THE TAJ GROUP 'BOON' FOR THE VARANASI WEAVERS

Their sense of pride was heart-rendering says designer Jai Ramrakhiani. Despite poverty and death knocking at their doorsteps, these weavers would earn their meals rather than take charity even for their malnourished children. Even God has been unable to provide a helping hand. More than 50 suicides in the last couple of years and closure of hundreds of the local hand loom units have taken a toll on the once famous weavers of the Mughal Era. On account of the recent boom in the cloth manufacturing industry owing to the power looms coming into picture, sarees have become cheaper and faster to produce, greatly contributing to the downfall of this local industry that employs nearly half-a-million artisans.

But now, the entering of the Taj Group in the local scenario have seen to stabilize the much dreaded situation. Initially a handful of non-government organizations have been trying to save these people from their deaths but starvation, malnutrition,selling of blood and babies for food have greatly diminished the hopes of these weavers for long. The efforts of R K Krishna, the Vice Chairman of Indian Hotels, Tata company which runs the Taj Group of Hotels and his wife Ratna, aided by a 550 women strong elite batch from the front desks of the Taj Group who started buying these elegant sarees made by the weavers led the sales and marketing team to quickly grab onto this fresh opportunity.

But the start wasn't as easy as it looks. Hurt by the empty promises of the "middlemen" especially in the past, the weavers were a little skeptical about working with the Taj Group. Even then initial talks were very apprehensive. To win over their confidence, the Taj Group opened up medical camps in three villages to deal with the ailing people, installed water pumps, brought in solar lamps to an otherwise electricity hampered area. As the mutual understanding grew, work started rapidly. Payments were made on the spot unlike earlier times. The Taj Group pays them Rs 1800 per saree and assures them of work for atleast two sarees a month. Seeking such assurance, more and more weavers are enrolling and this seems to be a positive step in betterment of their lives.

The Taj Group has shown the way for a better India and its up to the other corporate houses to take the initiative and take steps for a more culturally and socially developed country.

The Maths of Life!!!!

Scary But Quite True
Smart Man + Smart Woman = Romance

Smart Man + Dumb Woman = Pregnancy

Dumb Man + Smart Woman = Affair

Dumb Man+ Dumb Woman = Marriage

Smart Boss + Smart Employee = Profit

Smart Boss + Dumb Employee = Production

Dumb Boss + Smart Employee = Promotion

Dumb Boss + Dumb Employee = Overtime

A man will pay Rs 200 for a Rs 100 item, which he needs.

A woman will pay Rs 100 for a Rs 200 item, which she doesn't need.

A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.

A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.

A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

To be happy with a man, u must understand him a lot and love him a little.

To be happy with a woman u must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.

Married men live longer than a single man, but married men are a lot more willing to die.

FACEBOOK TOOL that "SPIES" via Mobile

A newly developed Facebook Tool is giving suspicious partners an electronic map to "spy" on the location of their spouses.

SNIFF or The Social Network Integrated Friend Finder is the latest application that is offering this enduring aspect of locating suspicious spouses aytime and anywhere. "Sniffing" works on the principle that a mobile sends a signal from base stations, and a positioning software performs a triangular calculation based on the information from the base stations and converts into a geographical location that can be tracked on your mobile.

However, since privacy is of greater importance, this technique should be used by people whom we can trust. Travellers can make use of this technology to find their wherabouts in a foreign city. But like every piece of technology has its own negative aspects, organizations can use it to track down employees who may be enjoying a secret liaison, thus invading their privacy.

Howsoever it may be used, this service can already be rendered useful around a location of radius of about 200 metres from the source.. So don't bank on this piece of technology if u were to "spy" on your spouse or other friends from a relatively "long" distance because then u gotta "move along" with the person u wanna track [:D]

"THE WALLPAPER PROBLEM"

You may have wondered many times as to why a sheet of wallpaper refuses to tear neatly from your wall despite taking all precautions and you end up paying to decorate your walls again. An international team of researchers probably has the answers to your problem.

The Centre National de la Reserche Scientifique(CNRS), Paris, the Universidad de Santiago, Chile and the MIT together worked on the problem and said that the phenomenon of "The Wallpaper Problem" is actually based on the laws of physics. The researchers said that the pattern where the two cracks propagate towards each other to meet at a point is extremely robust, and it applies not only to the wallpaper,but also to other adhesives like the tape.

According to them, the ubiquitous triangular tears arise from interactions between three inherent properties of adhesive materials-elasticity(stiffness), adhesive energy (how strongly the adhesive sticks to a surface) and fracture energy(how tough it is to rip). Based on these three properties, the research team developed a formulation that predicts the angle of the triangle formed. They said that as the strip is pulled, energy builed up in the fold that forms where the tape is peeling from the surface. The tape can realease th energy in two ways:
1. By unpeeling from its surface and
2. By becoming narrower, both of which it does.

"LAUGHING GAS" THREAT IS NO "LAUGHING" MATTER

Scientists claim that Nitrous Oxide[N2O], popularly known as "laughing gas", is being released in the environment by a number of species of bacteria.

Nitrous Oxide, a greenhouse gas,emissions are a problem that requires urgent attention and needs to be dealt more seriously according to Prof. David Richardson[ University of East Anglia,Norwich,UK ].According to the Prof., Nitrous Oxide makes up only 9% of the total greenhouse gas emissions,majors being carbondioxide and methane,but it has 300 times more global warming potential than the majors. The reason being N2O can survive for nearly 150 years in the atmosphere, and hence it has been recognized in the Kyoto Protocol as one of the major greenhouse gases that needs urgent attention.

The major areas of its emission are from waste treatment plants and agriculture. Its emissions are increasing at the rate of 0.25% every year.

The main reason for such a many-fold increase in the emission is that many species of bacteria, infesting the marshy areas like municipal sewage treatment plants,landfill sites,etc, are able to switch over to using nitrates for their own respiration in the absence of oxygen or low levels of oxygen due to increase in their population in a relatively small area. This process of 'denitrification' releases N2O in huge quantities. Researchers are now trying to understand the significant environmental variables that make the different species of bacteria release N2O in such enduring quantities .According to Prof. Richardson "Global warming affects everybody, and understanding the biology of N2O emissions will provide for an important step in mitigating their impact."

We are now in urgent need of developing better strategies to control the N2O emissions otherwise it may prove to be a graver problem later in the 21st century, for us, for our children and for our grandchildren.