Indian Woman Publicly Strips to Protest in Dowry Row

Dowry is a real problem in India and it is a very bold move of this Indian woman, Pooja Chauhan to strip to her underwear in public to protest against this system.

Here is the quote from BBC news.

A woman in western India has stripped to her underwear in public to protest over alleged abuses from her husband’s family for not providing a dowry.

Her in-laws were questioned by the police and have been released on bail.

The Hindu woman shocked residents of the normally conservative city of Rajkot in Gujarat state, by her half-naked parade through the street.

Women’s groups say her case highlights the plight of women who continue to face abuse at the hands of males.

There are reports that the 22-year-old tried to set herself on fire a few days ago demanding the police take immediate action against her husband and in-laws, who she alleged had been physically torturing her for a dowry.

In an interview to a local TV channel, Pooja Chauhan justified her action saying she did it to embarrass her husband and in-laws.

And this quote from Times of India, they have posted option to debate on weather Pooja is a victim or a culprit. At the time I wrote this post, 82% agree that she is a victim and the rest didn’t.

Baseball bat in one hand, bangles in another, a 22-year-old mother stripped to her underwear and walked down the water-logged streets of small-town Rajkot to draw the attention of authorities to what she called mental and physical torture by her husband and in-laws.

EDIT: Found another photo to add in the post

Pratibha Patil becomes India’s first female president

Jul 21, 2007
According to latest news, Pratibha Patil became the first female president of India. She described it as a “victory of principles, victory of right thinking” by the people. News as quoted from Hindustan Times:

India has got its woman president in Pratibha Patil who won one of the bitterest political campaigns to the top post in the country’s 60-year-old post independence history.

In the photo, newly elected Indian President Pratibha Patil, 72, waves to the media after the formal announcement of her victory in New Delhi, India, Saturday. (AP)

UPDATE: July 26, Indian President Pratibha Patil inspects a guard of honour at Rashtrapati Bhawan after being sworn in by the Chief Justice on Wednesday.(source Hindustan Times)

Jane Felix-Browne, a British woman says she wed Osama Bin Laden’s son

Jul 12, 2007

British native Jane Felix-Browne, 51, married twenty-seven-year-old Omar Osama bin Laden, the fourth son of al-Qaeda’s chief, in April 2007. She became his second wife according to Islamic law, which allows men to have up to four wives.

Eleven rules – you will never learn in school

Jun 30, 2007

Charles Sykes, author of DUMBING DOWN OUR KIDS, speaks at high school and college graduations sharing a list of things the graduates did not learn in school. In his book, he talks about how the ongoing feel good, politically correct atmosphere has created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and set them up for failure in the real world.

RULE 1

Life is not fair – get used to it.

RULE 2

The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

RULE 3

You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice president with car phone, until you earn both.

RULE 4

If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure.

RULE 5

Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping they called it Opportunity.

RULE 6

If you mess up,it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

RULE 7

Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

RULE 8

Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

RULE 9

Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

RULE 10

Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

RULE 11

Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

Got it from this link.

‘Corpse flower’ blooms at Zoo and it sure stinks

The rare titan arum plant bloomed early Monday morning at Cleveland MetroParks Zoo.

Date: Monday, July 23, 2007

Height: 57 inches
Width: 32 inches

Cronus bloomed early this morning!

Because of its pungent smell the rare plant is also known as the ‘corpse flower’. The flower is native to the Sumatran rainforest. Thanks to the Zoo’s Rainforest, Clevelanders can get a glimpse, and smell it.

The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is one of the 20 North American locations boasting a titan arum bloom. You can see bloom history photo feature in this Zoo page. In the adjacent photo, Zoo Horticulture Manager Don Krock inspecting Cronus’ bloom.

The Zoo has had its titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) for 13 years, and this is the first time it bloomed. It was obtained in 1994 from the National Aquarium in Baltimore. Its next bloom could be years down the line. While the blooming is glorious, it is accompanied by a pungent smell that lasts for about a day. Only 20 North American institutions have reported titan arums blooming. This is the first in the state of Ohio.

Vote for New Seven Wonders – Four Nominees from Nepal

Dec 29, 2007

The New 7 Wonders of the World, 2007, were announced during the Official Declaration ceremony in Lisbon, Portugal on Saturday, July 7, 2007 by new7wonders.com. The wonders were chosen based on voters around the world.

