It was just for the introduction of a product and to gather publicity such a stunt was done, is it really done in Wildlife interest is challengeable.

The Project tiger was brought directly under the control of the prime minister but has it helped. Does he take a report on a daily basis of what is happening in all the Tiger reserves of India? How many tigers are killed daily and how many poachers were shot in encounters.

There are a lot of strict measures that will be required to be adopted.  Taking the easy way out will not help. People have to learn a lesson the hard way.
If you want to save the tiger, put the poachers alive in the tiger cages.
Move human settlement out of forest areas, national reserves and the Sunderbans. The Sanjay Gandhi National park which is the only national park inside a city is on the brink of collapse due to human settlements inside the forest. Construction has to halted and removed if you want to save the habitat. Did the people who bought houses there did not know they were taking a house inside a reserved area. Now they want the government to protect them against leopard attacks. How mean is this.
Capital punishment has to be given for poaching, food adulteration and drug peddling. See Singapore

Sarsika was the eye opener and it was good of Prime minister to take action and reintroduce tigers there. But we need to go to the figures which were at the turn of the last century. What we do not understand is that we have exceeded the human population the earth can sustain and the ecosystem and natural habitats are disappearing.

Let us hope that the government which wields the power to bring this change does something to really save the Tiger and all the Fauna and Flora and recreate the lost paradise if this civilization has to survive.

They have a varied history to it and have retained thier look and services over the years.

The reason i write about the Best bus services as i read a lot of negative publicity and falk being received by this service. It is by no way close in comparision to the blueline buses of Delhi which are called the killer buses.

I take the priviledge to introduce you some startling facts about it. Every thing has its pros and cons. The prs in comparision to its shortcomings are so many that it overshadows its shortcomings and infact there has never been an effort to address the shortcomings which can be removed by implemeting some good governance.


The first thing is that in the cases in which the Best bus drivers are to be blamed for being involved in a fatal accident is no fact finding is done to who is the culprit and the best bus is blamed. The road conditions are appaling. If we consider the no of people who ruch across the bus and the buses apply breaks to give them another lifer is sufficient evidence for people inside the bus that another life was saved.

If we look at the size proportion of the bus it is a huge vehicle which on the move carries a lot of inertia. If the best bus applies the brakes ad if God forbid anything that does just have a miniscule contact with it is bound to take the full force of the inertia and the results will be fatal. We have to give respect to the buses who ply the road and give it way.

The bus drivers are seated in a top position which makes it difficult for them to see people / small vehicles darting across it. The seats of the drivers are the most unconfortable for such long driving and should be provided with bucket seats. There should be aircondtioning installed so they are at peace and cool while driving so that it makes it a pleasure for them. They have to take care of every small vehicle on the road which tries to show off against it.

The best bust has never been involved in a major accident, drunk driving, running over of innocent people on the pavements. My heart goes out to them and i pay a salute to the drivers who go about their jobs with a smile.
How many of us appreciate the efforts of saying a thank you for making you reach your destination safely.

He was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing Adam noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a khakhi shirt, e, and freshly pressed khakhi slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Adam .

He handed my friend a laminated card and said:

“I’m Wally, your driver. While I’m loading your bags in the trunk I’d like you to read my mission statement.”

Taken aback, Adam read the card. It said:

Wally’s Mission Statement:

To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment.

This blew Adam away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean!

As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, “Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.”

My friend said jokingly, “No, I’d prefer a soft drink.”

Wally smiled and said, “No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice.”

Almost stuttering, Adam said, “I’ll take a Diet Coke.”

Handing him his drink, Wally said, “If you’d like something to read, I have The Times, Sports Illustrated and India Today.”

As they were pulling away, Wally handed my friend another laminated card. “These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you’d like to listen to the radio.”

And as if that weren’t enough, Wally told Adam the best route to his destination for that time of day. He also let him know that he’d be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights or, if Adam preferred, to leave him with his own thoughts.

“Tell me, Wally,” my amazed friend asked the driver, “have you always served customers like this?”

Wally smiled into the rearview mirror. “No, not always. In fact, it’s only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, Wayne Dyer, on the radio one day.

