Madurai at Finger Tips

Madurai at Finger tips is a new website launched on Madurai .Among the many sites avaialable on Madurai ,this web site appears to be unique and has an utilitarian value.This site would be useful to a visitor to the temple city as well as a local guy.The website claims more useful features would be added soon. The most striking feature that appeals to a visitor to this site is the fact that the website caters to all sections of the society and to a prospective visitor to the temple city.The links in the links page are very interesting .

http://www.maduraiatfingertips.com

Gleam India

For updates and reviews on utility gadgets,mobile phones,video games,mutimedia tools,software and internet a new wiste Gleam India has come up.With in a short period this site is gaining popularity. Its review on the latest craze in Video games ‘Valkriya Chronicle II’ in PSP is very interesting and useful.To visit Gleam India click here.

Free Translation Services

TRANSLATION KIOSK

This site offers FREE translation services from TAMIL to ENGLISH and MALAYALAM to ENGLISH.Paid
services are also available for translation of books,brochures,presentations,manuals and English subtitles for Tamil and Malayalam movies.

For further details Visit http://tkiosk.blogspot.com

To view sample pages visit http://translationkiosk.hpage.com

2009 Poll Outcome

The election results have come out.The wise Indian electorates, as is their wont have proved their wisdom once again.They have voted for stability,development and communal harmony.Most importantly all opportunist alliances have been handed out a drubbing.This can be  guaged from the dismal performance of the Leftists as expected,the near wash out of the PMK and MDMK and a shocker for the AIADMK,despite their new and sudden  ‘avatar’ as the saviour of Lankan Tamils.

The handling of the Mumbai terror attack,global melt down not affecting India much,nuke deal have all been in favour of the congres.Advani calling Manmohan a ‘weak PM’ did not find any takers.Congress has benefitted from states like Kerala,West Bengal,Andhra,UP,Maharashtra,Rajasthan,Delhi,Tamilnadu.The gains that congress had from Kerala and West Bengal have become crucial in the final analysis.This along with the favourable verdict from Andhra and Tamil nadu have sealed it in Congres’s favour.Barring Karnataka, all the three southern states have voted for UPA.This proved to be a decisive factor in bringing UPA back to power.Neverthless  UPA may require the support of a handful more seats for an absolute majority.Hopefully,they would be able to secure the required numbers from the third front or the so called fourth front.Congress may even avoid seeking the support of SP,who could turn out to be a needling partner, in case they are forced to  harness their support to form the government.

Congress may have to address to the boundless aspirations of the UPA partners seeking ministerial berths.There could be possible disgruntlement among UPA partners over allocation of cabinet berths and allocation of portfolios.But this time Congress is on a firm wicket and has better leverage and would act decisively.Congress would keep key portfolios like Home,defence External affairs and finance with them.There could be a tussle for other important portfolios.Kerala which did not have sufficient cabinet berths can this time hope to get a sizeable representation.DMK may not get as many ministers as last time.Sashi Taroor from Kerala could surely get a ministerial berth.
The slide for the CPM has started eversince Karat took charge.He has been a hardliner and was not accomodative like his predecessor Surjeet.As never before internal rumblings from the party came to fore and was not a cohesive unit.The BJP for their part, as the credible alternative to the largest national party congress should shelve their rightist inclination and move towards the centre as was being done during the days of Atalji.Must play down fundamentalist ideolgies.Having conceded the defeat gracefully BJP should now function as a responsible constructive opposition to improve their chances of coming back to power in 2014. BJP has level headed leaders as their top brass and one hopes they would live up to the expectations.

