Is terrorism a part of our life ?

Today some situations have forced me to write about the present condition we are going through. Our life has deeply been infested by the present political as well as economic condition. Every country is trying to boost up the world market status. In this bad phase terrorism has found a good chance to show its power and existence. Excelling all the situations terrorism has raised its arrogant head to prove that he is reining. Terrorist should not have its own race and religion. The recent bomb blast in Marriott Hotel has proved this. We are also counting the number of deaths we have discovered yet from this Mumbai attack.
Now the question comes what is Terrorism? I have taken help of many sources to define the term terrorism

As Lenin said, "The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize."To terrorize means to frighten, and usually for some end, not necessarily political. The truly effective terrorist is able to frighten the greatest number of people - and the living who have been terrorized are the true victims of terrorism. This is one of the reasons the terrorist hits at innocent targets - children, tourists, and the elderly. The helpless target is so much more of a victim, and most people can identify with being victimized in the same way. To the public a random bombing of a school bus full of children is far more threatening than the assassination of a ranking officer in the military? The bombing in Oklahoma City was even more terrifying because it destroyed a day care centre.

Terrorists don’t care the race or religion they belong to. They even harm its raring country also. Everyday they are doing their notorious feats and proclaim their responsibility in the blast, attack etc whatever they do. I have collected some information of the larger attacks we have experienced this year. Losing of life of 10 or 20 people a day is so trivial incident that it needs no explanation. I have left them

On May.13th.2008 in Jaipur of Rajastan (India)
A simultaneous bomb blast at eight different sites, including a crowded shopping site and a Hanuman temple, a self-styled Indian Mujahideen, (a collaboration of LeT & SIMI) has claimed responsibility.
Died: 63 Injured- 213

On July.7th.2008 in Kabul of Afganistan
A suicide-bomber drove an explosives-laden automobile into the front gates of the Indian Embassy
Died: 58 Injured- 150

On July.27th.2008 in Istanbul.of Turkey
Two bombs kill 17 people and wound at least 150
Died: 17 Injured- 150

On September.6th.2008 in Peshawar.of Afghanistan
Two bombs exploded in the city of Peshawar. The first occurred when suicide bomber in a pickup truck, detonated near a paramilitary checkpoint, killing 16. Two hours later, a suicide bomber struck a police post, killing 30 and injuring dozens
Died: 50 Injured- 80

On September. 17th.2008 in the city of Sana of Yemen
A car bomb exploded outside the U.S. Embassy and was ambushed by militants. The attackers, reportedly dressed as policemen, also exchanged rocket and gun fire. A group calling itself Islamic Jihad in Yemen claimed responsibility.
Died: 16 injured- 16


On September 20th.08 in Islamabad of Pakistan
The Marriott Hotel is attacked by a massive suicide car bomb, killing over 60 and injuring 250. The blast caused a natural gas leak fire, which destroyed the hotel further. Hours before the blast, President Asif Ali Zardari addressed a joint session of Parliament and promised to root out terrorism
Died: 60 Injured- 250


On Oct.10.2008 in Orakzai.of Pakistan
A suicide bomber drove his car into a meeting of 600 people which was being held in open ground and blew himself up. The meeting was a council of local leaders discussing to raise a militia to evict Taliban from the region.
Died – 113 Injured- 100+


On October.30.2008 in Guwahati of Assam(India)
A series of 13 blasts occurred in and around Guwahati.
Died: 84 Injured- 470


Nov.26.08 in Mumbai of Maharastra(India)
The Mumbai Attack : Chief Minister of Maharastra Mr Bilas Rao Deshmukh and Home Minister Mr Shivraj Patil resigned. Investigation continuing

Died: 160 Injured- 300+ (As per current report)

On this above information we can say that terrorism has become a part of our life. But the question is that "Is it desirable ??"

