Thursday, December 12, 2013

school inspection - just for laugh

One inspector went to a school for inspection. He decided to ask few
questions to the students of the school to evaluate the quality of education
provided by the institution. So he started with a question - "'Hara Dhanus'
ko kisne toda tha?" (Who broke the 'Bow of Shiva' in Ramayana).

Not a single student had volunteered to answer, so he had to pick up a
student. That student got really frightened and answered - "Sir, sachhi bol
raha hoon, maine nehi toda" (Sir, I didn't break it, really!).

That inspector was irritated with that answer and went to complain to the
class teacher. After hearing everything the class teacher said - "Woh bahut
shararati bachcha hai, jarur usne hi toda hoga" (That lad is very naughty,
definitely he only broke it)

The inspector was really incensed hearing the response of the class teacher
and went to complain to the 'head of the institution' (Head Master). After
hearing all the incidents the Head Master replied - "Dekhiye sharati bachche
ne agar tod diya hai to kya kare, woh toota hua dhanush se hi kaam chalana
padega" (Since the naughty boy has broken the bow, we need to manage with
that one only).

Now the inspector got really annoyed and said enough is enough and described
all the incidents and sent his recommendation to the government - "not to
waste public money and discontinue the school itself". So all the cabinet
ministers had a meeting regarding the issue and they came to the conclusion
that 'closing of the school might spoil the future of so many students' and
sent their recommendation to the inspector - "Us dhanus ko thik karne ke
liye jitna rupia chahiye Government de degi, aap school ko chalu rakho"
(Govt. will pay the required money to repair the bow, you keep the school
open).

The Four Wives

Once upon a time, there lived a king who had four wives.

He adored his fourth queen so much that he always used to gift her with
loads of ornaments and other such adornments. She was inseparable from the
king and a perpetual accompaniment wherever he went.

He also loved his third wife a lot - he guarded her richness and grandeur
against the evil eyes of then neighbouring kings and others

He loved his second wife so much that he shared all his thoughts specially
with her. But unfortunately he never loved his first queen - he ignored her
very presence and enjoyed with the other queens.

Days passed by and one day it so happened that the king fell terribly sick
and the best of the physicians in the kingdom and the world could find a
cure. It was certain that he was staring at his end and he was on his final
days.

He calls his fourth queen over and sadly says "Look, I am on my deathbed and
will leave this world anytime now. When I was hale and hearty, I used to
take you everywhere that I went. Will you accompany me when I leave to the
other world?" To his utter shock, the Queen refused to do so and made it
abundantly clear that it was unreasonable for the king to expect this and
she would not like to give up her life for him. Though shocked, he did not
lose hope, he calls his third queen and poses the same question to her. The
shock was greater, she refuses to accompany him and moreover she replied
that she would remarry after his death and continue to lead a happy life.
The king was crestfallen at this outrageous reply from his dearest queens
but again rests his hopes on the second queen. He looks at her and she
pretends to be sympathetic to him and replies, "O dear, when you die, I
cannot accompany you" and justifies this decision saying, "your last rites
will be performed as per the scriptures and I will take the responsibility
to ensure this"

The king realised the reality at this fag end of his life. He realised the
bitter truth that no one would accompany him nor would be available during
his final days. While he was brooding over this fact, his first wife says,
"O sweetheart, I am with you wherever you go. Don't you worry that you will
have to make this last journey alone" The king was surprised and then
realised that she was the true wife who loved him for what he was - not his
riches not even his health. But his regret was that it was too late to make
amends and shower her with his love.

Yes...like this king, we all have four wives.

The fourth wife is our body. A physical commodity that burns into ashes or
disintegrates back to the earth at the end. The third wife is the wealth
that we earn which would be shared and become property of others after our
death. The Second wife is the relatives and friends who can only remain with
us till the cemetery or crematorium. The First wife is the one which remains
in our heart, the Paramatman, the Divine or God, which remains with us in
all our births and rebirths. It saves us from grief at the later stages if
we adopt our spiritual practices and be devoted to the divine during our
younger years.

letter by our president dr abdul kalam

DEVELOPED INDIA
Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.
The President of India


“I have three visions for India.


