Is It The 62nd or 63rd Independence Day of India?

I was really confused this morning to see that different news portals how differently report if it is 62nd or 63rd Independence Day of India.

I am still confused....can any body clarify???

I believe it is 63rd [counting from 15th Aug 1947]

Here I am supplimenting my claim with screen shots.

Kindly click on the images to have a bigger view.

(NDTV and IBN Live report this as the 63rd Independence Day.)

(Whereas Times of India, Govt. of India Portal and AajTak report it as 62nd Independence day.)

PS: One thing is certain that someone is wrong.

If it's media then i guess what an idiot-irresponsible indian media.

Otherwise

What a fool i am? Couldnt even count it rightly.

©Surya

PS: Finally Times of India News Portal corrected it to 63rd Independence Day after my email to the editior.

(click on the above image to have a bigger view)

Now i must say what an idiot-irresponsible media we have.shame on you guys!!!

You call yourselves journalists....uuuuuffff i am sick of you people.

Seriously...What the F***?

Baba Ramdev has an opinion on everything. On a recent episode of his yoga show, he took a dig at Bollywood heroines and said, "Bollywood actors charitraheen (characterless) hote hain.

" He added, "Ghor kalyug aa gaya hai as now our children look up to these nachne gaane wale as icons. Pehle ke zamaane mein in naachne gaane walon ko bhaand kehte the aj yahi log bade stars ban gaye hain.

"Adds actress Priyanka Kothari, "As for us changing partners frequently, I am an actress and I haven't got even one partner till now, so where is the question of changing them?" Actress Kashmera Shah questions, "he is a respectful man but how does he have such intimate knowledge about actresses unless its first hand information?".

Celina Jaitly is agitated about Baba Ramdev’s comments

Celina Jaitly is peeved with yoga exponent Baba Ramdev for making lewd comments about her personal life as she has been espousing gay rights. In a recent media interview, Ramdev has questioned the way Celina keeps changing her partners every month and how this is all because she doesn’t stay with her parents. The actress says, “I thought Baba was a brahamachari. For a person like him to keep tabs on my so-called monthly changing of partners and living away from parents so that I can be promiscuous is amazing.

For any brahamachari ‘ladki maa samaan hoti hai’, however he is the first Baba who seems to know more than me about my sex life. She adds, “He says that I know nothing about bharatiya sanskriti! I would really like to ask him is it ‘bharatiya sanskriti ke sanskaar’ which promoted a great brahamachari like him to pass personal sexual comments on a respectable single girl just because she is an actor and a human rights activist.

The actress points out, “He has unfortunately tried to do what the Kauravas did to Draupadi in front of the whole court vastraharan! No assult on my character will deter me from this cause that I have taken up. I wanted the whole world to know the only argument a so-called yogi can come up with is a character assault and nothing else.

The assassination of Savita Bhabhi

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Decision On Repealing IPC Section 377:Is It God or Bad?

It's happening and it's happening in India.

Comments and feedbacks are always welcome :-)

(In ablove pic. bollywood celeb Ms. Celina Jaitley in Gay Parade)

'If you can find my sex clip, publish it' Says Tamanna's fellow Roadies contestant Palak

Why is Tamanna blaming you for the sex clip?
I don't know. You should ask her. Somebody is trying to gain a moral high ground by showing me down. I have no doubt that Tamanna can feature in a sex clip.

She is blaming me because she wants to defend herself. You will find me in Punjabi music videos and the role I played in Singh is Kingg, not in sex clips.

Tell us something about Tamanna. When we spoke to her, she alleged that a sex clip showing you is in every mobile in Chandigarh.
Oh really! Then you should go to Chandigarh and see for yourself. And if you do find it, publish the news. You can even put my picture and caption it scandalous.

I don't know why she kept targeting me on the show. She has given women a bad name. Even during the show, she allowed Nauman to enter her bedroom at midnight and kiss her. I was targeted because I am a straightforward person. Had I been diplomatic, I would have also been able to keep my image clean.

Do you feel Tamanna can feature in a sex clip?
If she can make such an allegation about me, she can do that too.

She has claimed on record that there is a sex clip that features you and Bobby.
Do you feel that if Bobby or me were s**ts, Anees Bazmi and Akshay Kumar would have worked with me or Sohail Khan would have signed me in Kisan?

At the end of the road

Ripped from the US-based reality show Survivor, MTV Roadies is about "travel, adventure, drama and a touch
of voyeurism" in the words of Raghu Ram, the creator of the series.

