IPL Balance Sheet

If you are going by the figures given in ET, the country's top business men - Ambani & Mallaya have taken a beating & while SRK has emerged as a shrewd guy with a strong business acumen.

Kolkata Knight Riders - Net Profit - 8 Cr
Rajastan Royals - Emerging Media - Net Profit - 5 Cr
Kings XII Punjab - Preity Zinta - Net Loss - 3.4 Cr
Chennai SuperKings - India Cements - Net Loss - 5 Cr
Delhi DareDevils - GMR Holdings - Net Loss - 8 Cr
Deccan Chargers - Deccan Chronicle - Net Loss - 20 Cr
Mumbai Indians - Reliance - Net Loss - 21 Cr
Royal Challengers - UB Group - Net Loss - 45 Cr

Grunts

Using a digital sound level meter, The Telegraph recorded maximum decibels of 103.2, louder than a motorcycle or a lawnmower.

From whom..you might wonder??

Well it was from Maria Sharapova. She went on to lose the Wimbledon match to fellow Russian Alla Kudryatseva in the second round.

How to read Newspaper course - USD 15

Was definitely taken aback...

Vikas Kamat [of kamat.com] actually paid USD 15 to attend 'Smart Reader' - one hour program on how to read newspaper He has justification too..

Newspapers in America are the classic case of "information overload". They are so thick, with so many pages, and so many advertisements. It is so hard to find the information you need, and so hard to distinguish important stuff from trivial stuff. So, I had to do what I did -- pay someone to teach me how to survive the information overload

Ignorance is bliss

Am currently reading Katradhum Petradhum - a series of articles written by Sujatha in AnandhaVikatan. Somewhere along the book, Sujatha traces the quote 'Ignorance is Bliss'

The quote is attributed to English Poet - Thomas Gray

The quote is seen towards the end of the poem - "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"

To each his suff'rings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan,
The tender for another's pain;
Th' unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

This gloomy poem speaks abt a group of students who are playing in the college grounds..ignorant of the fact that sorrow is going to come soon & their happiness is going to pass away swiftly..till then they can be blissfully happy..

Another good thing abt Katradhum Petradhum is most of the articles are interesting & I'm playing 'book cricket' with it - savoring any article that comes along while randomly opening the book ;-))

FedEx or Ex-FedEx

This Wimbledon would be special for Roger Federer. He has to re-ascertain his supremacy especially after the French Open debacle. Nadal is in excellent form following his recent Grass court victory..

Interesting times ahead, I'm looking forward to yet another Federer Vs. Nadal clash..but Novak Djokovic could spoil the party......Wimbledon kicks open this Monday.

New Jain Sites, rock art - Gingee, Tamilnadu

Over the last three months, two rock art sites, two caverns with Jaina beds, and dolmens have been discovered within a radius of 25 km on the hillocks behind the Gingee fort in Tamil Nadu’s Villupuram district.

The rock art consists of a painting of a deer done in white kaolin with outlines in red ochre.

“This is really rare,” Mr. Gandhirajan, an explorer who specializes in art history said. While this figure of a deer is about 3 feet by 3 feet in size, there are tiny drawings of deer and lizard (udu mbu in Tamil) on the adjacent rock surface, as if to contra-distinguish their size. He estimated that the paintings might belong to circa 1000 B.C. “These paintings were done by pre-historic men — by hunter-gatherers who used to live in this cavern. Much later, the Jain monks occupied them

More in this Hindu report.

Endaro Mahanu Bhavulu

Endaro Mahanu Bhavulu [YouTube] rendered with gusto by the musical stalwart M.S. Subbulakshmi has almost become my staple morning dosage of energy booster. Even for a carnatic music novice, this Thyagaraja Pancharatna Kriti has a strong appeal. Pure Eternal Bliss!

Commendable Effort

For 120 days, they travelled through some of the more remote regions of Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, carrying around 600 kg of equipment.

S. Krishnaswamy of Krishnaswamy Associates and his wife (and producer) Mohana Krishnaswamy have made‘Indian Imprints’, a nine-hour documentary that traces the impact of ancient Indian culture and civilisation on South East Asia, historically.

“We’re not talking about the Mariamman temples built 150 years ago by Chettiars who settled there,” says Krishnaswamy, who has won four National Awards for his short non-fiction films “The temples and monuments we’ve covered go back all the way to an unspecified pre-Christian era, with authentic documentation from the first century A.D. onwards. The monuments offer a fascinating study in cross-cultural pollination such as the Pandava Chandis, temples for the Pandavas and Draupadi dating back to the 8th century in Java, Angkor Wat, the massive 11th century Vishnu temple in Cambodia, or sculptures dedicated to Karaikal Ammaiyar, a 9th century saint from Tamil Nadu scattered all over the region.