In 3000 years of our history, people from all over the world have come and
invaded us, captured our lands, conquered our minds. From Alexander onwards.
The Greeks, the Turks, the Moguls, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the
Dutch, all of them came and looted us, took over what was ours. Yet we have not
done this to any other nation. We have not conquered anyone. We have not
grabbed their land, their culture, their history and tried to enforce our way of life
on them.


Why? Because we respect the freedom of others. That is why my first vision is
that of FREEDOM. I believe that India got its first vision of this in 1857, when we
started the war of independence. It is this freedom that we must protect and
nurture and build on. If we are not free, no one will respect us.



My second vision for India is DEVELOPMENT. For fifty years we have been a
developing nation. It is time we see ourselves as a developed nation. We are
among top 5 nations of the world in terms of GDP. We have 10 percent growth
rate in most areas. Our poverty levels are falling. Our achievements are being
globally recognized today. Yet we lack the self-confidence to see ourselves as a
developed nation, self- reliant and self-assured. Isn’t this incorrect?
I have a THIRD vision.
India must stand up to the world. Because I believe that, unless India stands up
to the world, no one will respect us. Only strength respects strength. We must be
strong not only as a military power but also as an economic power. Both must go
hand-in-hand. My good fortune was to have worked with three great minds. Dr.
Vikram Sarabhai of the Dept. of space, Professor Satish Dhawan, who
succeeded him and Dr.Brahm Prakash, father of nuclear material. I was lucky to
have worked with all three of them closelyand consider this the great opportunity
of my life.
I see four milestones in my career:
Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the opportunity to be the project
director for India’s first satellite launch vehicle, SLV3. The one that launched
Rohini. These years played a very important role in my life of Scientist.
After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a chance to be the part of India’s
guided missile program. It was my second bliss when Agni met its mission
requirements in 1994.
The Dept. of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership in the
recent nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13. This was the third bliss.
The joy of participating with my team in these nuclear tests and proving to the
world that India can make it, that we are no longer a developing nation but one of
them. It made me feel very proud as an Indian. The fact that we have now
developed for Agni a re-entry structure, for which we have developed this new
material. A Very light material called carbon-carbon. One day an orthopedic
surgeon from Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences visited my laboratory. He lifted
the material and found it so light that he took me to his hospital and showed me
his patients. There were these little girls and boys with heavy metallic calipers
weighing over three Kg. each, dragging their feet around. He said to me: Please
remove the pain of my patients. In three weeks, we made these Floor reaction
Orthosis 300-gram Calipers and took them to the orthopedic center. The children
didn’t believe their eyes. From dragging around a three kg. Load on their legs,
they could now move around! Their parents had tears in their eyes. That was my
fourth bliss!
Why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India so embarrassed to
recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation.
We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them.
Why?
We are the first in milk production.
We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.
We are the second largest producer of wheat.
We are the second largest producer of rice.
Look at Dr. Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining,
self driving unit.

There are millions of such achievements but our media is only
obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters.


I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day
after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas
had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture Of a Jewish
gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert land into an orchid and a
granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of
killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among
other news.



