GORGEOUS BEAUTIES: WOMEN ACHIEVERS

Mar 13, 2015

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Inspirational Persons

Nov 26, 2014

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Alankrita Sahai Representing (India) Miss Earth 2014 Top 16 Video

Jun 23, 2014

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Koyal Rana (FEMINA MISS INDIA WORLD 2014) Real Life Photos

Jun 19, 2014

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Couples in Football FIFA World Cup 2014

Jun 7, 2014

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Smriti Irani's Decision To Set Up Eight New IITs

Students Question HRD Minister Over 8 New IITs

Union human resources development minister Smriti Irani's decision to set up eight new IITs has sparked an interesting debate. Students from the older IITs have begun an online petition seeking review of the move, and 6,000 signatures were gathered in less than a week.The petition, submitted to the minister online by IIT Kharagpur student Digvijay Patil, sought that the infrastructure of existing IITs — there are now 16 of them — be strengthened and upgraded first, before new institutes are started.

The petition received overwhelming support from the student community, and messages have been pouring in endlessly on social websites like Facebook and messaging network WhatsApp.IIT students are making all out efforts to project nationwide unanimity in this matter. Among the issues raised by the students are acute shortage of competent teaching staff, and inadequate facilities.

Available reports indicate that existing IITs in India have 6,591 sanctioned posts. Only 4,079 have been filled, a mere 62% of total requirement. Among these faculty positions are also teachers on visiting, adjunct and contractual arrangements. What is more, the eight IITs set up in 2009 have not yet shifted to permanent campuses.

Students fear that if eight new institutes are set up in such a situation, they will be no better than the eight struggling IITs set up in 2009. Such a state of affairs would result in the dilution of the IIT brand, said Manu Agarwal, a student of IT at the Banaras Hindu University-IIT. Agarwal pointed out that the average strength of any IIT is around 1,000 students, while the eight IITs set up in 2009 have confined the maximum number of students to 500.

What this means is that these eight IITs have been running at half capacity because of the lack of teachers and necessary infrastructure. In many IITs, students share rooms meant for single occupancy in the hostels, and three students are sometimes expected to live in rooms meant for only two. Laboratories and classrooms are inadequately furnished, Agarwal said. Given that the HRD minister has expressed willingness to scrap the controversial four-year undergraduate study programme in Delhi University, IIT students too hope their petition will be heard.

Jun 1, 2014

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Blogger Sara Shantelle Throwing $40,000 Birthday Bash

May 29, 2014

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Smriti Irani Responds To Ajay Maken's Comments

Mar 19, 2014

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Millionaire Beggar Leaves Her Fortune For The Needy

A blind female beggar who died here suddenly has left behind SR3 million in cash, jewelry, gold worth SR1 million and four buildings, with no heir to inherit the small fortune. Ahmad Saidi, an assistant to Ayesha, the dead beggar, said she had given him her will, which stipulates that all her money and property should be distributed among the needy. Saidi said he had informed the authorities, but there was no response. To keep his conscience clear, he took a box with the cash, gold and jewelry and emptied it out in the street in Al-Balad for the local residents to collect. “I am tired of this role,” he said. “I gave statements to the police and the court and received a promise that the authorities would do what was needed,” he said. Saidi said Ayesha had begged for 50 years. “I grew up with her in the same neighborhood since I was a young boy,” he said.
“The woman used to live with her mother and sister, both of whom were beggars.”

He said she received most of her money during holidays. Her wealth had increased after her mother and sister died, when she inherited their property. Saidi said that when he discovered she was a millionaire he advised her to give up begging, but she refused to do so. He said she wanted to make more money. At one stage, he helped her sell gold. “I used to sell each one for SR250 15 years ago, now such pounds cost around SR1,000 each,” he said. Saidi said that the families in Ayesha’s four buildings must leave, because the government should take control of the property and then issue a ruling.

“Ayesha gave me a will and I won’t give up until the authorities take over the homes,” he said.
In response, one resident said he would not leave because Ayesha had wanted him to stay there without paying any rent. Al-Balad Mayor Talaat Ghaith said the case, with all the documents, was now with the authorities. He denied that he had received money from Saidi. “The old lady hosted these families and it’s not my role or right to evict them,” Ghaith said. People in the neighborhood sympathize with the people living in the buildings because they are poor and often beg to make money.