Do we all really want this situation ???
Should we not stand up against this deadlier custom ?( I should consider this as custom )
Who help and rare the terrorist?? Who sponsor them?? Who help them supplying weapons and secret information?? How they escape from the spot leaving almost no trace and clues?? How they get courage enough to declare that they have done the attack or blast? Which situation compels them to become terrorists rather than a responsible citizen?? Poverty?? Hunger?? Maniac?? or anything else ?? There is lots of question

The sponsored group, party, state or country should realize that terrorism can not be the ultimate solution of any human activity. Supporting terrorism is just inviting destruction.

“The lives of Sri Aurobindo” faced ban

The most debating book “The lives of Sri Aurobindo” got a red signal from Orissa Hight Court when someone submitted a petition against mentioning unauthenticated information about Sri Aurobindo and his life.

The book is said to contain objectionable remarks against The Mother and Sri Aurobindo. The lives of Sri Aurobindo – is written by Peter Heehs, an American who is one of the founders of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives in Puduchery. The book was published in the US in May this year by Colombia Press and was to be re-printed by Penguin India in November.

Some of the writings as mentioned in the petition are “Aurobindo’s character, life, writings and thoughts did not hold integrity”, “He possesses a morally loose character”, “his claims to spiritual expression and realization is questionable and irrelevant” and that his spirituality emerges from a streak of inherited madness.”

The most shocking claims by the writer is that Aurobindo’s relationship with the Mother was romantic in nature”, the petitioner has said. She also has quoted the preface of the book: “A statement on the politician or poet that rubs the people wrong way will turn into a political or legal issue or possibility causes a riot”.

The petitioner has claimed that the book is aimed at tarnishing the images of Shreema and Aurobindo and it was like an “invasion on the religious sentiment of Indians”.

The publisher has also been ordered not to publish the book until it gets no-objectionable certificate from the court as well as Union Home Ministry.

Discovery of Troy

Ancient Greek text like The Illiad and the Odyssey are revealing new secrets about the ancient world, the most prominent being the discovery of a site that might be the city of Troy.

Thanks to evidence from a range of disciplines, experts are in the middle of a massive reappraisal of these foundational works of western literature.

Recent advances in archeology and linguistics offer the strongest support yet that the Trojan War did take place, with evidence coming from the large excavation at the likely site of Troy, as well as new analysis of cuneiform tablets from the dominant empire of the region.

In 1870, German businessman and self taught archeologist Heinrich Schliemann, landed on the western coast of Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) with a copy of the Illiad in his hand.

On the plain before him an unimpressive mound of grass and stone and bushes swelled 100 feet into the air.Tradition had long identified this mound, called Hisarlik, as a possible site of the historic Troy.

Schliemann soon reported to the world that he and his diggers had found the charred remains of Troy just where Homer said it would be.

The news was a worldwide sensation, and Schliemann’s view that the Homeric epics were fairly accurate chronicles of late Bronze Age history, dominated scholarship for more than 50 years.

But in fact, Schliemann had not found Homer’s Troy. Hisarlik was occupied from 3000 BC until 500 AD, and subsequent archeologist excavation showed that the civilization Schliemann chipped from the mound actually ended more than 1000 years before the Trojan War could realistically have been fought.

But the latest digging at Troy is tripping the consensus again, perhaps this time for good. Schliemann and Blegen, it now appears, had only discovered the tip of iceberg.

The mound at Hisarlik thrusts up from the plain, but most of its ruins are concealed beneath the surface.

In a project that has now been underway for 20 years, the German archeologist Manfred Korfmann and hundreds of collaborators have discovered a large lower city that surrounded that citadel.

Using the tools such as computer modeling and imaging technology that allows them to ‘see’ into the earth before digging Korfmann and his colleagues determined that the city’s borders were 10 to 15 times larger than previously thought.

They also found that it supported a population of 5000 to 10000 – a big city of its time and place, with impressive defenses and an underground water system for surviving sieges.

Critically, the city bore signs of being pillaged and burned around 1200 BC, precisely the time when the Trojan War would have been fought. A new city of Illium was founded on the site in reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus. It flourished until the establishment of Constantinople and declined gradually during the Byzantine era.

