Archive for the ‘Society and Culture’ Category
Friday, July 4th, 2008 |
A quickly increasing number of national celebrities have added their names to a petition calling on the controller of rationing to ban the use of bullocks to pull heavy oil carts through the streets of Mumbai. The petition – which was introduced by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India– has garnered support from Akshaye Khanna, Rahul Khanna, Raveena Tandon, Eesha Koppikar, Arjun Rampal, Rahul Dev, Avanti Birla, Sandiip Sikcand and others.
Following PETA’s complaints, even the oil companies have issued letters to the controller of rationing through the Maharashtra state level coordinator, Shri R.K. Panda of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd., asking for bullock-pulled oil carts to be discontinued. And now, Justice C S Dharmadhikari (Retd. Judge of the Bombay High Court), the chairman of the Committee to Monitor Animal Welfare Laws in Maharashtra, has asked the controller what action he plans to take.
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Posted in Actors and Actresses, Human Behavior | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 |
Dattatreya Siva Baba, a siddha master and mystic guru with a rapidly growing fan base on YouTube, is a believer in both miracles and divine intervention. His followers agree, having been won over by him and also by the miracles they say result from his teachings.
This time, however, Baba, as he is known to YouTubers, has proclaimed that ‘Grace Light’ is coming and it will do what nobody has been able to do, in the history of mankind, namely: remove anxiety, disease, and problems. Baba plans to welcome the ‘Grace Light’ with a 20-city tour, beginning in New York City on July 2 and continuing across the United States, Asia and Australia. In each city, he says he will ‘transmit Grace Light’ for physical, mental and emotional healing. Along the way, interested participants will also learn how to transmit this ‘Grace Light’ and become healers for their communities.
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Posted in Religion and Faith | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 |
Are India’s female fetuses and babies vanishing at an alarming rate? Ten years after a law was passed in India, banning doctors from discussing the gender of a fetus with the parents following an ultrasound test, some Indian doctors not only continue to break that law, but even perform abortions if the parents decide to get rid of a female fetus.
Now, Indian-American author Shobhan Bantwal takes us into a world where the corrupt and covert practice of gender-selective abortion still thrives, in her second novel, The Forbidden Daughter, scheduled for release by Kensington Publishing on August 26, 2008.
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Posted in Literature and Arts | No Comments »
Thursday, June 19th, 2008 |
Bold. Brash. Sophisticated. Key Closet, the explosive clothing brand that’s taken the fashion world by storm, announces its new $10,000 Jeans, the ultimate evolution in premium denim. With over 1,000 Swarovski crystals on each pair, plus hand-drawn designs and one-carat diamonds on each back pocket, the $10,000 Jean is sure to be the most coveted accessory of the summer.
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Posted in Fashion | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 |
Parthasarathy Sudarshan, 47, the owner of an international electronics business, was sentenced today in the District of Columbia to 35 months in prison for his role in a conspiracy to illegally export controlled electronic components to government entities in India that participate in the development of ballistic missiles, space launch vehicles, and fighter jets.
On March 13, 2008, Sudarshan, a resident of Simpsonville, South Carolina, pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to the felony charge of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Export Administration Regulations; and to violate the Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Sudarshan was sentenced today by the Honorable Ricardo Urbina.
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Posted in Companies, Law | No Comments »
Monday, June 16th, 2008 |
The Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF), the oldest Sikh American civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, in collaboration with Matthew Sarelson of Sarelson, P.A., has filed a class action religious discrimination lawsuit against Walt Disney World Company on behalf of Mr. Sukhbir Channa and the Sikh American community.
Mr. Channa, a practitioner of the Sikh religion, applied for a job with Disney in the Fall of 2006 but was not hired and was allegedly told that he did not have “the Disney look” — a negative reference to his religiously-mandated dastaar (Sikh turban). Witnesses have filed affidavits in his support. The lawsuit seeks financial damages and a court order barring Disney from ever discriminating against prospective Sikh employees.
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Posted in North and South America, Religion and Faith | No Comments »
Sunday, June 15th, 2008 |
A book The UFO Experience Reconsidered: Science and Speculation offers perspectives in three basic categories: natural causes, domestic technology, and alien technology. But perhaps more importantly a new way of looking at the phenomena is proposed that has been largely overlooked by other authors, and which finds itself at home in any of these three possibilities. Unlike many books on this subject, even the speculations of this book have a scientific basis.
This book was inspired by, and is loosely based on The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry (1972) by the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek. Dr. Hynek’s book is generally considered to be a classic and the most influential book ever written about UFOs but much has happened since 1972. This new book not only brings us up-to-date, but extrapolates on current science whenever possible.
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Posted in Literature and Arts | No Comments »
Friday, June 13th, 2008 |
Expedite setting up of waste energy projects as there is potential of generating 2500 megawatt of power from urban, municipal and industrial wastes in large cities, besides metro in next 2-3 years to partly meet energy shortages, according to a Study brought out by ASSOCHAM .
The Study on `Mitigating Climate Change : The Indian Perspective’ indicates that about 40,000 million tonnes of solid wastes and 5000 million cubic metre of liquid waste is generated every year in the urban areas of the country which can be suitably recycled for power generation.
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Posted in Commodity and Energy, Environment | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 |
The largest-ever nationwide survey of Indian scientists shows that many are as comfortable with seeking the blessings of the resident Hindu God at Tirupati before a space rocket launch as they are with embracing stem cell research and the theory of evolution.
The study, “Worldviews and Opinions of Scientists in India,” which was released at the United Nations in New York on June 5, was conducted by Professors Ariela Keysar and Barry A. Kosmin of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture (ISSSC) of Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, U.S., with assistance from the Centre for Inquiry India. It sampled 1,100 participants from 130 universities and research institutes in India between July 2007 and January 2008. It is believed to be the first major study of the beliefs of scientists from outside the Judeo-Christian Western tradition.
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Posted in Religion and Faith | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 |
In the interest of sustainable development for times to come, oil major ONGC is making all efforts to become carbon neutral in its oil-field business. This implies that whatever Greenhouse Gases it is necessarily generating to produce Crude Oil & Natural Gas, will be compensated by ONGC’s environment-friendly measures like eco-forestation.
This was communicated to all ONGCians by ONGC’s CMD Mr. R S Sharma, in his address to ONGCians on the Environment Day on 5th June 2008. Speaking on that occasion in ONGC, Mr. R H Khawaja, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Forest & Environment, Govt. of India, emphasized on the need to take substantive action to control carbon emission, rather than, token gestures to save the environment. He appreciated ONGC’s efforts towards Environment Management and strategies drawn to mitigate the GHG emissions.
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Posted in Environment | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 |
Dr Rajnikant Dixit, a post-doctoral fellow at the National Institute of Health, Maryland, USA, claims to have discovered a molecule which can help in checking the spread of malaria.
Currently working in the advanced field of mosquito-parasite interaction biology, Dr Dixit has underlined in his research study that the spread of malarial parasite can be checked through genetic engineering.
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Posted in Human Resource, Research and Development | No Comments »