More interesting info at The Hindu - Metro Plus

Joke-O-Joke-4

Vice-Chancellor turns marriage counsellor:

Anna University vice-chancellor D Viswanathan seems to seize any opportunity to impose his views on an audience. Reporters were not surprised when he came up with a ‘logical’ explanation for the institution’s good placement record. Addressing students at a function organised to distribute offer letters for students recruited through off-campus placement, he said, “Today you have landed good jobs because you did not use your cell phones due to which there were no diversions. Now, when you start working, you should send money back to your parents and not to your girl friends. (He assumed he was talking to an all-male audience.) You should listen to them, be responsible children and have an arranged marriage.” If this did not seem ludicrous enough, his speech was greeted with applause from the audience while his two staff members looked on with admiration.

Not able to get the direct link to TOI - EPaper link

Joke-O-Joke-3
Joke-O-Joke-2
Joke-O-Joke-1

King Khan might not like it

He had, just moments ago, in response to another question, said he had only seen three Hindi films in his life. [Wife Bhavna, whom he met when both were students at New York's Tisch School of Arts, and proposed to through a fortune cookie, is the expert, he said].

"What's that guy's name, we were talking about him at lunch, Shah Rukh Khan, yeah, I think all three movies had him in them. There was this thing, he is touching her in the rain, what was the name of that movie, Kabhi something... [UTV CEO Ronnie Screwvala, co-producer of Night's upcoming film, helpfully supplied Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham]... right, that one; that was kind of cool. And I remember there was an old one, it was supposed to be very salacious at the time, wait, Shivam something? [Satyam Sivam Sundaram, supplied the ever helpful Screwvala]... right, that one, right there, that was smokin', that one. I don't remember the name of the third one -- wait, Devdas, there you go."

Manoj Night Shyamalan

Rare photo

TN CM Karunanidhi without his trademark dark glasses ..clicked by vikatan during his Bday celebrations.

Interesting Evolution

Bdelloid Rotifers - It sounds greek to me...But these species seem to have achieved something that no creature in this world has achieved.

The bdelloid rotifers are ancient asexuals: they appear to have been living entirely without sex for more than 85 million years.

NYTimes - Olivia Judson's blog - Wild life - The Weird Sisters, has more such startling revelations.

"..evolving asexuality isn’t the hard part. The hard part is making an evolutionary success of it.....asexuality evolves often, but rarely persists for long: asexuals typically go extinct soon after they appear. The swift extinction of asexuals, and the absence of big asexual groups, suggests that sex is essential for long-term evolutionary success: giving up sex is a Bad Idea, a kind of evolutionary suicide.
..
How are they managing to flourish despite this epic period of abstinence? For they do flourish: bdelloids are everywhere
..
It now looks as though the bdelloids do acquire new genes from time to time — that mutation isn’t their only source of genetic novelty. Yet their means of getting new genes is unlike anything previously known for an animal. Namely: they seem to pick up genes from the environment, and add them into their genomes.
..
No one knows how the bdelloids pick up these genes. One idea is that it may be due to another oddity of their lifestyle: their ability to dry up and blow away. When the piece of moss they are living in dries up, these animals often dry up, too. It’s a state of suspended animation — add water and, all being well, they come back to life as frisky, or even friskier, than before. (This isn’t unique to bdelloids — some other small animals have evolved to endure dessication. But most of these others can only do it at particular stages of their lives. The bdelloids can do it at any time. They can also — probably as a consequence of their dessication abilities — survive high levels of radiation. Much higher than other animals can.) During the drying and rehydration, cell membranes may become disrupted, and their DNA fragmented. Perhaps all this makes it easier for stray bits of foreign DNA to get into the cells that will become eggs.

What to say...Nature has more than its share of surprises!!

Business School business in India

Not very surprising... esp. when we have more than 1600 business schools in India!
From Business Week:

The Business Barometer study was issued last month by the the Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of India (Assocham), the country's leading chamber of commerce organization. It found that beyond the top 30 institutions, most business school professors and lecturers in India's business schools are ignorant of the world's major economic trends and key developments, such as the subprime crisis in the U.S. Few read business publications.

The study found that only 6% of the 258 faculty members she surveyed read any business newspaper on a regular basis, with steady readership of business magazines "negligible."

Setting a high standard for Indian business schools by satisfying a quality accrediting agency is an important step for Indian business schools, said Assocham's Bhutani. An improved accreditation process would have a ripple effect on all Indian business schools, he continued, forcing them to improve the quality of teachers, materials, and professional development.

Quite true...but all this accrediting business can spin off a business by itself..like engineering college accreditation.

Kurinji Malar - Na Parthasarathy

Finally finished reading Kurinji Malar purchased at the Chennai Book Fair. It is considered a classic among Tamil novels. It quite lived up to its name.
Na. Pa moves ahead of just telling a captivating story - the novel is more of moral science in disguise. The lead characters - Aravindan & Poorni are described as epitome of goodness. The keywords - Ozhukam, thuimai, nermai, mangalam, kolghai are constantly seen through the narrative. It has this old world feel...the money is discussed in annas & paisas..;-)) Good one time read.

Trivia: M.K.Stalin, the Tamilnadu C.M in waiting, acted in the DD - Serial Kurinji Malar as Aravindan. I still remember flashes of it.

Parenting - Poem

Good One!

http://www.cgcreations.org/poems/forgets.html