He had just written a book called You’ll See It When You Believe It. Dyer said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you’ll rarely disappoint yourself. He said, ‘Stop complaining! Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don’t be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.’”

“That hit me right between the eyes,” said Wally. “Dyer was really talking about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more.”

“I take it that has paid off for you,” Adam said.

“It sure has,” Wally replied. “My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I’ll probably quadruple it. You were lucky to get me today. I don’t sit at cabstands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. If I can’t pick them up myself, I get a reliable cabbie friend to do it and I take a piece of the action.”

Wally was phenomenal. He was running a limo service out of a Yellow Cab. I’ve probably told that story to more than fifty cab drivers over the years, and only two took the idea and ran with it. Whenever I go to their cities, I give them a call. The rest of the drivers quacked like ducks and told me all the reasons they couldn’t do any of what I was suggesting.

Wally the Cab Driver made a different choice. He decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles.

How about you?

Some Don’ts
1. Never say anything negative. Rephrase to make it positive or in better light.
2. Never start with open-ended conversation. Asking questions which may have multiple correct answers. What are your likes?
3. No discrepancy in data.
4. Don’t repeat same words again and again. E.g. The something, The that thing, The everything
5. Always make bold, don’t underline.
6. Can’t have everything (text) in capitals.
7. Don’t give borders to the slides.
8. No slide should be without header.
9. You do not end a statement in bullets with a full stop. You can only end sentences with a full stop.
10. Should not have repetitions
e.g.: One minute manager.
One minute promises.
One minute keyword.

Over the years she had become good friends with one of the prison caretakers. His job, among others, was to bury those prisoners who died in a graveyard just outside the prison walls. When a prisoner died, the caretaker rang a bell, which was heard by everyone. The caretaker then got the body and put it in a casket. Next, he entered his office to fill out the death certificate before returning to the casket to nail the lid shut. Finally, he put the casket on a wagon to take it to the graveyard and bury it.

Knowing this routine, the woman devised an escape plan and shared it with the caretaker. The next time the bell rang, the woman would leave her cell and sneak into the dark room where the coffins were kept. She would slip into the coffin with the dead body while the caretaker was filling out the death certificate. When the care-taker returned, he would nail the lid shut and take the coffin outside the prison with the woman in the coffin along with the dead body. He would then bury the coffin. The woman knew there would be enough air for her to breathe until later in the evening when the caretaker would return to the graveyard under the cover of darkness, dig up the coffin, open it, and set her free.

The caretaker was reluctant to go along with this plan, but since he and the woman had become good friends over the years, he agreed to do it.

The woman waited several weeks before someone in the prison died. She was asleep in her cell when she heard the death bell ring. She got up and slowly walked down the hallway. She was nearly caught a couple of times. Her heart was beating fast. She opened the door to the darkened room where the coffins were kept. Quietly in the dark, she found the coffin that contained the dead body, carefully climbed into the coffin and pulled the lid shut to wait for the caretaker to come and nail the lid shut.

Soon she heard footsteps and the pounding of the hammer and nails. Even though she was very uncomfortable in the coffin with the dead body, she knew that with each nail she was one step closer to freedom. The coffin was lifted onto the wagon and taken outside to the graveyard. She could feel the coffin being lowered into the ground. She didn’t make a sound as the coffin hit the bottom of the grave with a thud. Finally she heard the dirt dropping onto the top of the wooden coffin, and she knew that it was only a matter of time until she would be free at last. After several minutes of absolute silence, she began to laugh. She was free! She was free! Feeling curious, she decided to light a match to find out the identity of the dead prisoner beside her.

To her horror, she discovered that she was lying next to the dead caretaker.

Many people believe they have life all figured out….. but sometimes it just doesn’t turn out the way they planned it.

Think of a ‘Plan B’ !

We the citizens of India are always basking in the past glory of our ancestors and our rich history. We are doing strong financially and economically but fail where we are looking for better services from the public sector namely the government. The current coalition government of Congress and NCP is doing quite good and hope the people support them in their endeavor.