Expedience of PMK

Todays news papers have carried the news that PMK will dump congress and switch camps to AIADMK.This was expected for quite sometime,going by the party’s habit of shifting loyalty for every election at the last moment.Left to itself the PMK can not win a single seat in any election on its own strength.They have always been piggy riding on DMK and AADMK alternatively for the last 3/4 elections. They have been doing this at every election and has proved once again PMK is the most expedient party in the Indian political scenario.The elder Ramdoss is the south Indian version of Charan Singh and Devilal.Look how opportuistic PMK is.While continuing in the UPA minsitry till date,they have been criticising the union government about their handling of the Sri Lankan crisis.Neverthless Anbumani Ramadoss continued in the union cabinet.Similarly contnuing support to the DMK government at TN,they were highly cirtical of DMK and its policies at the state level.DMK finally pushed
them out of the alliance in TN.This is  an orchestrated move by Dr.Ramadoss. He criticised DMK govt bitterly,only to switch sides at the last moment.He was just preparing grounds deviously,living up to his reputation.It is reported the junior Ramadoss is not in favour of this shift.But the party rank and file is against alliance with DMK at the sate level.He would now call Jayalalitha  “Sister” and dump her later if some one else would offer a ministerial berth at the centre for his son in post election scenario.He would then say Jayalalitha has treated him badly,which would happen for sure.With PMK most likely to be out of the congress front,DMK should be welcoming DMDK of Vijaykant heartily to balance the loss of PMK vote bank in North Tamilnadu.

The Celebrity Blog scenario in India.

Indian celebrities are slowly waking up to the impact of the ‘social media’,blog.The internet based  social media discussions and information sharing by the public are growing by leaps and bounds.People share their stories and experiences on a wide variety of topics including  music,technology,politics,films,science,health and what not.People who share common perceptions build a social networking community.Of late these communities are growing day by day.Beliefs,opinions,impressions,notions,legal opinions and sentiments are mostly substantiated by personal experiences,positive knowledge and proof.These turn them first in to persuasions,then popular opinion
finally becomes the public opinion.Primarily these blogs are interactions and discussions between people.A blog post has a global reach.How potent a blog can be was recently proved by Obama.He used his blogs effectively to raise huge campaign funds.He used his blog effectivley to tell the American electorate that he is the “CHANGE” candidate.This might have encouraged Advani to launch his  “Advani for PM” campaign through his blog. The fact that India is a country of  youngsters and most of them are tech saavy,also might have prompted Advani to do an internet campaign ahead of the Loksabha elections.Some other celebrities among the Indian politicians also have started blogging. Here is a list which is likely to grow in the near future.

L.K.Advani                   http://blog.lkadvani.in/
Lalu Prasad Yadav    http://www.mypopkorn.com/blogs/  (Lalu writes his posts in mypopkorn.com)
Omar Abdullah                http://www.jknc.org/blog/        (Omar’s blog is linked to his party’s website)
M.K.Stalin                   http://mkstalin.net/blog/?cat=3
Apart from politicians other Indian celebrities who have started blogging are as follows.
Amitabh Bachchan       http://bigb.bigadda.com/
Shahrukh Khan               http://www.shahrukhkhanz.blogspot.com/
Amir Khan                       http://www.aamirkhan.com/blog/login.php         
Salman Khan                   http://salmanff.blogspot.com/
Shekhar Kapur               http://www.shekharkapur.com/blog/
Ram Gopal Varma        http://rgvarma.spaces.live.com/
Vikram Bhatt                  http://www.mypopkorn.com/blogs/vikram-bhatt/(Like Lalu he makes blog posts in mypopkorn) 
Bipasha basu                http://bipashabasu.rediffblogs.com/
Gul Panag                      http://www.gulpanag.net/
Payal Rohatgi               http://www.payalrohatgi.net/       
Nana Patekar                http://nanapatekar.rediffblogs.com/
Mammootty                 http://i-am-mammootty.blogspot.com/(in Malayalam)

One can expect other celebrities also to follow suit very soon.