The site has started voting for seven wonders for 2008 and you can vote on your choice by visiting this link. I just did my voting for 4 nominees from Nepal.

The Nepalese nominees are:

• Chitwan, National Park
• Kali Gandaki, River
• Mount Everest, Mountain
• Rara Lake, Lake

Voting for nominees will continue through 31.12.08. Then a new panel of experts will create a list of 21 candidates from which voters worldwide will elect the New 7 Wonders of Nature.

In case your favorite natural site is not yet nominated for voting, please submit a new nomination on the Nomination Page.

Nokia battery recall

Aug 16, 2007

I posted some newspaper cuttings about mobile trouble in Nepal some time back. These incidents were brought in lights about 2 months back and it took this long for Nokia to issue the recall notice.

If these incidents were to happen in places where consumer were more aware of their rights, they would be more vigilant in investigating the problem. According to Nokia the culprit was the Battery. Among 300 million BL-5C batteries sold worldwide, 46 million are supposed to be defected. If you are using one of those, you have to visit Nokia site to check and process for obtaining the replacement battery.

Nokia has several suppliers for BL-5C batteries that have collectively produced more than 300 million BL-5C batteries. This advisory applies only to the 46 million batteries manufactured by Matsushita between December 2005 and November 2006. There have been approximately 100 incidents of over heating reported globally. No serious injuries or property damage have been reported. (Nokia press release)

I wish the consumers were more responsive to the hazard related issues and same thing won’t repeat in the future.

Ref – Mero Sansar (Nepali blog)

Funny: An eyful a day keeps the doctor away

Jul 31, 2007

Found this funny newspaper cutting in internet that claims that staring at women’s breast is good for men’s health? Don’t know if it is real or fake, funny it sure is.

If the news-cut is to be believed, this military man should stay healthy for his life.

Major Cleavage, meet Private Parts. (Feb 2007 funniest Military Caption)

Blogging, John Chow and Google – Lesson to learn

Jul 18, 2007

I heard about John Chow, the most talked about money making blogger, some time back. He started a very aggressive link back campaign in which he gave a link back for every review of his blog when text anchor ‘make money online’ was used. That proved very helpful for him to make him blogging icon and earn score of money. But Google, the big boss in internet search was not happy with these blogging for money strategies. They punished the site by removing from search results.

Chris Hemphill posted this search result from google:

Google’s Webmaster Guidelines tells why is he penalized:

Some SEOs and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying links in order to improve a site’s ranking is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.

John’s blog is a money making blog and it has set a bad example for blogging community. Bloggers should learn from John’s mistake and try to play fair as long term success comes only from genuinely good content.

Paris Hilton in Jail – Comedy Song

Jun 28, 2007

After a traumatic three-week stay in prison, Paris Hilton was finally released from jail at the stroke of midnight. The 26-year old celebrity quietly walked out of the all-women’s jail in Lynwood, LA and headed towards her Hollywood Hills home.

That was one news.

……The self-made celebrity was swamped by reporters as she left Century Regional detention facility in Lynwood shortly after midnight (8am BST).

Hilton was greeted by her parents, Kathy and Rick, and the family sped off in a black 4×4 after a smiling Paris waved at waiting photographers. ……

And another news.

Well, there is funny side of it too. I found a funny music video on this context prepared by Allan Murray and Sean Haines. Enjoy the comedy and sexy music video.

(video is not available)

American singer Gazzab Dai sings Nepali Songs

Posted on – Jun 27, 2007 @ 18:30

I love the way they sing in these videos and the visulization is also entertaining. I wish I could hear more of their songs.

Thanks to Gazzab dai and Khemraj bhai for the beautiful song and also to keshavnp for posting them in YouTube.

What do you think?

“Mero Dhangai Pugena” by Gajab Bahadur Lama Gurung & Khem Raj Gurung

(removed)
Another song:

“Ye Yau Ni Gajab Dhai” by Gajab Bahadur Lama Gurung & Khem Raj Gurung

(video not available now)

If Operating Systems Were to Run the Airlines…

Jun 30, 2007 @ 15:48

UNIX Airways
Everyone brings one piece of the plane along when they come to the airport. They all go out on the runway and put the plane together piece by piece, arguing non-stop about what kind of plane they are supposed to be building.