There are lots to be done and each one has to start by doing their bit. It could be like doing selfless community service. By this I do not mean giving alms to the beggar as it just kills the drive for them to earn a living of dignity. We should build the system of enterprise.

As far as the traffic congestion is concerned, I take it as the topic for discussion for today. Lets look at the example of Calcutta. They have banned hand pulled Rickshaws. It came under a lot of flak but finally the government decision prevailed and for reasons than not it was a good decision. It has taken off the slow moving vehicles that were a roadblock in the movement of fast moving vehicles.

Comparing this with the scenario of Mumbai we are no less different. If we consider ourselves the financial capital then we have to do away with slow moving vehicles, man and animal pulled vehicles for transportation. There are a no of handcarts that ply in Mumbai and they add more to the traffic and congestion rather than ease of life. They will allow faster movement of big vehicles, they shall not hinder in occupying parking hazardously or traversing the lanes in the wrong direction.

We can also bring about pneumatic vehicles which if required can replace hand pulled carts. They will be faster, easier to manage, maneuver. We are also just increasing our dependence on just plain vehicles for movement of goods. We could also look at removing the animal pulled carts. The animals don’t deserve this inhuman treatment and their services could be used best elsewhere. We could still keep the old-fashioned horse carts as they add to nostalgia of the old ways or a leisure ride.

I am sure, banning of handcarts and animal pulled carts will bring a lot of respite to our woes.

Lets look forward to a better Mumbai!!

Tip 2: Decipher between the type of hackers that are attacking you. Experienced hackers will have a more in depth look around when they penetrate your system. They won’t touch much because they know that that won’t add too much to their knowledge. But if you know a hacker’s been in, and some files are messed with, and you have a log of someone guessing passwords to a file or something of that sort, its probably some newbie who’s just starting out. These are the easiest hackers to catch. They usually get so caught up in thoughts like “I’m in!” that they forget the basics, such as work behind a proxy.
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My friend was setting up a webserver once. His first time too, and he wasn’t to anxious to set up some good software to protect against hackers and viruses. He didn’t put up one IDS, and before you know it, the obvious happened. But this time, a newbie had struck. The nice log files showed, bluntly across the screen, multiple instances of a foreign IP address that stood out. Some stupid newbie had tried to login as “uucp” on my friend’s XP computer, with a password of “uucp.” Well, that’s great, but he also had tried the same user/pass combination three times, enough to get himself logged nicely. Even a semi-brainless user with some form of neurological system knows that uucp isn’t a default XP account. Again, excitement toiled this hacker’s brain, and maybe if he hadn’t done that, along with a few other stupid things, he wouldn’t have gotten caught. What other things did he do? Well, lets see. He openned 35 instances of MS-DOS. He tried to clean the printer’s heads, and he edited a .gif in notepad. Then he uninstalled a few programs and installed some html editor, and replaced four files with the words “14P.”
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He might as well have posted his phone number. In a few days, we had tracked him down to a suburban town in Ohio. We let him go, not pressing any charges, because he had done nothing really damaging and had provided me with an example of a moron for this guide.
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Tip 3: Don’t go crazy if you lose data. Chances are, if it was that important, you would have backed it up anyway. Most hackers nowadays wish they were back in 1989 when they could use a Black Box and having a Rainbow Book actually meant something. Most hackers aren’t blackhat, they are whitehat, and some even greyhat. But in the end, most hackers that are in systems aren’t satisfied by looking around. From past experiences, I have concluded that many hackers like to remember where’ve they been. So, what do they do? They either press delete here and there, or copy some files onto their systems. Stupid hackers (yes, there are plenty of stupid hackers) send files to e-mail addresses. Some free email companies will give you the IP of a certain e-mail address’s user if you can prove that user has been notoriously hacking you. But most of the time, by the time you get the e-mail addy it’s been unused for weeks if not months or years, and services like hotmail have already deleted it.
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Tip 4: Save information! Any information that you get from a log file (proxy server IP, things like “14P”, e-mail addresses that things were sent to, etc.) should be saved to a floppy disk (they’re not floppy anymore, I wish I could get out of the habit of calling them that) incase there’s a next time. If you get another attack, from the same proxy, or with similar e-mail addresses (e.g: one says Blackjack 123 @something.whatever and the other says Black_jack_45 @something.znn. com) you can make an assumption that these hackers are the same people. In that case, it would probably be worth the effort to resolve the IP using the proxy and do a traceroute. Pressing charges is recommended if this is a repeat offender.
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Tip 5: Don’t be stupid. If you’ve been hacked, take security to the next level. Hackers do talk about people they’ve hacked and they do post IPs and e-mail addresses. Proof? Take a look at Defcon Conventions. I’ve never gone to one, but I’ve seen the photos. The “Wall of Shame”-type of boards I’ve seen have IPs and e-mail addresses written all over them in fat red, dry-erase ink. Don’t be the one to go searching the Defcon website and find your e-mail address posted on the Wall of Shame board!
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Tip 6: Don’t rely on luck. Chances are, sometime or another, you’re going to be targeted for an attack. Here you can rely on luck. Maybe they’ll forget? Maybe they don’t know how to do it? If you think this way, a surprise is going to hit your face very hard. Another way you could stupidly rely on luck is by saying this: It’s probably just a whitehat. On the contrary, my friend, it’s probably just a blackhat. A blackhat with knowledge stored in his head, ready to be used as an ax. It’s your data. You take the chance.