Tutankhamen was really a Daddy

Two still-born babies found in the tomb of Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen are the “Boy king’s” twin daughters, anatomists have claimed.
A team from Liverpool University in Britain, led by Professor Robert Connolly, has based its conclusion on preliminary tests carried out on the mummified remains of the two fetuses in Egypt.

“The two fetuses in the tomb of Tutankhamen could be twins, despite their very different size and thus fit better as a single pregnancy for his young wife (Ankhesenamun).This increases the likelihood of them being his children.

“I studied one of the mummies, the larger one, back in 1979, determined the blood group data from this baby mummy and compared it with my 1939 blood grouping of Tutankhamen.

The results confirmed that this larger fetus could indeed be the daughter of Tutankhamen. Now we believe they are twins and they were both his children, “Connolly was quoted by the Times as saying.

The fetus have been stored at the Faculty of Medicine in Cairo University since the archeologists Howard Carter discovered them in the teenage kings tomb on the west bank of Luxor in 1922.

Egyptologists have long debated whether they were his children of if they were placed in the tomb with the symbolic purpose of allowing the famous Pharaoh to live on as newborns in the afterlife.

The answer to this hereditary puzzle is closer because the tow fetuses are to undergo CT scan and DNA testing to determine possible diseases and their relation to Tutankhamen. The smaller fetus is about five months in gestational age and the larger fetus is estimated to be between seven and nine months. The results of the remaining tests are due in December.

It is a very exciting finding which will not only paint a more detailed picture of this famous young king’s life and death, it will also tell us more about his lineage”, Connolly said.

According to Rosalie David, of the University of Manchester’s Faculty of Life Sciences, Tutankhamen is such an important figure in Egyptology. He was a fascinating character whose tomb and indeed body has given us so much information about life in Ancient Egypt, and it seems that he will continue to do so for some time yet.

Da Vinci copied China’s Art

Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings of machines are uncannily similar to Chinese originals and were undoubtedly derived from them, a British amateur historian says in a newly published book.

Gavin Menzies sparked headlines across the globe in 2002 with claim that Chinese sailors reached America 70 years before Christopher Columbus.

Now he says a Chinese fleet brought encyclopedias of technology undiscovered by the West to Italy in 1434, laying the foundation for the engineering marvels such as flying machines later drawn by Italian polymath Leonardo.” Everything known to the Chinese by the year 1430 was brought to Venice,” said Menzies, a retired royal navy submarine commander, in an interview at his London home.

From Venice, a Chinese ambassador went to Florence and presented the material to Pope Eugenius IV, Menzies says.

If accepted, the claim would force an “agonizing reappraisal of the Eurocentric view of history”, Menzies says in his book “1434: The year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed To Italy and Ignited The Renaissance”.

The 70 year old sold more than a million copies of his first book, “1421”, which argued Chinese sailors mapped the world in the early 1400s before abandoning global seafaring.

His theories are dismissed as nonsense by many academics – Menzies says Chinese fleets reached Australia and New Zealand as well as America before European explorers – but have gained an international following among readers.

In his latest book – published in the USA in June and this month in UK – Menzies says four ship from the same Chinese expeditions reached Venice, bringing with them world maps, astronomical charts and encyclopedias far in advance of anything available in Europe at the time.

To support his argument, Menzies publishes drawings of weapons, mills and pumps from a 1313 Chinese agricultural treaties, the Nung Shu, and from other pre-1430 Chinese books, next to apparently similar illustrations by Leonardo, Di Giorgio and Taccola.

Euthanasia petitioner Embraces Life

Two years back, Seema Sood wished death and had even petitioned the Presidents to allow her euthanasia. But hope triumphed over despair and today, walking nonetheless after a knee replacement surgery, the Bits Pilani gold medalist is ready for life once again.

The turnaround has been both spectacular and miraculous for the 37 year old, who could not move her limbs for 15 harrowing years after a crippling attack of rheumatoid arthritis.

“I regret the letter to the president,” she says. “Everything was so dark for me earlier, but I am excited about my mobility now and I am confident I will improve.