Mar 14, 2014

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Actress Gul Panag Biography

Gul Panag Biography
Actress

Date of Birth : 3 January 1979 (age 35) ; Chandigarh, India
Height: 1.68 m
Spouse: Rishi Attari (m. 2011)
Awards: Zee Cine Award – Critics' Choice Best Actress, Stardust Award for Breakthrough Performance – Female
Education: Punjabi University, Panjab University, Chandigarh,

Gul Panag is an Indian actress and producer voice actress, model, and former beauty queen who competed in the Miss Universe pageant. Her notable films include Dor, Dhoop, Manorama Six Feet Under, Hello, and Straight. Panag started her education in Sangrur, in Punjab. Her father was in the army and the family moved to different places across India and abroad. As a result of this, she studied in 14 different schools including Kendriya Vidyalayas (Chandigarh, Mhow, Leh and Wellington, Tamil Nadu), The Lawrence School, Lovedale and the International School of Lusaka, Zambia. She did her Bachelors in Mathematics from Punjabi University, Patiala, and Masters in Political Science from Panjab University, Chandigarh. As a student, Panag was interested in sports and public speaking. She won numerous state and national level debate competitions, including two gold medals at the Annual National Inter University Debate competition.

Career

Femina Miss India-Universe 1999 Gul Panag

Panag won the Miss India title in 1999, and was crowned Miss Beautiful Smile at the same pageant. She participated in the Miss Universe 1999 pageant. Panag began her career in Bollywood, with the 2003 film Dhoop. Since then, she has worked in films like Jurm and the TV series Kashmeer. She played a commoner, fighting hard to save her husband from going to the gallows, in the 2006 Nagesh Kukunoor film, Dor. In 2008, she acted in the films Hello and Summer 2007. In 2009, she appeared in the movie Straight. She featured in Rann in a role attempting to stop her boy friend from doing the right thing. Panag appeared on the front page of Maxim with whom she did a photo shoot in September 2008. She debuted in Punjabi movies with Sarsa. She has appeared in numerous advertisements on television and print media and is the brand ambassador for Tata Sky, along with Aamir Khan.

Personal life

Gul Panag wed Rishi Attari

Panag was the Twitter Face for the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week held in 2009, to cover the happenings/proceedings on the micro-blogging site. Panag got married to her long-time boyfriend Rishi Attari on March 13, 2011 in a gurudwara in Chandigarh in a traditional Punjabi Sikh ceremony. Since Panag is a lover of motorbikes, her marriage procession consisted of riders on over 20 motorcycles. Some of the bike riders were women. Bride Rishi arrived on a motorcycle, with Gul sitting in the sidecar. She ran at the Delhi Half Marathon in November 2010, but endured eve teasing (sexual harassment) from male runners at the event. She later remarked that the attitude of men in Delhi needed to change and that the city was unsafe for women.

Awards

Nominated
Stardust Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (2009) for Hello
Screen Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (2007) for Dor
Won
Zee Cine Critics Award - Best Actress, tied with Ayesha Takia for Dor (2007).

Filmography

Year Film Role
2003 Dhoop Peehu A. Verma
2005 Jurm Sonia
2006 Dor Zeenat Fatima/Zeenat A. Khan
2007 Manorama Six Feet Under Nimmi
2008 Summer 2007 Vishakha
2008 Hello Priyanka
2009 Anubhav Meera Hemant Valecha / Meera A. Malhotra
2009 Straight Renu
2010 Rann Nandita Sharma
2010 Hello Darling Mansi Joshi
2011 Turning 30 Naina Singh
2012 Fatso! Nandini
2013 Sarsa Movie(Punjabi) Beant

Television

Title Role Channel
Kashmeer (TV series) Zoya Star Plus
Khoobsurat Presenter Zee TV
Kismey Kitnaa Hai Dam Presenter Star Plus
Musafir Hoon Yaaron Presenter Star Plus
Vijay Jyoti Jyoti Zee TV

Mar 13, 2014

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Kalki Koechlin's Monologue On "The Truths of Womanhood"

Mar 9, 2014

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World's First Licensed Armless Pilot Jessica Cox Biography, Interview, Wedding Video

Malala Yousafzai Biography

Malala Yousafzai Biography

Born: 12 July 1997 (age 16)
Mingora, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
Residence: Birmingham, England
Nationality: Pakistani
Occupation: BBC Blogger, activist for rights to education and for women
Known for: Activism, Taliban assassination attempt
Religion: Sunni Islam
Relatives: Ziauddin Yousafzai (father)
Awards: Honorary Canadian citizenship
National Youth Peace Prize
Sakharov Prize
Simone de Beauvoir Prize