I’ve been in petroleum pipeline business for about 31 years, currently working for the Kinder-Morgan Pipeline here in San Jose, CA. We deliver about 4 million gallons in a 24-hour period from the pipe line; one day it’s diesel, the next day it’s jet fuel and gasoline. We have 34 storage tanks here with a total capacity of 16,800,000 gallons. Here are some tricks to help you get your money’s worth.


1. Fill up your car or truck in the morning when the temperature is still cool. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground; and the colder the ground, the denser the gasoline. When it gets warmer gasoline expands, so if you’re filling up in the afternoon or in the evening, what should be a gallon is not exactly a gallon. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and temperature of the fuel (gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products) are significant. Every truckload that we load is temperature- compensated so that the indicated gallonage is actually the amount pumped. A one-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for businesses, but service stations don’t have temperature compensation at their pumps.

2. If a tanker truck is filling the station’s tank at the time you want to buy gas, do not fill up; most likely dirt and sludge in the tank is being stirred up when gas is being delivered, and you might be transferring that dirt from the bottom of their tank into your car’s tank.

3. Fill up when your gas tank is half-full (or half-empty), because the more gas you have in your tank the less air there is and gasoline evaporates rapidly, especially when it’s warm. (Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating ‘roof’ membrane to act as a barrier between the gas and the atmosphere, thereby minimizing evaporation) .

4. If you look at the trigger you’ll see that it has three delivery settings: slow, medium and high. When you’re filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to the high setting. You should be pumping at the slow setting, thereby minimizing vapors created while you are pumping. Hoses at the pump are corrugated; the corrugations act as a return path for vapor recovery from gas that already has been metered. If you are pumping at the high setting, the agitated gasoline contains more vapor, which is being sucked back into the underground tank so you’re getting less gas for your money.

Hope this will help ease your ‘pain at the pump’!!!

Japanese save a lot. They do not spend much. Also Japan exports far more than it imports. Has an annual trade surplus of over $100 billions. Yet Japanese economy is considered weak, even collapsing.
Americans spend, save little. Also US imports more than it exports. Has an annual trade deficit of over $400 billion. Yet, the American economy is considered strong and trusted to get stronger.


But where from do Americans get money to spend?
They borrow from Japan, China and even India. Virtually others save for the US to spend. Global savings are mostly invested in US, in dollars.
India itself keeps its foreign currency assets of over $50 billions in US securities. China has sunk over $160 billion in US securities. Japan’s stakes in US securities is in trillions.

Result:

The US has taken over $5 trillion from the world. So, as the world saves for the US, Americans spend freely. Today, to keep the US consumption going, that is for the US economy to work, other countries have to remit $180 billion every quarter, which is $2 billion a day, to the US!

