love story

She could not quite wipe out the smile on her face. 'Happy in my heart, Dil Dance Maare Re', this silly song from the equally silly film Tashan kept playing over & over again in her head. He had said that he loved her, not the exact phrase, nor a romantic dialogue delivery more of an angry declaration. Yes! It sounded sweet indeed! Years of insecurity, of fear, of shame, of guilt and of apprehension, all fell away as the heart started going mad with joy.

 

It had all started on a midsummer day, almost a decade back. She had only just begun to discover the vast and wondrous world of the internet . What did her computer instructor say? Education, entertainment & communication for the future. Quest for entertainment led her into a chat room one fine day. The fast moving chat page intrigued her. She marveled at the easy camaraderie  between thousands of people residing in far flung out places of the world. There he was. She saw him there on chat, day in and day out, whenever she logged in. He seemed to have his own set of friends who went  all out to impress him. He bestowed his expert comments sparingly, making his friends display broad smilies and red hearts in response.

 

Slowly she got acquainted with him. She was drawn to this educated, intelligent and amusing chat friend. Then almost a year later, their paths crossed and they met. Lightning struck and there was instant attraction. She cherished every moment of the meeting. He seemed to regret his moment of madness. Yet their friendship grew, it spilled over onto the messenger, mails, SMSes and phone calls. She waited with bated breath for him to log in, she bombarded him with silly, senseless & inane messages which he must have painstakingly deleted. He seemed distracted, aloof and she sulked. She deliberately provoked him into a quarrel. He withdrew and vanished altogether from her life. Days passed in a haze, time lost its meaning, she surfed the internet endlessly, her heart heavy and eyes puffy. She realized that she could continue to live without him but at what price? He had been like a priceless diamond ring, stored away in a safe place, too precious to be worn very day but adding that much more value to her life.

 

She apologised and made up. Life continued as before. Finally today, he had bought her a gift. The first one in 10 years. Then came his reluctant admittance of love. Love for her! She stared at the dark overcast sky, no stars were visible. Yet to her, they shone with brilliant incandescence. Her day was made,  her life was made. What more can she ask for? Her virtual love has turned real. At least for today. Who knows what will happen tomorrow?  For tomorrow is another day.

 

Life ends When you stop dreaming!

Hope ends When you stop believing!

 

Dr. Manmohan Singh - Prime Minister of India

Manmohan Singh (Punjabi:) (born 26 September 1932) is the 17^th and current Prime Minister of India. Singh is a member of the Indian National Congress party, and became the first Sikh Prime Minister of India on May 22, 2004. He is considered one of the most influential figures in India's recent history, mainly because of the economic reforms he had initiated in 1991 when he was Finance Minister under Prime Minister Narasimha Rao.^[1]

Early life

He was born on 26 September 1932, in Gah, Punjab (now in Chakwal District, Pakistan). He has an Undergraduate (1952) and a Master's degree (1954) from Panjab University, Chandigarh; an Undergraduate degree (1957) from Cambridge University (St. John's College) and a D.Phil (1962) from Oxford University (Nuffield College). In 1997, the University of Alberta presented him with an Honorary Doctor of Laws. The University of Oxford awarded him an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree in June 2005, and in October 2006, the University of Cambridge followed with the same honour. St John's College and the University of Cambridge further honoured him by naming a PhD Scholarship after him, the Dr Manmohan Singh Scholarship.

Singh married Gursharan Kaur in 1958, and they have three daughters.

Political career

Singh, an economist by profession, worked for the International Monetary Fund in his younger days.^[2] Dr. Singh is known to be an unassuming politician, enjoying a formidable, highly respected and admired image.^[3] Due to his work at the UN, International Monetary Fund and other international bodies, he is highly respected around the world. He was awarded the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award in 2002. Before becoming Prime Minister, he served as the Finance Minister under Narasimha Rao. He is credited with transforming the economy in the early 1990s during the financial crisis. He served as Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha (upper house) from March 1998 to May 2004, when the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government was in office.

His economic policies - which included getting rid of several socialist policies, especially the License Raj - were popular. He enjoys strong support among the middle classes of India due to his education. Singh lost the election in the Lok Sabha from South Delhi constituency in the 1999 general elections. He is thus the only Indian Prime Minister never to have been an elected member of the Lower House of Parliament. In fact he has not won a direct election. He has been a member of the Rajya Sabha from Assam since 1995. He was re-elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2001 and 2007.

