producer of a film should be held responsible. This is not the first incident in cine industry and we have seen serious accidents causing injuries to those involved including death. What is an entertainment for the public should not turn out to be a tragedy for the family concerned.
 
Longevity of humans has significantly increased in the past century, thanks to advancements made in biochemistry, medicine, bioengineering and so on. Everyone wants to live for ever and in that direction, research work is being carried out. In a lighter vein, if suppose we have succeeded in increasing our longevity for a thousand years, what will be the consequences? Will there be enough space for the logarithmic growth of the population. Already many parts of the world feels the pinch of the population explosion and any further encroachment of nature by the bourgeoning population will destroy nature and thus destroy itself. Imagine an Indian joint family system. There will be grand grand grand grand grand ... parents with thousands of grand grand grand grand.... children all living in the same house, each one as big as a town and identifying and locating each in the household will be a challenging problem. Suppose the man is thousand years old and has been a government servant, the pension that he receives may drain the exchequer. You extend your imagination and you will come to the conclusion that increasing the longevity is no achievement, but making people live an honourable life within the stipulated period of hundred years is THE REAL ACHIEVEMENT.


Can a human live up to a thousand years?
How long does an average human live? In 1900 the average life expectancy of humans across the world was 31 years, and today it is about 68. This improvement is largely due to the fact that death-causi
thehindu.com
 
Suicides:
Nowadays we find daily some or other news about someone committing suicide. The number of youngsters committing suicide seems to be on the increase, particularly among students. From first standard to twelfth, for reasons as flimsy as the teacher rebuking them, the parents chiding them, poor performance in the exam, fellow student bullying and teasing, failure in the exams etc seem to be the cause or causes of suicides. I find a number of students doing their engineering committing suicides. Is it because engineering has become so tough or bitter? Some commit suicide because they cannot speak English fluently with their friends who are fluent in English. Among college students, committing suicide is proportionately less compared to the high and middle schoolers. The third category is the young adults. Committing suicide because of love failure, one sided love, jilted love, spurned love, stalking and groping seems to be increasing on alarming proportions. Of late, they are assuming menacing proportions and the affected party, mostly adults, assault and even murder their love in their frenzy. In recent days the suicide rate seems to shoot up among the IT staff, particularly ladies working there. Since there are several high rise buildings coming up in Chennai, these provide enough berths for people to commit suicide from the first to the uppermost floors by staff and youngsters . The national problem among women seem to be "rape" and the number of rape victims is on the increase. Nirbhaya's was the first case in recent days to attract the attention of the entire country and also the world. But since then, the incidents of rapes and consequent suicide is on the increase only and has not died down.

Suicide due to business loss, not being able to repay loans and failure of crops are other reasons for suicides. The suicide of prisoners is yet another aspect suspected to be due to police excesses and the miserable conditions of the prisons.

Communal carnage also leads to suicides. But those suicides that provide fodder for the political parties to use them for certain political gains are also gaining momentum and parties are very particular about the religion or the community of the one committing suicide because they think they can harvest some bonus out of the bones of the dead. Blowing up small personal incidents into a large scale communal flare up seems to be a favourite political game going unchecked of late.

The only redeeming feature in an otherwise depressing situation is that we very rarely hear about a beggar committing suicide. No beggar is normally attached a communal tag. So I think there is a lesson for all of us to learn from them.
 
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Birthday


I never used to treat my birthdays as special days, because I haven't done anything significant in my lifetime to make it a great day. The birthday greetings however make one feel happy that there are at least a few in this world who know that you exist and that gives one hope though not meaning for existence. Mathematically speaking most of us in this world never exist. Surprised? Of the 800 crores of people in this world, even if you are known to a thousand, the percent of people recognising you is negligible and next to zero. This is the case with most of us and so it means none of us exist and still the world population is bursting in its seams. It is these greetings on the birthdays that tell you that you really exist and that motivates you to be responsive and alive.




I generally do not believe in cutting cakes and blowing off burning candles on one's birthday. As per our custom it is inauspicious to blow off a burning lamp or light. About cakes, no problem. It need not necessarily be cake or for that matter it can be anything else which you like and could be shared with your well wishers. For the first time in my life, my grand daughter prepared a huge cake as a professional baker will do and presented it on my birthday: but no candles and blowing . The child in me came to the surface and I really enjoyed it. Even though it is just one among the many days in my life of no special significance except as I already stated, it takes me old by one more year, of late I have really started enjoying and looking forward to my birthdays for they carry me nearer and nearer to my ultimate destination.
 
Today is the D day for America. After hectic campaign for about a year, one of them, Hillary or Trump is going to lose the election.

But doing nothing and sitting in my chair, when I opened the pages of The Hindu in my ipad, I found that I have lost Thousand Rupees. Yes, I had two five hundred rupee notes with me and consequent to their demonetisation, those two five hundred rupee notes which could easily feed me for ten days in India have become valueless, worthless papers, which even a donkey may not care.
 
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