Otherwise the US economy would go for a six. So will the global economy.
The result will be no different if US consumers begin consuming less.

A Chinese economist asked a neat question. Who has invested more, US in China, or China in US? The US has invested in China less than half of what China has invested in US. The same is the case with India. We have invested in US over $50 billion. But the US has invested less than $20 billion in India.

Why the world is after US?

The secret lies in the American spending, that they hardly save. In fact they use their credit cards to spend their future income. That the US spends is what makes it attractive to export to the US. So US imports more than what it exports year after year.

The result:

The world is dependent on US consumption for its growth. By its deepening culture of consumption, the US has habituated the world to feed on US consumption. But as the US needs money to finance its consumption, the world provides the money. It’s like a shopkeeper providing the money to a customer so that the customer keeps buying from the shop. If the customer will not buy, the shop won’t have business, unless the shopkeeper funds him. The US is like the lucky customer. And the world is like the helpless shopkeeper financier.

Who is America’s biggest shopkeeper financier? Japan of course. Yet it’s Japan which is regarded as weak. Modern economists complain that Japanese do not spend, so they do not grow. To force the Japanese to spend, the Japanese government exerted it self, reduced the savings rates, even charged the savers. Even then the Japanese did not spend (habits don’t change, even with taxes, do they?). Their traditional postal savings alone is over$1.2 trillions, about three times the Indian GDP. Thus, savings, far from being the strength of Japan, has become its pain.

Hence, what is the lesson?

That is, a nation cannot grow unless the people spend, not save. Not just spend, but borrow and spend. Dr. Jagdish Bhagwati, the famous Indian-born economist in the US, told Manmohan Singh that Indians wastefully save. Ask them to spend, on imported cars and, seriously, even on cosmetics! This will put India on a growth curve. “Saving is sin, and spending is virtue.”

Before you follow this neo economics, get some fools to save so that you can borrow from them and spend.

He is not alone. Last year, Salt Lake City’s mayor asked public employees to stop supplying bottled water at official events. And now New York has launched a $1 million campaign to encourage people to drink its famously clean public water. Another slap has come from top-notch restaurants, who in reverse snobbery, are refusing to serve bottled water. Only tap water makes it to their expensive menus.

But the worst is coming. Last week, junk food giant Pepsi was forced to admit in the US that its brand of bottled water, Aquafina, is nothing more than tap water. Under pressure, it has even agreed to label its bottles to say precisely this.

The bottled water industry is in damage control mode. But I believe that this scream could easily become a shout as people realise the environmental cost of this product and more importantly, they see the sheer stupidity of paying hugely for something that is readily available.

In our world too, the bottled water industry is growing big time. The demand has increased from 2 million cases in 1990 to an estimated 68 million cases by 2006. But in India, bottled water is growing as an item of necessity: private industry is meeting the drinking water demand left increasingly unfulfilled by public utilities. In most cases, people are paying prices that they cannot afford to because they have no alternative source of clean drinking water.

In India, this water does not come from municipal taps. It comes instead from groundwater that invariably is also used by villagers. Companies simply drill a hole in the ground, pump and clean (sometimes) the water before bottling and then transport it to cities. Simply put, this is the privatisation of drinking water.

The only real cost in this business is the container — plastic bottle and the cost of transportation. The fact is that bottled water is no different from water that should come from our taps. The only difference is that it is packed in plastic and not conveyed in pipelines. But while the rich in India can afford to buy and drink bottled water, the poor cannot. In other words, the rich have the choice and they opt out of the failing municipal systems.

However, what is not said is that water systems in India are failing because the rich in the country, those who can afford bottled water, are still supplied water at tenth of what it costs the municipality. Worse, our wastewater is conveyed and pumped from our homes and even treated (at times). None of this cost is recovered. In other words, it is our subsidy which is leading to poorer and poorer delivery from water agencies. It is we, who have options to drink bottled water, who are failing the system.

I am not even talking here of the mountains of plastic waste of this industry, which we use but don’t pay for. I am talking here of the imperative that we should fix water for all in all taps. Water in bottles costs the earth everywhere.