The show, which has completed six seasons, has changed the fortune of many of its contestants. Ranvijay Singh and Ayushman Khurana, winners of Roadies season 1 and 2, went on to become popular VJs on MTV.

Another winner, Ashutosh Kaushik, emerged the winner in the second season of Bigg Boss.

Even the finalists of the show have become popular. While Shambhavi Sharma was offered a role in The Little Godfather produced by Ekta Kapoor, contestant Anmol Singh bagged a role in Ekta Kapoor's Kuchh Is Tara.

Now, both of them host the talk show G talk on MTV.

MTV Roadie Tamanna fumes over alleged MMS Clip

An explosive Tamanna tells MiD DAY there is no sex-clip on her and says the paper should have published the 'real' sextapes of her fellow Roadies Palak and Bobby instead

Tamanna, actually we need to clarify a few things. I have been trying to contact you since yesterday.I don't want to talk to people like you. How dare you publish that story! How can you do this to a person when you don't have any proof? You are ruining someone's image. (Shouts) Aaap logon ko ek per cent sharam nahin aayi yeh sab karte hue? Actually, we tried to speak to you, we were trying to contact you since yesterday.You don't know which family I belong to, you don't know the power I have. You did this just to earn some cheap publicity. Tamanna, let me make it very clear that it was not for publicity. The story clearly says that the girl on the sex- tape is someone resembling you.Apka matlab kya tha! The idea was such that someone might have committed suicide. We even tried to contact MTV!Nahin! How dare you people do this to me. If I will give out your number to the police you will come to know of the consequences. But I don't want to do such things. Faltu ki cheezen ho. Tamanna, please listen to me!I don't give a damn about you people. Kisi aur ladki ki photo laga ke aap ne meri reputation kharab ki. What the f*** is this. See Tamanna the clip is floating in your name. This is what people do. We were just trying to show that.But I don't think you have showed it anywhere. You used quotes from Palak, Nauman, but nowhere did you say prominently that it is misuse of technology. But we have taken quotes from top models, including Gauhar Khan, Anupama Verma clearly saying how celebrities are targeted.You know mera naam aaya hai us mein! I want to stay away from such things. Pesh karne ka ek tarika hota hai. Apka pesh karne ka tarika galat tha. Look Tamanna, the thing is that you're already a celebrity now. And we only tried to tell the people how the cyber criminals target celebrities.You have not mentioned the word technology even once. What you said is MMS, shocking news, etc etc. Even if you wanted to tell the people that this is how technology is misused, the message that has reached the people is that a sex MMS on Tamanna is out. We did not just say that celebrities are targeted in this manner, but talked to a number of them to drive home the point.See, I don't care about anybody else. I am concerned about myself. We are doing a follow-up of the story, that's why I am talking to you. You can say whatever you have to say.I haven't seen your paper and I will be able to speak only after I read the news item. It is available on the Internet. If you have anything to say to your fans you tell us. We are a medium through which you can reach them.I am not ready to speak as of now. Why me? That's what we said. People are targeted in this manner and it is just that it was you this time.Sir, if you surf the web you will find a sex clip of Bobby too. And why not Palak? She is such a famous s**t. Her sex-clip is famous in Chandigarh. I always wanted to speak to you before the story. I wanted the people to know what you have to say about it. I stand by what I did and I want you to tell your fans that you were wronged.Tamanna hangs up the phone.

Source-Mid-day.com

PS: I think it's a fake mms.

Shiney saga: Rape as national entertainment

Mumbai should slap an entertainment tax surcharge on the rest of India. Whether from box office or botox office, its celebrities have been working overtime to serve an important social agenda. They have diverted attention from such potentially disruptive issues as racist pigs, swine flu, and BJP rats deserting the sinking lotus. Thank heaven for big girls with big rocks, and big boys with big uhmm.

And, btw, don’t miss the irony of a Shiney getting tarnished at the same time as the demolition of the party which gave us ‘India Shining’. In both cases, it was an in-house operation.

Sheetal’s bling became just a blip on our attention as soon as her bail took the interest out of her story. After all, what use a high-life crime without the low-life grime? But not to worry. Mumbai entertainers are regular troupers. As soon as one rises out of the mess, another falls with twice the thud.

So, Sheetal’s saga may have become as flat as last night’s Bubbly, but a Bunty in Shiney armour has galloped into the breach. Like ‘Radio Mirchi sunney waley’, our mirch-masala merchants ensure that the greedy janata is kept ‘always khush’. And, you can count on them to have their make up on even when they lose face.