Air DOS

Everybody pushes the airplane until it glides, then they jump on and let the plane coast until it hits the ground again. Then they push again, jump on again, and so on…

Mac Airlines

All the stewards, captains, baggage handlers, and ticket agents look and act exactly the same. Every time you ask questions about details, you are gently but firmly told that you don’t need to know, don’t want to know, and everything will be done for you without your ever having to know, so just shut up.

Windows Air

The terminal is pretty and colourful, with friendly stewards, easy baggage check and boarding, and a smooth take-off. After about 10 minutes in the air, the plane explodes with no warning whatsoever.

Windows NT Air

Just like Windows Air, but costs more, uses much bigger planes, and takes out all the other aircraft within a 40-mile radius when it explodes.

Windows XP Air

You turn up at the airport,which is under contract to only allow XP Air planes. All the aircraft are identical, brightly coloured and three times as big as they need to be. The signs are huge and all point the same way. Whichever way you go, someone pops up dressed in a cloak and pointed hat insisting you follow him. Your luggage and clothes are taken off you and replaced with an XP Air suit and suitcase identical to everyone around you as this is included in the exorbitant ticket cost. The aircraft will not take off until you have signed a contract. The inflight entertainment promised turns out to be the same Mickey Mouse cartoon repeated over and over again. You have to phone your travel agent before you can have a meal or drink. You are searched regularly throughout the flight. If you go to the toilet twice or more you get charged for a new ticket. No matter what destination you booked you will always end up crash landing at Whistler in Canada.

OSX Air:

You enter a white terminal, and all you can see is a woman sitting in the corner behind a white desk, you walk up to get your ticket. She smiles and says “Welcome to OS X Air, please allow us to take your picture”, at which point a camera in the wall you didn’t notice before takes your picture. “Thank you, here is your ticket” You are handed a minimalistic ticket with your picture at the top, it already has all of your information. A door opens to your right and you walk through. You enter a wide open space with one seat in the middle, you sit, listen to music and watch movies until the end of the flight. You never see any of the other passengers. You land, get off, and you say to yourself “wow, that was really nice, but I feel like something was missing”

Windows Vista Airlines:

You enter a good looking terminal with the largest planes you have ever seen. Every 10 feet a security officer appears and asks you if you are “sure” you want to continue walking to your plane and if you would like to cancel. Not sure what cancel would do, you continue walking and ask the agent at the desk why the planes are so big. After the security officer making sure you want to ask the question and you want to hear the answer, the agent replies that they are bigger because it makes customers feel better, but the planes are designed to fly twice as slow. Adding the size helped achieve the slow fly goal.

Once on the plane, every passenger has to be asked individually by the flight attendants if they are sure they want to take this flight. Then it is company policy that the captain asks the passengers collectively the same thing. After answering yes to so many questions, you are punched in the face by some stranger who when he asked “Are you sure you want me to punch you in the face? Cancel or Allow?” you instinctively say “Allow”.

After takeoff, the pilots realize that the landing gear driver wasn’t updated to work with the new plane. Therefore it is always stuck in the down position. This forces the plane to fly even slower, but the pilots are used to it and continue to fly the planes, hoping that soon the landing gear manufacturer will give out a landing gear driver update.

You arrive at your destination wishing you had used your reward miles with XP airlines rather than trying out this new carrier. A close friend, after hearing your story, mentions that Linux Air is a much better alternative and helps.

Linux Air

Disgruntled employees of all the other OS airlines decide to start their own airline. They build the planes, ticket counters, and pave the runways themselves. They charge a small fee to cover the cost of printing the ticket, but you can also download and print the ticket yourself.

When you board the plane, you are given a seat, four bolts, a wrench and a copy of the seat-HOWTO.html. Once settled, the fully adjustable seat is very comfortable, the plane leaves and arrives on time without a single problem, the in-flight meal is wonderful. You try to tell customers of the other airlines about the great trip, but all they can say is, “You had to do what with the seat?”

Note: I don’t know who wrote it. Thanks to original writer whoever he or she is.