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Posted by: Administrator
on Jun 18, 2010
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INTRODUCTION TO CHERRAPUNJI
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Posted by: Administrator
on Jun 18, 2010
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INTRODUCTION TO CHERRAPUNJI
High above the hazy valleys and foaming rivers, hidden in the rolling clouds and perched on an headland, lies Cherrapunji, 4,500 ft above the sea level. Cherrapunji in the north eastern state of Meghalaya is a spectacular location with the year-round rain. Long ago, Cherrapunji in Meghalaya had earned the coveted place in the Guinness Book of World for being the wettest place on the earth. This is one place all over the world, where the rainfall can be recorded in feet rather than in millimeters.
BEST TIME TO VISIT
Posted by: Administrator
on Jun 11, 2010
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Varanasi , also commonly known as Benares or Banaras or Banāras and Kashi, is a city situated on the banks of the River Ganges in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, regarded as holy by Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and probably the oldest of India.
The city has been a cultural and religious centre in North India for several thousand years. The Benares Gharana form of Indian classical music developed in Varanasi, and many prominent Indian philosophers, poets, writers, and musicians resided or reside in Varanasi.
Varanasi is home to four universities: Banaras Hindu University, Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapeeth, Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies and Sampurnanand Sanskrit University. Residents mainly speak Hindi and Kashika Bhojpuri, which is closely related to the Hindi language. People often refer to Varanasi as "the city of temples", "the holy city of India", "the religious capital of India", "the city of lights", and "the city of learning.
American writer Mark Twain wrote: "Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together."
The name Varanasi has its origin possibly from the names of the two rivers Varuna and Assi for it lies with the confluence of Varuna with the Ganges being to its north and that of Assi and the Ganges to its south.
According to legend, the city was founded by the Hindu deity, Lord Shiva, around 5,000 years ago, thus making it one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in the country. It is one of the seven sacred cities of Hindus. Many Hindu scriptures, including the Rigveda, Skanda Purana, Ramayana, and the Mahabharata, mention the city.
Varanasi is a holy city in Hinduism, being one of the most sacred pilgrimage places for Hindus of all denominations. More than 1,000,000 pilgrims visit the city each year. It has the holy shrine of Kashi Vishwanath (a manifestation of Lord Shiva), and also one of the twelve revered Jyotirlingas of Lord Shiva.
Hindus believe that bathing in Ganga remits sins and that dying in Kashi ensures release of a person's soul from the cycle of its transmigrations.
Posted by: Administrator
on May 27, 2010
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Fourteen-year-old Sahal Kaushik, who holds the 33rd rank at all-India level in the IIT JEE exam, emerged the Delhi region topper in the entrance examination.
At the press conference to honor the toppers, Sahal, who was too shy to speak on stage, handed the mike over to his mother Ruchi Kaushik. But that was just for a while, off the stage, the boy giggled with his friend and answered media questions quite comfortably.
"He mixes where he wants to. He has participated in competitions at the international level and mixed very well with everyone," says Ruchi. A doctor by profession, Ruchi was her son's first teacher.
The first signs showed when he was two. “He could spell four to five letter words then. At three, he could recite multiplication tables of up to 100,” said Ruchi Kaushik, his mother. “I just knew he would not fit in the formal system of education.”
So Ruchi quit her job as a doctor and homeschooled her son.
Posted by: Administrator
on May 24, 2010
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Kamminlung Singson was sitting next to me on a four-hour hopping flight from Delhi to Imphal. He had one year of training in a short-term programme of Indian Army and was on his way back home to Churachandpur, about 60km from Imphal. He was supposed to travel by train up to Guwahati and then take a bus, but the highways to his hometown, NH 39 and NH 53, had been blocked by Naga rebels for almost 30 days at that time, so he had to somehow arrange for an air ticket. Not many Manipuris can afford an air ticket, he said sadly.
How’s is the situation, I asked?
Very bad. UGs are ruling and people are suffering. Imphal to Churachand Pur ticket has gone up to Rs 150 per person, which was just 40 rupees a few months back, he said.
Posted by: Administrator
on Jan 25, 2010
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Our ability to adapt other cuisines to our tastes: Hot and Sour Chinese soup has desi tadka. Sandwiches aren’t thinly sliced and lightly buttered slices of bread with slivers of cucumber. We add green chutney and sliced aloo and beetroot. We invented Chicken and Veg Manchurian, developed Udipi pizzas, concocted onion omelettes, created vegkheema, de-Japanesed Japanese food by cooking up gajjar-ka-sushi, and now are well on the way to Indianising the seafood diet of penguins in Antarctica just in case that becomes the hot new phoren cuisine of 2010.
Faith and spirituality: Tell someone you don’t believe in God. Go on. You’ll find yourself arguing so vehemently to make your case that you could well be accused of having a severe case of faith – faith in no God in this case. Because that’s what we do – believe. Hard. With passion. In anything we want to believe. Which is why practically every faith known to God is right here in India, and we’re not above inventing several more if we think we haven’t enough.
The way we are so flexible: Checked anyone’s filofax lately? Know anyone who has a filofax? We may set off in the morning expecting to follow a strict schedule of assignments and appointments, but we are always happy to chuck all our plans at a moment’s notice, particularly if the alternative involves partying.
Our many and varied stories: Our history goes back 5,000 years – and so do our epics that contain every emotion, possibility and philosophy that humans have ever managed to come up with. Not to mention a frightening amount of maths, if we’re considering the ages that make up the four yugas. Add to that the epics of Islam and Christianity, local folk traditions and tales that simply emerge from our fertile brains, and we’re wondering why our TV channels need to import bad reality shows from phoren and inflict them on us.
Chai: It’s raining. We need chai. It’s cold. We need chai. It’s hot and sweaty and miserable. We need chai. Yes chai, not tea. The over-boiled, over-milked and over-sweetened stuff that could rot our teeth and turn our insides into shoe leather, yet never fails to put life back into our tired frames. Then there’s also tea. Darjeeling, Assam, Nilgiri, Kangra... Mmmm, the fragrance.
Monsoon mania: Who needs marijuana or Ecstasy? The monsoon is what we get high on. After a long summer spent gazing up at the sky through a magnifying glass looking for the merest hint of a cloud (and in imminent danger of setting our eyebrows on fire), we see the sky begin to darken, then the first drops of rain hit the earth, then we breathe deep and our nostrils fill with the delicious scent of wet earth... and then we complain bitterly about floods.
Weddings and family occasions: Our weddings are attended by family, relatives, friends, past and present neighbours, people who invited you to their or their siblings’ weddings, past and present colleagues, random strangers because we had 300 wedding cards extra and didn’t want to waste them, plus gatecrashers – a guestlist so long it rivals the population of the whole of Africa. If however, our homes are filled with the population of only one small country, like Bangladesh, we’re just having a family dinner.
Posted by: Administrator
on Aug 31, 2009
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Posted by: Administrator
on Jun 02, 2009
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Source : Instablogs I would like to bring to your attention about the article written in Mid-Day online daily by deputy news editor, Jayita Bandyopadhyay, who openly confess about her friend and encourages others to engage in extra marital affairs. Is this applicable to all Husbands as well? There is no surprise in this news as far as the current social circumstances are concerned but when the matter comes to the court its always MEN who are getting punished where the actual perpetrators are proclaimed innocent! "A friend from school called me up a month ago and gushed that she was having an extramarital affair.
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