Perhaps the next blockbuster will be ‘Sheetal & Shiney’. It would have all the elements of a super-hit formula. Only one has sex and violence, but both are riddled with the tantalising ‘Did She or Didn’t He?’ Both stories are rife with family drama. And the courtroom variety won’t be lacking either because, while one party for sure got cheap thrills, both need expensive lawyers.

For all the love-to-hate stigma attached to Page Three, it certainly pollinates the imagination. In fact, its butterflies don’t leave much to that entity. They let it all hang out so that our tongues can salivatingly do likewise. Don’t scoff at them. Thank them instead for a twofold favour. They allow us to get away from the humdrum reality of beds unmade and bills unpaid, and to escape into a sanctimonious smugness.

In fact, the undeodorised janata is spoilt for choice every time there is a celebrity outbreak. Take the Shiney scandal. This pop-porn has come in a trio of flavours: caramel, butter, and hot ’n’ sour. There’s the three-handkerchief heartstring-puller of his stand-by-my-man wife, the makhkhan-won’t-melt-in-our-mouths injured innocence of the industry, and the searing atrocity itself. Befitting our multiplex culture you can even have a combo of all three.

Secondly, it has provided the public with n number of choices on what to get enraged about. You can pick from a) violence against any woman; b) exploiting a vulnerable woman; c) violating the sanctity of a marriage; d) turning the casting couch into one’s own living-room sofa. You can hook your outrage on gender or class or both.

And, finally, if you choose to be snooty rather than sensitive, you won’t ask “How could he do this to a maid” but “How could he do this with a maid?” Such snobbery would apply whether it was rape or consensual sex. Yes, there are as many different ways of letting down your class as there are of revealing that you have none at all.

©TOI.

Think A While

When the Sensex is booming, one may be tempted to invest recklessly. Stock markets are an easy way to make money. Everywhere else you add money; this where you multiply it. What the market speculator often forgets is that what goes up must come down. So when the Sensex tumbles, the reckless speculator is left crying as if on spilt milk.

Being reckless with money is bad but not that bad. If one has lost money today, one may recover it tomorrow. But one just can’t be reckless with one’s health. Once it is wrecked it is quite often irretrievably lost. Even if one recovers, in most cases one doesn’t get back to being as fit as one was earlier.

Hence the old adage: Prevention is better than cure. Let’s take a resolve to say no to tobacco. It is curious how we start toying with tobacco. Initially one takes a pinch of it from someone as a token of cordiality. Or, one smokes in one’s youthful days to make a statement of attitude. Soon, however, this conscious flirting turns into addictive love for this nicotine-containing substance (I also committed the same mistake in my graduating Days).

The Government, sliding with the anti-tobacco lobby, is doing its best to stop the hazard without being dictatorially repressive. From now on, every time you buy a tobacco product, pictorial warnings in the form of a scorpion or lungs will stare at you, covering at least 40% of the principal area of the product pack. Though the skull-and-crossbones image initially proposed would have been more scaring, even a scorpion will remind you of staying away from the poison.

If the anti-tobacco lobby is to be believed, a cigarette stick is an explosive cocktail of more than 4,000 chemicals. Apart form the addictive nicotine; it contains hazardous substances like rat poison (Arsenic), insecticide (DDT), preservation fluid (formaldehyde), fuels (butane and methanol), radio active material (Polonium 210) and toilet cleaning acids.

Tobacco then is too bad to be consumed. But the habit of consuming it is too widely prevalent to be given up. Should we still hope for a tobacco-less world? Perhaps yes. If Left can lose so badly in Bengal, anything can happen.

©Surya.

"Don't come to Australia. I was lucky to have escaped''

NEW DELHI: Twenty-year-old Sunny Bajaj has made up his mind. He will leave Australia for good. The Shalimar Bagh boy, who studied at Sachdeva

Public School in west Delhi and is pursuing accounting at Deakins University for the past one-and-a-half years now, has been left badly shaken by the attack on him at Melbourne on Friday night when he was racially abused and bashed up, leaving him with bruises and a fractured finger.

He was so traumatised by the incident that he skipped his exams on Monday. Speaking from Melbourne, he said: ``If Indian students really think they can cope with such abuses, they should come here. But my suggestion is don't come to this country. I was lucky to have escaped - otherwise I would have been in coma now.''

Bajaj is the latest victim of the racial attacks that have been unleashed in Australia in the past two months and seem to be continuing unabated.

It was on Friday night, around 8.15 pm local time, that he was assaulted by two men in Boronia, Melbourne.
``I was returning to my car after shopping when two men accosted me and asked for money. When I said I didn't have any, they began abusing me and then attacked me without any provocation. One of them was white and the other seemed to be of African origin.''