In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime. Why are we so
NEGATIVE ? Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with
foreign things? We want foreign TVs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign
technology. Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that
self-respect comes with self-reliance?
I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my
autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is. She replied:
I want to live in a developed India. For her, you and I will have to build this
developed India. You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is
a highly developed nation.
Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance. Got 10
minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, choice is yours.
YOU say that our government is inefficient.
YOU say that our laws are too old.
YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage. YOU say that the
phones don’t work, the railways are a joke, The airline is the worst in the world,
mails never reach their destination.
YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.
YOU say, say and say.
What do YOU do about it?
Take a person on his way to Singapore. Give him a name - YOURS. Give him a
face - OURS. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best.
In Singapore you don’t throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores.
YOU are as proud of their Underground Links as they are.
You pay $5 (approx. Rs.60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim
Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOU comeback to the
Parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or
a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity.
In Singapore you don’t say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn’t dare to eat in
public during Ramadan, in Dubai. YOU would not dare to go out without your
head covered in Jeddah. YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the
telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds (Rs.650) a month to, “see to it that
my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else.” YOU would not dare to speed
beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, “Jaanta hai
sala main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so’s son. Take your
two bucks and get lost.” YOU wouldn’t chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere
other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand. Why
don’t YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo?
Why don’t YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston? We
are still talking of the same YOU. YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign
system in other countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers and
cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an
involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the
same here in India?
Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay,
Mr.Tinaikar, had a point to make.



“Rich people’s dogs are walked on the streets
to leave their affluent droppings all over the place,” he said. “And then the same
people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty
pavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every
time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels?




In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job.
Same in Japan. Will the Indian citizen do that here?” He’s right. We go to the
polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility. We sit back
wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us
whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean up
but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we
going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We
expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the
proper use of bathrooms.
We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but
we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity.
This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the
public. When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women,
dowry, girl child and others, we make loud drawing room Protestations and
continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse? “It’s the whole system which
has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons’ rights to a dowry.” So
who’s going to change the system?
What does a system consist of? Very conveniently for us it consists of our
neighbors, other households, other cities, other communities and the
government. But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually
making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our
families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and
wait for a Mr. Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep
of his hand or we leave the country and run away.


Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory
and praise their system.

When New York becomes insecure we run to England.


When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the
Gulf.

When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home
by the Indian government.

Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country.


Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.
Dear Indians,




The article is highly thought inductive, calls for a great deal of
introspection and pricks one’s conscience too....I am echoing J.F.Kennedy’s
words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians.....
“ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO
MAKE INDIA WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE
TODAY”

Thank you
Abdul Kalam

Monday, December 9, 2013

Control of Hindu Temples and Temple Funds
This deserves a very wide circulation ?
A Foreign writer opens our eyes...
The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Act of 1951 allows State Governments and politicians to take over thousands of Hindu Temples and maintain complete control over them and their properties. It is claimed that they can sell the temple assets and properties and use the money in any way they choose.
 
A charge has been made not by any Temple authority, but by a foreign writer, Stephen Knapp, in a book (Crimes Against India and the Need to Protect Ancient Vedic Tradition), published in the United States that makes shocking reading.
Hundreds of temples in centuries past have been built in India by devout rulers and the donations given to them by devotees have been used for the benefit of the (other) people. If, presently, money collected has ever been misused (and that word needs to be defined), it is for the devotees to protest and not for any government to interfere. This letter is what has been happening currently under an intrusive law.
It would seem, for instance, that under a Temple Empowerment Act, about 43,000 temples in Andhra Pradesh have come under government control and only 18 per cent of the revenues of these temples have been returned for temple purposes, the remaining 82 per cent being used for purposes unstated.
Apparently even the world famous Tirumala Tirupati Temple has not been spared. According to Knapp, the temple collects over Rs 3,100 crores every year and the State Government has not denied the charge that as much as 85 per cent of this is transferred to the State Exchequer, much of which goes to causes that are not connected with the Hindu community.
Was it for that reason that devotees make their offering to the temples?
Another charge that has been made is that the Andhra Government has also allowed the demolition of at least ten temples for the construction of a golf courses. Imagine the outcry, writes Knapp, if ten mosques had been demolished.
It would seem that in Karanataka, Rs. 79 crores were collected from about two lakh temples and from that, temples received Rs seven crores for their maintenance, Muslim madrassahs and Haj subsidy were given Rs 59 crore and churches about Rs 13 crore. Very generous of the government.
Because of this, Knapp writes, 25 per cent of the two lakh temples or about 50,000 temples in Karnataka will be closed down for lack of resources, and he adds: The only way the government can continue to do this is because people have not stood up enough to stop it.
Knapp then refers to Kerala where, he says, funds from the Guruvayur Temple are diverted to other government projects denying improvement to 45 Hindu temples. Land belonging to the Ayyappa Temple , apparently has been grabbed and Church encroaches are occupying huge areas of forest land, running into thousands of acres, near Sabarimala.
A charge is made that the Communist state government of Kerala wants to pass an Ordinance to disband the Travancore Cochin Autonomous Devaswom Boards (TCDBs) and take over their limited independent authority of 1,800 Hindu temples. If what the author says is true, even the Maharashtra Government wants to take over some 450,000 temples in the state which would supply a huge amount of revenue to correct the states bankrupt conditions.
And, to top it all, Knapp says that in Orissa, the state government intends to sell over 70,000 acres of endowment lands from the Jagannath Temple , the proceeds of which would solve a huge financial crunch brought about by its own mismanagement of temple assets.
Control of Hindu Temples and Temple Funds
This deserves a very wide circulation ?
A Foreign writer opens our eyes...
The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Act of 1951 allows State Governments and politicians to take over thousands of Hindu Temples and maintain complete control over them and their properties. It is claimed that they can sell the temple assets and properties and use the money in any way they choose.
 