Drug promotion,doctors and freebies

I read a news item in ‘Times of India’ today that ,if a doctor prescribes drug ‘X’ to 10 patients he will get a platinum coupon and for prescribing drug ‘Y’ to 25 patients,it will fetch him a gold coupon.The more number of coupons greater are the chances of the doctor winning a prize.What is the prize? Hold your breath – Could be a car,a visit to Istanbul with family to taste Turkish cusines,on the pretext of attending some international medical symposium,it could be a Kenyan safari to ‘educate’ doctors on drugs to prescribe and for the less fortunate doctors it could be a frost free refregirator,Tv sets or digital cameras.The report further says pharma companies allocate funds for freebies as big as 2 crores for a metro city alone.Mind you this does not include the gifts and trips abroad,which is funded by the company’s central funds.Doctors  getting some small favours from pharma companies is nothing new.Seems of late,it has gone beyond mere favours and is some thing to be regulated seriously by government. The government should ban gifts and financial incentives to doctors by pharma companies.Everytime a doc prescribes a drug,the layman and the gullible public can not suspect the doctor that he has prescribed an unwanted drug.There should be more transparency in the financial funding aspects of pharma companies.There should be required regulatory mechanisms for this.We have a  union health Minister who is a doctor by profession.More than any body else he knows that public health care,safety and promotion can be best achieved by creating awareness campaign and not by drug promotion.Anbumani Ramadoss should initiate steps to regulate unhealthy and unethical drug promotion by drug companies.There are stringent laws in Europe,US,Australia and Canada.Fines and penalties for unethical marketing of drugs are heavy and deterent.Many reputed companies have paid heavy fines and has got adverse publicity.I am not saying all doctors have fallen a prey to this unethical wooing by the pharma industry.There are still doctors and hospitals who consider this profession as noble and doing yoeman service to the society.I understand there are corporate hospitals with systems in place,where a committee of doctors shortlist drugs to be prescribed.Unethical drug promotion does not stop with merely luring the doctor to prescribe their drug.Some companies do give misleading  false claims about the drugs efficacy and also suppress risks and side effects of the drug deliberatley.The layman consumer does not know the hidden considerations and the hidden agenda behind each prescription.Also there are lot of spurious and fake drugs in the market.How will the poor guy on the street know about all this?How is the government going to protect the cosumer?I understand there is no regulatory mechanism for the sample drugs given by pharma companies.The prescription of a drug should be determined by the diagonostic skill of a physician  and not by the drug companies.There should be  a movement to create awareness to all these facts.There is very little resistance from the consumer,because the common man believes on the integrity of his doc.When a doc accepts a gift,however small it is,he is under a psychological obligation to prescribe that medicine,irrespective of the fact that it may not be required for the patient. Now there are plenty of avenues for the doctors to update their knowledge.Yet most of the doctors depend on pharma companies to update knowledge through their product information.These days there are lot of online free diagonostic sites,abundant medical information and forums for doctors to discuss at a global level.When enlightened laymen have started using these facilities in the internet to understand about his health, doctors should also find some time from their busy schedule and devote some time to update their knowledge,so that they talk authoritatively to medical reps rather than listening to them meekly and going through the motions mechanically.
Another shocking news is that many reputed foreign pharma companies do drug trials in India without the consent of the patient.These patients do not know they are under clinical trials.All these facts point out to one thing for certain.There is surely some undesirable nexus between few medical professionals and the drug companies.It is high time the government brings some form of a comprehensive legislation to prevent all this in the interest of public health care.All leading medical professionals from the country should be involved in framing a draft legislation as early as possible.

PM’s love for Bush

PM Manmohan singh has said at US that ‘the people of India love Bush’.As expected ,BJP,Leftists and other opposition parties lost no time in condemning PM’s love for Bush.Though one would not subscribe to the views of BJP and leftists in the nuke deal,this time I think they have hit the nail on the head.Rightly or wrongly,the country is divided on the Indo US nuclear deal.Only time will determine who is right on the issue.There were views and opinions for and against the deal.The no confidence motion on this issue got through on slender margin and on questionable tactics adopted by the ruling front and its supporters.When this is the situation at home PM could have desisted from making such remarks.It is true that this remark of PM borders on sycophancy.Even diplomatic niceties don’t demand such praises bordering on sycophancy.

