Saturday, January 28, 2006

Scholarships for Meritorius Students

Scholarships for Meritorius Students

Of late, one of my friend was looking out for some educational loans in Canara Bank for the admissions to Engineering coming year. While we browsed the Internet and were flipping through the various weekly magazines, we came across this nice educational foundation, helping needy students.

I wanted to share this information to other readers too.

Sri M. Siva Ram Prasad
BREAD,401, Diamond House Adjacent to Amrutha Hills
Punjagutta
Hyderabad-500 082

BREAD stands for Basic Research Education and Development Society. If somebody of your colleague needs educational assistance, write to the above for a free application form and for further details.



Updated on 4th February 2006:

I came across from a private YahooGroups regarding one more educational scholarship philanthropist. The details are here under:

Mr.S.Ramanathan,
17 North St,
Kalai Nagar,
Madurai-625 014

Telephone : 91-452-2640678

Email:ramrajam2002@yahoo.com

Prerequisites:

  1. The candidate must be minimum at high school level.
  2. Only for poor and econonimically challenged candidates, the scholarship is given. The annual family income must be less than 38000 INR (Indian Rupees) in urban areas and 26000 INR (Indian Rupees) in rural areas.

Other Features:

  1. The scholarship is given by North South Foundation of United States of America. Your may visit NSF Website from here.
  2. The scholarship mostly covers upto 100 per cent of the tuition expenses and normally comes to the tune of five to ten thousand rupees per year.
  3. If called for an Interview, fifty per cent of the travel cost would be reimbursed.

Friday, January 27, 2006

Nice Quotations in MTC Buses in Chennai

Nice Quotations in MTC Buses in Chennai

While travelling to work today, I was observing some nice quotations stuck in the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) buses in Chennai. MTC buses here and trains are known for propagating the quotes that are quite obscene and sometimes bit adult-sensitive too.

Some good samaritian local television channel actor, who I have been observing for a while, in the metro media seems to be doing this social service like spreading New Year Wishes etc. This guy, named VimalaVasan seems to be really spending his good time, money and energy in doing this good social service in almost a significant number of buses, which are the best medium to reach the good thoughts to the wide depth of people.

Let us wish him all success in every sphere of life.

Cricket -- Game of Ricket on Indian Economy

Cricket -- Game of Ricket on Indian Economy

I am just trying to address this discussion on the game of cricket from the perspective of India. Perhaps as a reader and if you share similar views from your country, please update them as comments.

It is high time that the game of cricket be seriously considered whether it is going to be a merit for India. The sportive game of cricket, as the time of Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil, I apprehend, is starting to get etch in the pages of history.

As a reader in this discussion forum at Rediff suggested, Indian Cricket Team are proving time and again that they are only tigers in talking and not in achieving.  This is just a personal comment and perhaps all the related CCIs like BCCI, ICCI etc can see whether some corrective actions could be implemented for these lapses.

  1. "Barking dogs seldom bite", "Empty Vessels make more noise" are well known sayings in English. Our cricket team gives so much of press meet, promises and assurances but when the real match comes, the tangible winning cups seems to be only in Utopia.
  2. During test matches, all Internet Connection and bandwidth of broadband pipes are just wasted down the drain for the score card which is anyway, ultimately does not give a happiness that our country has won the cup.
  3. Related to Point Number (1), cellular communications too are jammed of SMS Traffic.
  4. Productivity of the staff are severely hampered in many organizations as the employees stay glued to either Internet or Shared Television sets watching the cricket matches, without concenterating on the work.

It is true that there is only some marginal advertisement profits from these cricket game nowadays, which is afflicted with so much rampant corruption throughout. It is high time that the nation's administration wakes up to see the internal workings of this age-old game and recover it from the shackles that it currently suffers from.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

57th Republic Day of India

57th Republic Day of India

India humbly steps into 2006 and celebrates its 57th Republic Day, today, the 26th of January, 2006. 2005 has been a testing time for India both from the Nature front with a series of Tsunami Tidal Tragedies, Earthquakes and continuing terrorist attacks at the borders.

  • Letz pray to Lord Almighty, for the benefit of our motherland to see a peaceful and prosperous 2006 from this 57th Republic Day.
  • Letz take this moment, to recollect the Golden words of Poet (Mohemmad Iqbal) in his Sare Jahan Se Acha, which celebrates India greatly.