Economic reforms and ascent to power

Singh served as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 1982 to 1985, and was hand picked as finance minister in cabinet of then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao in 1991.

Singh is widely regarded as the architect of India's original economic reform programme, which was enacted in 1991 under Rao's administration. The economic liberalization package pushed by Singh and Rao opened the nation to foreign direct investment. The liberalization was prompted by an acute balance-of-payments crisis whereby the Indian government, left without sufficient reserves to meet its obligations, had begun preparations to mortgage its gold reserves to the Bank of England in order to obtain the cash reserves needed to run the country.

Many see the 1991 liberalization as the first of a series of economic restructuring efforts throughout the 1990s and 2000s that have raised India's growth rates to amongst highest in world. Despite its liberal economic policies, Rao's government was voted out in the next general election in 1996.

Opposition and 2004 election

Singh became leader of opposition in upper house of Indian Parliament, and stayed with the Congress Party during a major split in 1999, when three senior Congress leaders objected to Sonia Gandhi's rise as Congress President. Being touted as the Congress choice for the PM's job, Gandhi had become a target of nationalists who objected to her Italian birth.

An alliance led by the Congress Party won a surprisingly high number of seats in the Parliamentary elections of 2004. The Left Front decided to support a coalition government led by the Congress Party from the outside. Sonia Gandhi was elected leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party and was expected to become the Prime Minister. In a surprise move, she declined to accept the post and instead nominated Dr. Singh. He secured the nomination for prime minister on 19 May 2004 when the then President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam officially asked him to form a government. Although most expected him to head the Finance Ministry himself, he entrusted the job to P. Chidambaram.

His appointment is notable as it comes 20 years after India witnessed significant tensions between the Indian central government and the Punjabi Sikh community. After Congress Party Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the mother-in-law of Sonia Gandhi, ordered central government troops to storm the Golden Temple (the holiest site of Sikhism) in Amritsar, Punjab to quell a separatist movement, she was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. The result was a genocidal campaign against Sikhs and many innocent Sikhs lost their lives during riots promoted by the Congress Party^{[citation needed]} immediately after the assassination.

Tenure as Prime Minister

Singh's image is generally regarded as intellectual, honest but cautious, attentive to working class people (on whose votes he was elected), and technocratic. Although legislative achievements have been few and the Congress-led alliance is routinely hampered by conflicts, Singh's administration has focused on reducing the fiscal deficit, providing debt-relief to poor farmers, extending social programs and advancing the pro-industry economic and tax policies that have launched the country on a major economic expansion course since 2002. Singh has been the image of the Congress campaign to defuse religious tensions and conflicts and bolster political support from minorities like Muslims, Christians and Sikhs.

The Prime Minister's foreign policy has been to continue the new peace process with Pakistan initiated by his predecessor, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Exchange visits by top leaders from both countries have highlighted this year, as has reduced terrorism and increased prosperity in the state of Kashmir.

 

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is the first Indian Prime Minister who delivered a speech to the Joint session of the United States Congress.

His government has endeavored to build stronger relations with the United States, the People's Republic of China and European nations. The Government suffered a setback when it lost the support of a key ally, several African Union members, for its bid for a permanent membership to the U.N. Security Council with veto privileges^{[citation needed]}. One of the biggest achievements^{[citation needed]} of Manmohan Singh's Government has been a nuclear deal between India and the U.S.A. Under Dr. Singh, an economist and Finance minister P. Chidambaram, India's economic growth has continued, with the GDP growing at a very fast rate of 9%. This has resulted in India becoming a trillion dollar economy.

Legislation

The important NREGA act and the RTI act were passed by the Parliament in 2005 during his tenure. While the effectiveness of the NREGA has been debated, the RTI act has proved crucial in India's fight against corruption.