A charge has been made not by any Temple authority, but by a foreign writer, Stephen Knapp, in a book (Crimes Against India and the Need to Protect Ancient Vedic Tradition), published in the United States that makes shocking reading.
Hundreds of temples in centuries past have been built in India by devout rulers and the donations given to them by devotees have been used for the benefit of the (other) people. If, presently, money collected has ever been misused (and that word needs to be defined), it is for the devotees to protest and not for any government to interfere. This letter is what has been happening currently under an intrusive law.
It would seem, for instance, that under a Temple Empowerment Act, about 43,000 temples in Andhra Pradesh have come under government control and only 18 per cent of the revenues of these temples have been returned for temple purposes, the remaining 82 per cent being used for purposes unstated.
Apparently even the world famous Tirumala Tirupati Temple has not been spared. According to Knapp, the temple collects over Rs 3,100 crores every year and the State Government has not denied the charge that as much as 85 per cent of this is transferred to the State Exchequer, much of which goes to causes that are not connected with the Hindu community.
Was it for that reason that devotees make their offering to the temples?
Another charge that has been made is that the Andhra Government has also allowed the demolition of at least ten temples for the construction of a golf courses. Imagine the outcry, writes Knapp, if ten mosques had been demolished.
It would seem that in Karanataka, Rs. 79 crores were collected from about two lakh temples and from that, temples received Rs seven crores for their maintenance, Muslim madrassahs and Haj subsidy were given Rs 59 crore and churches about Rs 13 crore. Very generous of the government.
Because of this, Knapp writes, 25 per cent of the two lakh temples or about 50,000 temples in Karnataka will be closed down for lack of resources, and he adds: The only way the government can continue to do this is because people have not stood up enough to stop it.
Knapp then refers to Kerala where, he says, funds from the Guruvayur Temple are diverted to other government projects denying improvement to 45 Hindu temples. Land belonging to the Ayyappa Temple , apparently has been grabbed and Church encroaches are occupying huge areas of forest land, running into thousands of acres, near Sabarimala.
A charge is made that the Communist state government of Kerala wants to pass an Ordinance to disband the Travancore Cochin Autonomous Devaswom Boards (TCDBs) and take over their limited independent authority of 1,800 Hindu temples. If what the author says is true, even the Maharashtra Government wants to take over some 450,000 temples in the state which would supply a huge amount of revenue to correct the states bankrupt conditions.
And, to top it all, Knapp says that in Orissa, the state government intends to sell over 70,000 acres of endowment lands from the Jagannath Temple , the proceeds of which would solve a huge financial crunch brought about by its own mismanagement of temple assets.