Chennai Marathon

Tamizh Mayam and Give life have jointly organised the Chennai Marathon on August 31 and have succesfully completed .The Marathon was flagged off by M.S.Gill , the union sports minister .Kanimozhi MP and Father Jegath Gasper of Tamizh Mayam took active  part in organising the Marathon . The proceeds of the Marathon will be used for a good cause for the upliftment of unfortunate children. Physically challenged persons also took part in the marathon. It was a 21.94 KM Marathon . The winners would get prizes worth Rs 10  Lakhs. More than a Lakh people have participatedin the Marathon. The organisers believe this would easily be the largest Marathon in terms of participation in the world bettering  the Boston Marathon .

On two accounts the chennai Marathon will find a place in history . Folargest participation and prize money.

Whatever it is, Chennai will also find a place in the Marathon Major maps ,henceforth. The other Marathon Major cities  of the world are Boston,Honolulu,London,Berlin,Washington,Rome,Los Angeles and Paris.

The insentient blasts

Another fateful Friday resulted in 8 blasts in Bangalore on 25 th july . The only consolation was the damage and human casualty were very less since all the bombs were of low intensity . Again on 26th Police have diffused two more bombs in Bangalore in a busy mall area.

Before we could come out of the shock , Gujarat also gets its share of 17 serial blasts in 70 minutes . Who is behind all these most inhuman and cowardly acts? Every time a blast occurs , the police names few suspect outfits as responsible for the blasts . But more than one outfit also claims responsibility for the blasts every time.

Once the news about the blast breaks out, pandemonium also breaks out .Police and other officials reach out to the victims and rush them for medical care . Police works overtime to maintain calm and restore normalcy .Schools and shopping establishments close and children have to reach home safely.All kinds of rumours are spread. Panic grips all over . People start running on all directions , making frantic calls to near and dear to ensure their safety . All the mobile networks gets jammed .

Though all peace loving people condemn such inhuman acts in one voice, still nothing tangible can be done by the public to prevent  recurrence of an event like this . Most unfortunate thing is no one knows when blasts occur. Despite all precautionary measures and tightened up security arrangements we are always at the risk of such  incidences . The incidences of bomb blasts are on the rise globally . Are we to live in perpetual fear of bomb blasts ? .

This has become a global menace .How and when will the international authorities find out fool proof methods to detect and stop these inhuman acts . Despite bomb diffusing squads , metal detectors , sniffer dogs and all sorts of surveillance , how does the miscreants succeed in planting these bombs and activate them with remote gadgets?.

What is lacking in the system ?Deterrent punishments have also not given the desired results.One thing is certain . A section of misguided youth is behind these inhuman acts . What is there motive ? To retaliate their so called foes ? create panic among public ? disrupt public life, cause damage to life and property ? destabilize the nation ? what ever it is ,there could never be a valid cause and reason.

Somehow I feel no amount of technology and preventive measures can stop this menace. What is required is a change of mind . It is easily said than done. Also it may be a long process . Nonetheless an earnest effort should be made in this direction . Religious and spiritual leaders ( of all religions ) should come together and form a group and work towards this. This may sound funny to many . Let the current efforts and preventive measures continue .Along with that this should also be tried . Even if the spiritual leaders are able to make them see reason and bring  a handful of such misguided persons to the mainstream life , it would be a great contribution.

I shudder to think what could happen in the days to come , if these  trends go unabated . A day would come our posterity would not be able to step out of their house. It is really disturbing to note that a handful of these people can hold the entire nation in panic by their sinister activities. People like Art of Living Guruji Shri Shri Ravishankar should be drafted in to the spiritual leaders group.