Criticism

Manmohan Singh on his visit to Arunachal Pradesh

• Manmohan Singh is often criticized by opposition parties (mainly BJP) by portraying him as the "weakest Prime Minister until now". The comment was made by Lal Krishna Advani after Manmohan Singh made a statement in which he implied that the "nuclear deal is not a big issue". ^{[4] [5]}
• Communist Parties (notably Somnath Chatterjee) have been criticising him since he got elected as Rajya Sabha member in 1991 from Assam. Their main argument was he is not eligible of becoming a Member of Parliament from a state where he does not reside.
• His statement about losing sleep on Hanif's arrest in Australia was also criticised a lot.^[6]. Opposition asked whether he lost sleep when hundreds of people got killed in Hyderabad, Varanasi and Ajmer blasts.
• He is also the target of opposition due to the "Muslim appeasement" which the government is doing according to other political parties.^[7]

His statements like "Minorities, particularly the Muslims, have first right over the national resources" have also invited a lot of discussion in Indian print media ^{[8] [9]}

Quotations

• "We will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, are empowered to share equitably in the fruits of development. They must have the first claim on resources"
• "I could not sleep thinking about Hanif"
• "Rahul Gandhi is the future of you people" (While addressing a rally in Uttar Pradesh assembly elections).
• "India happens to be a rich country inhabited by very poor people."
• "Life is never free of contradictions"
• "Together with international unity and resolve we can meet the challenge of this global scourge and work to bring about an international law of zero tolerance for terrorism."
• "We are a coalition government, and that limits our options in some ways. Privatization happens to be one such area."
• "We need bipolar democracy like United States. Multiparty system has its own disadvantages."
• "In this increasingly interdependent world in which we live in we have an obligation to explore areas of convergence."
• "By appointing me as Prime Minister of India, Soniyaji (Sonia Gandhi) has proved her sacrifice. I will continue to work on her footsteps."
• "Jawaharlal Nehru wanted India to develop close ties with Japan and learn from its experience."^[10]
• "As the largest and most developed democracies of Asia (India and Japan), we have a mutual stake in each other's progress and prosperity." ^[10]

Dr. Manmohan Singh's career

• First Class Honours degree in Economics, University of Cambridge, St John's College, Cambridge (1957)
• Panjab University, Chandigarh, India
• Senior Lecturer, Economics (1957-1959)
• Professor of International Trade (1969-1971)
• Reader (1959-1963)
• Professor (1963-1965)
• D. Phil in Economics, Nuffield College at University of Oxford, (1962)
• Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi
• Honorary Professor (1996)
• Chief, Financing for Trade Section, UNCTAD, United Nations Secretariat, New York
• 1966 : Economic Affairs Officer 1966
• Economic Advisor, Ministry of Foreign Trade, India (1971-1972)
• Chief Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, India, (1972-1976)
• Honorary Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (1976)
• Director, Reserve Bank of India (1976-1980)
• Director, Industrial Development Bank of India (1976-1980)
• Secretary, Ministry of Finance (Department of Economic Affairs), Government of India, (1977-1980)
• Governor, Reserve Bank of India (1982-1985)
• Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission of India, (1985-1987)
• Advisor to Prime Minister of India on Economic Affairs (1990-1991)
• Finance Minister of India, (21 June 1991 - 15 May 1996)
• Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha (1998-2004)
• Prime Minister of India (22 May 2004 - Present)

 

birbal the wise

Birbal Solves the Problem   Several courtiers were vying to be the Royal Advisor of Emperor Akbar. So one day, when they came to the court, they said to the Emperor, "We want to be your Royal Advisor." Akbar said, "No problem, but you will have to pass the test before you could be my Royal Advisor. And whoever would pass the test will be appointed my Advisor." They agreed.   The King unfastened his waist cloth and lay down on the floor, and asked the candidates to cover him with that cloth from head to toe. Now everybody tried to cover him, but in vain. If one wanted to cover the head, then feet remained uncovered, or if the feet were covered, then his head remained open.   Just then Birbal entered the court, the king asked Birbal also, if he could cover him with that cloth from head to toe. Birbal paused a moment, then asked the Emperor politely, "Huzoor, Could you pull up your knees a little bit?" The King did so, and Birbal could cover him from head to toe with that cloth. Realizing that they failed the test, the courtiers left the court quietly and then they never thought about being the King's Advisor.