Walking for the first time after 1993 Seema, a resident of Palampur, has another regret: that she spent the most productive years of her life in bed when her twin masters degree in Engineering and IT could have taken her place. When she won the gold medal, she had already been attacked by the disease and was on steroids.

The Himachal govt. and the Bits alumni have come forward. Seema has been granted funds for joint replacement surgeries on her knees, hips, elbows and shoulders.

Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children won Booker

Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children looks set to win the Best of Booker prize in the ultimate accolade for an author whose post-colonial prose on independent India has transfixed a generation, enabled the empire to write a back and won a slew of awards.

The Best of Booker award, to be presented at the London literary festival in July, will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the prize. It will be the first time a winner has been chosen from a shortlist by public vote.

In Rushdie, who is up against five other shortlist authors ranging from the towering J.M Coetzee to Nadine Gordimer, who were to win, it would make Midnight’s Children the greatest Booker-Prize-winning novel of all time. It would be the third time Rushdie has been honored by the Booker for the same novel, having won the actual prize in 1981 and receiving the Booker of Bookers in 1993, when the Prize marked its 25th anniversary.
Interestingly, VS Naipaul has been left off the shortlist despite winning the Nobel Prize for literature.

It is seen to be measure of Rushdie’s triumph that he heads a heavyweight shortlist that notably fails to feature of some 20th century’s foremost writers, including Iris Murdoch, Kingsley Amis and William Golding. The shortlist is seen to have a distinctly post-colonial tinge with five linked to Empire, not least JG Farell’s 1973 novel The Siege of Krishnapur, which is set in 1850s India.

The shortlist also includes Gordimer’s The Conservationist, Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda, Pat Barker’s The Ghost Road and Coetzee’s Disgrace.

But it is Rushdie’s inclusion on the shortlist that has excited the most interest with the reliable indicator of Public mood - the British bookmaker – installing him as the favorite, with Barker, Carey, Coetzee, Gordmer and Farell following in that order with ever-longer odds. The judges who drew up the shortlist from some of the most revered Booker-winning novels of the last 40 years, said Rushdie was a natural for this ultimate honor because he won the original prize “for what his fans or detractors would think of as his best book…it has an ebullience and a brilliance.”

But the shortlist has not been universally well received with some critics complaining that it is heavy with novels that are now literary history and fails to include recent popular winning titles such as Yann Martel’s Life of Pi.

British Airways takes beef off it’s menu

British Airways has taken off its menu for economy class passengers on most international flights in a bid a avoid offending Hindus.

The carrier, whose second biggest long-haul market is to India, has instead switched to a fish pie or chicken portion, citing “religious restriction”. British newspaper the Daily Mail reported.

We can only serve two options and beef and pork obviously have religious restrictions. We have to try to use two meals which appeal to as many customers as possible.

This summer season we are offering customers in World Travelers on most long haul flights a choice of chicken and fish pie. We also look at trends from major super markets to see what types of meals are popular and fish pie style meals are selling well at the moment. These two meals proved popular in tasting test and are also proving popular on board,” a spokesperson for British Airways was quoted as saying.

The Hindu Council in the United Kingdom welcomed the decision. A spokesperson said “The Hindu Community will welcome this decision and the news it has been made partly because Hindus don’t eat beef.

Hindus are tolerant of the beliefs of others and do not expect everyone to stop eating a food because they do not eat it.”

World’s Top Thinkers

An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself, said French-Algerian writer philosopher Albert Camus, turns out that someone is keeping track of intellectuals, too.

The latest issue of the influential Foreign Policy magazine has identified the worlds Top 100 “public intellectuals “, in its second such exercise, awarding America – and the United States – with more cerebral heft than any other continent or country. India comes out shining too.

Besides familiar names such as Al Gore, Noam Chomsky, Francis Fukuyama, Umberto Eco, Lee Kaun Yew, the list has some half dozen Indians: historian Ramachandra Guha, political psychologist Ashis Nandy and environmentalist Sunita Narain, all of whom lives in India.among them.