Bajaj said the men clearly knew he was an Indian because ``they abused me saying ``f****** Indian c***. They slammed the car door on my hand, fracturing my finger, hit me on my head and punched me in the stomach and face.'' He said he had reported the matter to the police and given them a description of the two men.

Bajaj was preparing for his exams before going back to India for his vacations. He says racial abuse is very common in Australia and students are used to it. ``Things are coming out into the open only now. I personally know of so many cases of racial abuse, which may not have resulted in physical assault like it has been happening of late. All kind of dirty things are said to us. Even after the protests, things have not changed at all,'' he said.

Asked whether he would like to continue staying in Australia, Bajaj said: ``I can't do much right now as I have my exams. In fact, I missed one today. But the first thing I really want to do now is to get back to India as soon as possible. My parents have been worried ever since these things started coming out into the open and now they don't want me to be here any longer. They want me to return or to go to some place like Singapore.''

Bajaj said he was yet to get over his trauma. ``I am completely out of my wits at present thinking that it could have been much worse. I was plain lucky with a few bruises, a broken finger and these injuries. I was saved because of an approaching car; otherwise, I would have been in hospital,'' he recalled with a shudder.

The Federation of Indian Students of Australia (FISA) is alleging that no help has come their way, accusing the Indian consulate of not taking the issue seriously and playing politics with the life of students.

Media coordinator of FISA Gautam Gupta told:``Indian students have been spending millions and this is what they get in return. We have been in touch with the consulate but they are simply not interested in mediation. Why is there no visit by any ministry of external affairs team to see how the consulate is working?'' He alleged that the Indian government wasn't exerting any pressure.

Bajaj, however, feels that the Australian government is doing its bit to bring the situation under control and so are the cops. ``They can't assign a policeman to each student. But believe me, things are bad on the ground and it is not safe at all. First the attacks were happening late at night and in desolate locations, but now the incidents are taking place in the evening hours.''

``Australia is a beautiful country, but I am really scared and want to go home,'' he says

The M'aya'bati Drama.

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Maywati has come under severe criticism from opposition leaders for having made derogatory remarks about Mahatma Gandhi.

While addressing a meeting of MPs and legislators of her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) here Saturday, Mayawati called the Father of the Nation a "natakbaaz" (fake). She also distributed pamphlets condemning both Mahatma Gandhi and Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi for being insincere about the improvement in socio-economic status of Dalits.

"Mayawati's attempt to run down the Father of the Nation will only prove counter-productive and she will have to pay for it," said state Congress spokesman Subodh Srivastava.

"This only reflects her frustration on account of her failure to keep her monopolistic control over Dalits. It is high time she realises that Dalits are not her private property and they are well aware to see and understand the difference between what Mahatma Gandhi did for them and what Mayawati was doing for them," he added.

Samajwadi Party state president Akhilesh Yadav said: "Mayawati's derogatory remarks against Mahatma Gandhi are clearly a reflection of her having not only lost ground but even her balance."

Calling Mayawati's rant against Mahatma Gandhi "a shameful act", BJP spokesman Hriday Narain Dikshit said: "By terming whatever he did against untouchability as a drama, Mayawati has shown utter disrespect to the Father of the Nation."

Srivastava also condemned Mayawati's move to hold protest demonstrations June 19, which is Rahul Gandhi's birthday.

"Maybe she does not like the idea of a birthday being observed without forced collection of funds since she is so used to celebrating her own birthday solely to collect money and jewellery," he said.

Environmentalists’ concern over tree-felling

BHUBANESWAR: Environmentalists and rights activists raised their concern over indiscriminate felling of trees to make way for widening of roads in the capital city.

Works department had to cut down 173 trees to make space for construction of ambitious flyover at busy Rajmahal Square. However, trees were felled reportedly without any concrete plan on compensating the vegetation.

To be built at a cost of Rs. 67.31 crores, the three-tier flyover structure would facilitate smooth vehicular movement between AG Square and Kalpana Square.

This was not the first time when trees were being felled. During widening of roads from Airport to Infocity and current development of eight-lane road between Sainik School and Acharya Vihar, huge plants were uprooted. Many decades-old trees were chopped down along Cuttack-Puri road a few months ago.

“We don’t know where the State Government has identified alternative locations to plant trees to compensate the loss. All those green drives being announced by Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) are its own programmes. The compensatory plantation against tree loss due to road-widening should clearly be spelt out,” said city-based rights activist Biswapriya Kanungo.