The poem describes India as the best amongst the countries in the World and celebrates its citizens as nightingales and the country as our garden.  The highest mountain neighbour (Western Ghats, Himalayas etc) to the skies stands guards to the nation. Hundreds and thousands of rivers, rivulets and distributaries add to the beauty of the nation and our country has not failed to elicit the envy of the heaven too. Religions are aplenty over our nation, which don't teach hatred among each other. We are all Indians and India is our homeland.

Sare Jahan Se Acha Hindo'Stam Hamara |
Hum bul bule Hai is kee, ye' Gul Sitaam Hamara ||

Parbat vo Sabse Uncha Hum Saayaa Aasmaa Ka |
Vo Santaree Hamaaraa, Vo Paas Baa Hamaaraa ||

Go'Dee Me'Khe'L Tee Hai Is Kee Hazaaro' Nadiya |
Gulshan Hai Jin Ke' Dam se' Ras Ke Jina Hamaaraa ||

Maj Hab Nahee Sikaata Aapas Me Bhyr Rakhna |
Hindi Hai Hum, Vatan Hi Hindosta Hamara ||

Floating ATM -- New Innovations Galore from Premiere Bank of India


Floating ATM -- New Innovations Galore from Premiere Bank of India

Today being a holiday, by virtue of Republic Day, i was casually surfing on and on and on. I found this nice information, though bit old but I just thought it is really informative and would be useful to everyone.

With plethora of private banks ushering in with novelty of services on display and diversified marketing tactics being deployed, it is heartening that country's old premiere and trusted bank by name, State Bank of India, is also committed to introduce new and innovative channels in Banking.

The country's first (and perhaps world's first!) floating ATM, owned and managed by State Bank of India and carried by Kerala Transport Inland Navigation System owned passenger ferries. The ferries have the carrying capacity of 5000 passengers per day from Ernakulam to Vyapeen Islands in 30 trips.

Perhaps, you can check out this 'The Hindu Business Line' article for more detail.

Saturday, January 21, 2006

[Imported from Blogdrive]Ayyappa Suprabhatam and Harivarasam from my personal homepage

Ayyappa Suprabhatam and Harivarasam from my personal homepage
Swamiye Saranam Ayyappa! A friend of mine was kind enough to forward me the lyrics and meanings of Ayyappa Suprabhatham and I would like to share it with the readers too. Feel free to visit my website at http://www.lavanyadeepak.tk/
The Ayyappa Suprabhatam and Harivarasanam are automatically controlled by my website.
Observations:

You would see the lyrics of Ayyappa Suprabhatam when you visit my website URL between 3 AM and 4 AM in the morning.
You would see the lyrics of Harivarasanam when you visit my website URL between 23 hours and 23:10 in night.
All timings in your own timezone.
Harivarasanam is also accompanied by a streaming audio. Hence please have your speakers turned on to listen to the audio.
Please allow your Popup Blocker to enable popup windows for this website. The two songs open up in a new popup window.
Also visit my exclusive sabarimala pilgrimage service website http://www.saranamayyappa.tk/ and send in your comments and suggestions for the same.<!--
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        Posted at 11:58 am by Deepak Kumar Vasudevan
 

 

 

 

  Original BlogDrive Post on Saturday, January 21, 2006

Nemili Bala (Tripura Sundari) Temple



Nemili Bala (Tripura Sundari) Temple

A calm and poised atmosphere near Vellore, the most elegant town of Tamil Nadu in the district of Arakkonam is a village called Nemili. Seated in her own house, Sri Bala Tripura Sundari has been incessantly showering her blessings on Her devotees for several years.

I have also heard of Her temple from my relatives but it is a significant truth cum stipulation that unless the Lordess wishes you to see you, it is becoming almost next to impossible to go to this temple. Even to search information on the website, I think, I could not locate it till now and just reached a YahooGroups website NemiliBala. I wanted to share a few info about this temple so that other pilgrims too can get benefitted by praying to the Lordess for Her darshan and blessings.

Other temples of Tripura Sundari:

  1. Thiruvanmiyur
  2. Tri Soolam
  3. Thirukazhunkundram
  4. Thiruvathiai
  5. Sirkazhi

History of the Temple/Sthala Varalaru:

The significance of Bala Tripura Sundari unlike Her other temples enlisted above is that the Lordess is a small nine-year old girl named as 'Bala'. The house, She resides has been named as Bala Peetam.

It was in the dream of Shri Subramania Iyer, that the Lordess commanded about one hundred years ago, to take Her idol to his hometown when She would be floating in the flood of the river Kushasthalai. For about three days, Shri Subramania Iyer searched the backyard of his home and the river banks but in vain. The next day, he got hold of the three-inch bronze idol in the river, which he consecrated and placed in the center of his house, which is now currently the Bala Peetam. The prime diety of this temple is Raja Rajeswari, the family deity of the pundits over there. The deity Bala Thirupura Sundari has supposed to come on earth as a child goddess out of pure affection and not devotion.