Four other Indians based outside India also make the list: economist Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, journalist author Fareed Zakaria, novelist Salman Rushdie and San Diego based neuroscientist V.S Ramchandran. Pakistan and Bangladesh have one name each in top 100 – lawyer-politician Aitzaz Ahsan and microfinance guru Mohammad Yunus, while China has four.

Unmindful of the remark by former US vice-president Sprio Agnew, that an intellectual is a man who doesn’t know how to park a bike. FP has parked for more than a third (36) of the world’s top eggheads in the United States.

Foreign Policy also credits Europe which has deep tradition of intellectualism, with 30 names in the top 100 – less than North America – including Briton Niall Ferguson, Ian Buruma and Christopher Hitchens. West Asia accounts for 11, and Asia 12 which means India accounts for half of Asia’s eggheads.

The list includes 17 political scientists, 15 economists, 12 each of philosophers, scientists, 8 artists and novelists, 6 each of historians, activists and leaders, 4 religious heads, and 2 environmentalists.

In defining the criteria for its selection, FP said the candidates among the world most sophisticated thinkers..have shown distinction in their particular fields as well as an ability to influence wider debate, often far beyond the borders of their own country.

Pyramids may have been built of concrete

Again a new discussion on the latest research on the Pyramids.
Researcher are exploring a new controversial theory, which suggests that the great pyramids of Giza may have been cast in place of concrete, rather than quarried and moved into position.

Although the idea that the Egyptians may have used a kind of concrete in building the pyramids was first suggested in the 1930s, with a specific material that could have been used proposed in 1988, so far there has been no proof and the idea has remained mired in controversy.

According to Linn Hobbs, co-teacher of the pyramid building class at MIT, ”the materials and know how needed to cast the pyramids’ giant 2-1/2 ton blocks in place, rather than quarrying and moving blocks of solid limestone was definitely available to the Egyptians.”

At least 90% of the material would have consisted of powdered limestone, and Egyptian limestone is especially fragile and can easily be reduced to finely divided sludge simply by soaking it in water. The rest - the binder or cement – could have been made from materials they were known to have had and used for other purposes.

The binder, known as a geopolymer could have been made from lime, keolinite (a kind of clay), a fine silica and natron (sodium carbonate), according to the research. The research also said that in building pyramids especially the higher layers as the structure grew, casting blocks in place would have been a far easier task than carving them to precise sizes and shapes and then moving them up long earthen ramps into their final positions.

Though the theory has not been certified as true, but the researchers are expecting that this invention would help the world to know the mysterious thing used in erecting the pyramids.

Picasso Paintings stolen in Brazil

Paintings of Picasso have become the headlines again. Recently thieves also have attracted by its world known popularity. They have taken away one of his paintings from the Sao Paulo Museum of Art. They stole Picasso “Portraits of Suzanne Bloch” and Portinari’s O’Lavrador de Cafe’. Picasso painted the portrait in 1904 during his Blue Period and it is among the most valuable pieces in the museum’s collections. Jones Bagramin, a Sao Paulo gallery director estimated the paintings price at about 450 million.

The work by Portnari, one of the Brazils most famous painters, depicts a coffee picker. Painted in 1939, the piece is one of the artist’s most renowned works. Bergamin estimated it was worth at least $5 million. He believed the fact that the thieves ignored many other and even more valuable paintings showed they were not the professional described by police.” I think they took the Picasso because it was so small and the Portnari because it was hanging by the door’ he said. The Picasso measures 26 by 21 inches.

In the museum there were many other world famous paintings. Matiesse Renoir,Van Gogh, Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s “bother with a Griffin Dog”, Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘L’Arlesienne’ and Henri Matisse’s ‘Plaster Torso and Bouquet of Flowers’.

Art thieves hit Brazil last year when a gang of five men used a carnival street parade to cover the theft of four paintings by Paul Cezanne, Salvador Dali, Claude Monet and Picasso from a Rio de Janerio art museum. Those works have never been recovered.