 

Nice logic :: it maY work

A man eats two eggs each morning for breakfast.  When he goes to the Kirana store he pays Rs. 12 a dozen.  Since a dozen eggs won't last a week he normally buys two dozens at a time. One day while buying eggs he notices that the price has risen to Rs. 16. The next time he buys groceries, eggs are Rs. 22 a dozen.

When asked to explain the price of eggs the store owner says, "The price has gone up and I have to raise my price accordingly" . This store buys 100 dozen eggs a day.  He checked around for a better price and all the distributors have raised their prices. The distributors have begun to buy from the huge egg farms.  The small egg farms have been driven out of business.  The huge egg farms sell 100,000 dozen eggs a day to distributors.  With no competition, they can set the price as they see fit. The distributors then have to raise their prices to the grocery stores. And on and on and on.

As the man kept buying eggs the price kept going up. He saw the big egg trucks delivering 100 dozen eggs each day. Nothing changed there.   He checked out the huge egg farms and found they were selling 100,000 dozen eggs to the distributors daily. Nothing had changed but the price of eggs.

Then week before Diwali the price of eggs shot up to Rs. 40 a  dozen. Again  he asked the grocery owner why and was told, "Cakes and baking for the holiday".  The huge egg farmers know there will be a lot of baking going on and more eggs will be used. Hence, the price of eggs goes up. Expect the same thing at Christmas and other times when family cooking, baking, etc. happen. This pattern continues until the price of eggs is Rs. 60 a dozen. The man says, " There must be something we can do about the price of eggs".

He starts talking to all the people in his town and they decide to stop buying  eggs. This didn't work because everyone needed eggs.  Finally, the man suggested only buying what you need.  He ate 2 eggs a day. On the way home from work he would stop at the grocery and buy two eggs. Everyone in town started buying 2 or 3 eggs a day.

The grocery store owner began complaining that he had too many eggsin his cooler.  He told the distributor that he didn't need any eggs. Maybe wouldn't need any all week.

The distributor had eggs piling up at his warehouse.  He told the huge egg farms that he didn't have any room for eggs would not need any for at least two weeks. At the egg farm, the chickens just kept on laying eggs.   To relieve the pressure, the huge egg farm told the distributor that they could buy the eggs at a lower price. The distributor said, " I don't have the room for  the %$&^*&% eggs even if they were free".   The distributor told the grocery store owner that he would lower the price of the eggs if the store would start buying again.

The grocery store owner said, "I don't have room for more eggs. The customers  are only buying 2 or 3 eggs at a time.  Now if you were to drop the price of eggs back down to the original price, the customers would start buying by the dozen again".

The distributors sent that proposal to the huge egg farmers but the egg farmers liked the price they were getting for their eggs but, those chickens just kept on laying.  Finally, the egg farmers lowered the
price of their eggs.  But only a few paisa. The customers still bought 2 or 3 eggs at a time. They said, "when the price of  eggs gets down to where it was before, we will start buying by the dozen."

Slowly the price of eggs started dropping.  The distributors had to slash their prices to make room for the eggs coming from the egg farmers.  The egg farmers cut their prices because the distributors wouldn't buy at a higher price than they were selling eggs for. Anyway, they had full warehouses and wouldn't need eggs for quite a while. And those chickens kept on laying. Eventually, the egg farmers cut their prices because they were throwing away eggs they couldn't sell.

The distributors started buying again because the eggs were priced to where the  stores could afford to sell them at the lower price. And the customers starting buying by the dozen again.

Now, transpose this analogy to the gasoline industry.

What if everyone only bought Rs 200.00 worth of Petrol each time they pulled to the pump?  The dealer's tanks would stay semi full all the time.  The dealers wouldn't have room for the gas coming from the huge tanks.  The tank farms wouldn't  have room for the petrol coming from the refining plants. And the refining plants wouldn't have room for the oil being off loaded from the huge tankers  coming from the oil fiends.

Just Rs 200.00 each time you buy gas. Don't fill up the tank of your car. You may have to stop for gas twice a week, but the price should come down.

Think about it.

Also, don't buy anything else at the fuel station; don't give them any more of your hard earned money than what you spend on gas, until the prices come down..."

...just think of this concept for a while....... ......... ...please pass this concept around....reaching out to the masses ...the world ..... let us put an end to oil rich countries fleecing the poor and developing countries