Baba Amte, a leading social worker who devoted his life to the care and rehabilitation of leprosy patients, passed away today. Murlidhar Devidas Amte, popularly known as ‘Baba Amte’ (‘baba’ is a honorific and his last name is pronounced as Am’tay) was born on December 1914 in Vidharbha, Maharashtra, India in a wealthy family. Educated with a law degree, he …
→ Read this postIf you saw Canadians surprised over a spring-like December, you ought to see this Toronto Star report about a [tag]freezing [/tag]February. If they said that December 2006 was the warmest in 40 years, so here we have, February 2007 as the [tag]cold[/tag]est in 28 years! The average temperature was -8.4C, which was three degrees colder than normal. That also made …
→ Read this postSince a week, minimum temperatures in [tag]Toronto[/tag], [tag]Canada[/tag] are consistently in negative double digits. For me this is very exciting, but the Canadians don’t like it. This graph shows the forecast for next week. Note that it shows average high [tag]temperature[/tag]s. At night it gets quite cold. (Source: The weather network) Although your face is the only exposed part of …
→ Read this postFaith or easy money? It is incorrect to link scientific and economic progress to people’s faith in religion. As a teenager, I always used to believe that as we make technological progress, people’s faith in God would decrease, and some day eventually ‘God’ would remain as a concept limited to books. How wrong I was. When we shifted to Mumbai, …
→ Read this postI’m trying to call my friend, but his cell phone is unreachable for past 2 days. I call his home and they tell me he is in office, and that he has carried his phone too. Why is he unreachable then? Finally I send him e-mail, asking him to call back. He does. Excerpts: Me: Where the hell are you? …
→ Read this postUnderstanding Indian politics is not simple. Left front (CPI, CPM and other communist parties) constitutes a significant chunk of the ruling UPA alliance governing the centre. Right wing BJP led NDA is the main opposition party. The role of the opposition party is to keep the policies of the ruling government in check and question the basis of all decision …
→ Read this postJet Airways – Air Sahara and Congress – Samajwadi party News is officially out that the Jet – Sahara deal is off the shelf. Many reasons have been cited for the breakdown of takeover by Jet airways, including political ones. While the economic considerations could be valid reason for scrapping deal, the political games that are played behind the scenes …
→ Read this postHundreds of liters of milk is wasted daily in offerings to lord Shiva. This figure spikes every Monday, a day supposedly sacred for Shiva. On Mahashivratri day, while devotees celebrate the marriage of God Shiva and Goddess Parvati, this wastage reaches its highest limits. Devotees compete with each other for offering milk, and sometimes as high as one-hundred-one liters of …
→ Read this postOnce upon a time, the pavements on the road from Flora Fountain to Churchgate station were lined up with a number of booksellers, treasuring thousands of books. The courts ordered their eviction some four months back, a thing I plainly dismissed as ‘unpractical’ and ‘unjust’. They couldn’t be doing this to Mumbai, and it would be a matter of days …
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