Art lovers have obviously become disappointed at this news. The paintings of Picasso are beyond any estimation. But that could not be saved. Ancient arts are going to destroy and we can’t save them. These arts are assets of any country and society. What we lost is the loss of our society. It’s a loss of our pride and dignity.

Da Vinchi’s “Mona Lisa” came to light

We all are curious to know who the lady was behind the famous painting of Leonardo Da Vinci “Mona Lisa”. Hundreds of researches have been made to find the truth behind the picture. But none have been able claim that they have found the reality.

Recently a news has rocked the world. Some German academics believe they have solved the centuries –old mystery behind the identity of the “Mona Lisa” in Leonardo da Vinci’s famous portrait.
Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine merchant, Francesco del Geocondo, has long been seen as the most likely model for the sixteenth- century painting. But art historians have often wondered whether the smiling woman may actually have been Da Vinci’s lover,his mother or the artist himself.
Now, experts at the Heidelberg University library say dated notes scribbled in the margins of a book by its owner in October 1503 confirm once and for all that Lisa del Giocondo was indeed the model for one of the most famous portrait in the world.
“All doubts about the identity of the Mona Lisa have been eliminated by a discovery by Dr Armin Schlechter,” a manuscript expert, the library said in a statement on Monday.
Until now, only “scant evidence” from sixteenth-century documents had been available. “This left lots of room for interpretation and there were many different identities put forward,” the library said.
The notes were made by a Florentine city official, Agostino Vespucci-an acquaintance of the artist-in a collection of letters by Roman orator Cicero.
The comments compare Leonardo to the ancient Greek artist Apelles and say he was working on three paintings at the time, one of them a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo.
Art experts, who have already dated the painting to this time, say the Heidelberg discovery is a break through and the earliest mention that links the merchant’s wife with the portrait. “There is no reason for any lingering doubt that this is another woman,” Leipzig University art historian Frank Zoellner told German radio. “One could even say that books written about all this in the past few years were unnecessary, had we known.”

The woman was first linked to the painting in around 1550 by Italian official Giorgio Vasari, the library said, but added there had been doubts about Vasaris reliability and that the inferences were drawn almost five decades after the painting was completed.

The Heidelberg notes were actually discovered over two years ago in the library by Schlechter, a spokeswoman said.

Although the findings had been printed in the library, s public catalogue, they had not been widely publicized and had received little attention until a German broadcaster decided to do some recording at the library.

The painting, which hangs in the Louvre in Paris, is also known as La Giaconda, meaning the happy or joyful woman in Italian, a title which also suggests the woman’s married name.

Taliban destroyed Bamiyan’s Statue

The thing I love very much is to keep an ancient thing collected under my bag. I don’t like to destroy anything that has covered a long distance of time either in history or in some past time. But to my horror, that the big statue of Goutam Buddha in Bamiyan had been completely destroyed by the radical Talibans .The Talibans, brought up and nursed by Americans have even declared an encounter against America. In fact a statue has a special significant value in history and also in a country. But unfortunately that has been destroyed. We would not be able to create such wonder again. Though science has improved and technology also developed itself. Human beings have acquired and used them as two big weapons. With them they may be able to erect such structure again but that structure would lose its importance to the tourists as well as the history also. We value those things as ancient and antique which have covered a long way in history and have become experienced. A special kind of smell or taste is found mingled with those statues and antiques. We all feel this smell or taste and that is why we do not consider a thing historically valuable unless we get some clues or points.

The value of an old thing is far better and more important than a new one. That is why we still love the old sculptures and paintings. An old thing being very old and having covered a long distance in history creates its importance to us. We give value to its age and oldness. That thing bears a large amount of human touch, praise and has been able to make its position in the discussion as well as criticism. For all these it remains covering a large portion of human thought and creates its significance. All these reasons help to grow its importance and value. We evaluate the thing and consider it as valuable. This value is considered as historical value. One can’t achieve this value easily. It takes a long time to be acquired. And that is the reason why we value the old.