Being a child god, the devotees are expected to only think of thier wish and pray for the same to Her instead of diverting the focus and attention on the offerings that are being intended to be made. Such distractions, which are often on par bargains, are supposed to make the diety feel bad and it is a humble request for the devotees to observe this fact.

The temple has also been conducted with Poojas by Sri Kanchi Paramacharya in 1945 along with his religious group for three full days.

It was Thirumuruga Kripananda Variyar, who told the following quotes "I see in this great peetam, the collection of all our Gods on earth".

Temple Practices:

Since the diety is a child, the prasadam is chocalates and biscuits. The devotees are given only chocalates. The decoration or the alankaram of the diety also is a pretty simple plain vanilla small silk pavadai. The Bala Peetam abode is better known as a home rather than as temple.

The contents of this message has been based from devotees messages at http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/nemelibala/ and has been formatted as a service to the Lordess and Her devotees.

Temple Address:

Bala Temple Address:
Nemili Sri Bala Peetam,
No:22, Chatiram Street,
Nemeli,
Vellore District,
Pin: 631051

Telephone: +91-4177-247216

Accessibility:

  • 20 Kms from Kanchipuram
  • 20 Kms from Arakkonam.

Good Online HTML Editor

Good Online HTML Editor

One of my friend sent me Ayyappa Suprabatam lyrics and I wanted to share the same with my readers too. A more description about this and the URL is available in http://www.deepak.blogdrive.com/

As I was typing this from an Internet Kiosk, which did not have any full-fledged IDE and while looking out for a good HTML editing solution, I came across of this full-fledged online HTML Editor http://www.dynarch.com/projects/htmlarea/.

I think this JavaScript utility would also be very useful for Content Management solutions where we can have a WYSIWYG HTML Editor within the web browser itself.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Makara Sankaranthi Festival

Makara Sankaranthi Festival

Religiously the Sankaranthi stands for the beginning of Uttarayana Punyakalam. It is also observed as Harvest Festival and is festival of joy for agriculturists in Tamil Nadu.  The word Makara indicates the sun entering the Makara (Capricorn) raasi. This year, Makara Sankaranthi is observed on 14th January 2006.

We observe Pongal in three parts in Tamil Nadu.

  1. Bhogi day (Garbage Collection where old things in the home are destroyed and house is rejuvenated and repainted). It is observed on 13th January 2006. Pollution control board has advised not to burn lot of garbage since atmosphere is heavily polluted and takeoffs and landing of flights are affected heavily, which has become annual feature in Tamil Nadu during the Bhogi time.
  2. Pongal day (The actual start of Makara Sankranthi) observed on 14th January 2006. Fresh pot with freshly boiled rice is cooked and with the chanting of Pongalo Pongal the food is dedicated to the the Sun God.
  3. Mattup Pongal Day which is observed on 15th January, 2006 means respecting the dumb animals which have been helping the farmers in thier harvests. These animals include:
    1. Cows and Bullock Carts
    2. Birds
  4. The next day is also observed as Thiruvalluvar Day which means the birth day of Thiruvalluvar, who authored the famous Thirukkural, which is being regarded as the holy book for life throughout the world with translations in almost all languages.

Makara Jyothi

Makara Sankaranthi is also observed with much devotion in Sabarimala. Exactly in the Pongal day evening, the Thiruvabaranam from the Pattanamthitta Palace, where Lord Ayyappa is supposed to have born, is brought in and the idol is decorated. Special Poojas and Deepararadhana is done to the Lord. Exactly at this time, a divine light appears in the neighboring hillock (Ponnambala Medu). It is said the Devas do pooja for the Lord and it is that light which appears as the Makara Star in the sky.

Two year, Jaya TV has been doing a divine service by live telecasting this throughout the world and we hope they are doing this year too.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

The e-Presence of our Telecom Minister

The e-Presence of our Telecom Minister

The efforts contributed by our Hon'ble Telecom Minister, Dayanidhi Maran is simply laudable. India is being viewed as fast growing advanced nation in the telecommunications and significantly the good improvements with the state-owned BSNL/MTNL and ushering in and promoting healthy competitions among the private players in the industry.

Just clicking through India Government website and landed on our Telecom Minister's webpage too. Check it out here.

For further reading: Check out TRAI website, which has impressive projects and releases mentioned.