Works department sources said they were entrusted with the task of widening roads and it was the lookout of the Forest Department to see how compensatory forestry could be taken up.

When asked city forest division authorities said since city did not come under forestland categories, the guidelines on compensatory forestry did not fit here. But city did not have adequate vacant space to plant trees, they said adding that most of pavements were made of concrete ones leaving little scope for creating avenue plantation.

“About 60 per cent of trees could be uprooted and planted somewhere else. However, authorities lacked mindset to go for this cumbersome process to save the trees,” said Biswajit Mohanty, an environmentalist.

Even the capital city did not have a definite environment plan, he said. “Species of trees have been badly chosen. One should select such trees which could sustain wildlife and would be strong enough to withstand in cyclones,” Mr. Mohanty said.

"Solitude Vs Loneliness" in mordern age

Social Isolation

The study found that the more time people spend on the Internet, the less time they spend communicating with other people. In particular, 27% of heavy Internet users report spending less time talking to friends and family over the phone. 15% report spending less time physically with friends and family, and 13% report spending less time attending events outside the house.

Leaving aside the fact that this means that 85% of heavy Internet users do not report spending less time with friends and family, the real question is whether the study has an appropriate definition of social isolation.

Why is the telephone considered a superior form of social contact relative to the Internet and its communication formats such as email and discussion groups - or checking your grandchild's home page for her latest drawings.

If somebody had conducted a similar survey 100 years ago, they would surely have claimed that phone calls were a cold medium that undermined traditional forms of social contact such as visiting people to have tea.

In assessing the impact of the Internet, the question is not whether it replaces (fully or partly) some other forms of communication and social contact. Because the Internet adds its own new forms of communication and social contact. For example, people may well attend fewer meetings and events outside the house and yet feel connected to a community of others who "meet" on a much more regular basis online.

The question is whether the new lifestyle is enjoyable and whether it nourishes humans or causes them damage. There is certainly a risk that some people get overly caught up in chat rooms and role playing, but a different kind of study is needed to assess this problem.

Work Invades Home

The study found that 28% of heavy Internet users report spending more time working at home (12% out of these 28% even reported spending more time at the office as well). This is decried as proving that work is invading the privacy of the home.

But why is it bad to integrate work life and home life? On the contrary, one could argue that it is an unhealthy deviation from human nature to designate a special location as the "office" and insist that all work take place there. In most of human history, people lived and worked in the same location and work efforts and leisure activities were intertwined. The need to have assembly line workers report to a central factory to crank out Model Ts is the only reason we temporarily had the notion of work being a separate part of life. Industrial era concept.

In the Internet economy, people have already started bringing their private life to the office. Much private email gets sent from company computers. Much private shopping takes place over the company's T-3 line since fast access is the only way one can suffer through many current e-commerce sites.

The real question is whether the Internet makes us more stressed. Unfortunately I tend to believe that the Internet does have some blame in this area due to the miserable design of current email systems.

But non-Internet technologies are even more to blame. Cell phones, pagers, fax machines, and Federal Express (guys in trucks!) all conspire to make us ever-more driven and ever-less capable of contemplation and thorough analysis.

Digital Divide

The survey has a third finding which has not been reported very widely, despite the fact that it is much more credible than the two over-hyped findings:

Quoting from the Stanford report: "By far the most important factors facilitating or inhibiting Internet access are education and age, and not income - nor race/ethnicity or gender, each of which account for less than 5 percent change in rates of access and are statistically insignificant."

The study's analysis of the digital divide is credible because issues like race, education, and age are precisely defined and can be reported very accurately in a survey as long as the respondent feels comfortable that the survey is being administered by a credible institution (Stanford would certainly count here) and that the answers will be treated anonymously.

When splitting out the effect of the various variables, the study finds the following three main effects on Internet access:

1. Education (having a college degree): +49%
2. Age (older people compared with 18-25 years' olds): -43%
3. Income (having high income): +21%

My interpretation of this finding is that the digital divide is a usability problem. The politicians are targeting the wrong part of the problem when they treat the digital divide as an economic issue. True, there is a (smaller) problem due to the expense of computers, but this third-level problem is rapidly vanishing and will be completely gone in a few years when computers will cost the same as donuts.

Old people will not go away. In fact, people who are currently in their 40s and 50s will be around for a long time to come. We can't simply write them off just because kids have fewer problems using computers. The same is true for people without a college education. We can't force them all to go back to school for four years simply in order to participate in society.

There is only one answer: computers and the Internet have to be made substantially easier to use than they are now.