Yousafzai was born on 12 July 1997 into a Sunni Muslim family of Pashtun ethnicity. She was given her first name Malala (meaning "grief-stricken") after Malalai of Maiwand, a famous Pashtun poet and warrior woman from southern Afghanistan. Her last name, Yousafzai, is that of a large Pashtun tribal confederation that is predominant in Pakistan's Swat Valley, where she grew up. At her house in Mingora, she lived with her two younger brothers, her parents, Ziauddin and Toor Pekai, and two pet chickens. Yousafzai was educated in large part by her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, who is a poet, school owner, and an educational activist himself, running a chain of schools known as the Khushal Public School. She once stated to an interviewer that she would like to become a doctor, though later her father encouraged her to become a politician instead. Ziauddin referred to his daughter as something entirely special, permitting her to stay up at night and talk about politics after her two brothers had been sent to bed. She is known for her activism for rights to education and for women. On the morning of Tuesday, 9 October 2012, Malala boarded her school bus in the northwest Pakistani district of Swat. A gunman asked for Malala by name, then pointed a Colt 45 at her and fired three shots. One bullet hit the left side of Malala's forehead, traveled under her skin the length of her face and then into her shoulder. In the days immediately following the attack, she remained unconscious and in critical condition,

But later Yousafzai condition improved enough for her to be sent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England, for intensive rehabilitation. On 12 October, a group of 50 Islamic clerics in Pakistan issued a fatwā against those who tried to kill her, but the Taliban reiterated its intent to kill Yousafzai and her father. Yousafzai started speaking about education rights as early as September 2008, when her father took her to Peshawar to speak at the local press club. "How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?" Yousafzai asked her audience in a speech covered by newspapers and television channels throughout the region

Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, and their daughter Malia meet with Malala Yousafzai in the Oval Office, 11 Oct 2013

"Malala Day" The Day of Every Woman

On 12 July 2013, Yousafzai's 16th birthday, she spoke at the UN to call for worldwide access to education. The UN dubbed the event "Malala Day". It was her first public speech since the attack, leading the first ever Youth Takeover of the UN, with an audience of over 500 young education advocates from around the world.

"The terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born ... I am not against anyone, neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group. I'm here to speak up for the right of education for every child. I want education for the sons and daughters of the Taliban and all terrorists and extremists."

Yousafzai received several standing ovations. Ban Ki-moon, who also spoke at the session, described her as "our hero". Yousafzai also presented the chamber with "The Education We Want", a Youth Resolution of education demands written by Youth for Youth, in a process co-ordinated by the UN Global Education First Youth Advocacy Group, telling her audience:

"Malala day is not my day. Today is the day of every woman, every boy and every girl who have raised their voice for their rights." The Pakistani government did not comment on Yousafzai's UN appearance, amid a backlash against her in Pakistan's press and social media.

Malala Yousafzai; Christina Lamb (8 October 2013). I am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban. Orion. ISBN 978-0-297-87093-7. — Autobiography published October 2013. The All Pakistan Private Schools Federation announced that the book would be banned in its 152,000 member institutions, stating that the book disrespected Islam and could have a "negative" influence.

Mar 2, 2014

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Oscar Nominated Actress Cate Blanchett is Nervous?

Feb 27, 2014

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Indian Women On The March

An historic change in the offing; but India’s ruling party may be overreaching itself

YELLING dementedly, seven lawmakers mobbed the chairman of the Indian parliament's upper house on March 8th and tore at the document, containing the women's reservation bill, he was reading from. Yet the bill passed the next day, with the two-thirds majority needed to change India's constitution. With broad political support, including from the Congress party that leads India's coalition government and the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the bill could soon clear the lower house and win the support it needs in at least 15 out of 28 state assemblies. The president would then sign it into law: imposing a 33% quota for women in India's federal and state assemblies.

This would be momentous, especially for India's half a billion, badly served women. Today's Lok Sabha, or House of the People, as India's lower chamber is known, contains 58 women, a record number, but fewer than 11% of the seats. By greatly boosting women's membership of India's legislatures, the proposed amendment, its supporters say, will also begin to make a dent in their more grievous suffering—in a country where female fetuses are often aborted, where wives are battered and women earn on average $1,200 a year, less than a third of the male average. A woman can take credit for this: Sonia Gandhi, Congress's leader, who has pushed the long-mothballed bill against a furious band of dissenters—of a kind that persuaded previous BJP- and Congress-led governments not to touch it.

Yet this triumph must be qualified. Even setting aside the question of how effective such affirmative action is—and an existing reservation of 22% of seats for wretched tribal Indians and dalits, Hinduism's former untouchables, is discouraging—the proposed amendment is flawed. With a supposed shelf-life of 15 years, it would cover a different tranche of seats in three successive parliamentary terms. So each time one-third of India's elected members would know they had no chance of being re-elected to the same seat. The women with reserved seats might also think their re-election hopes slim. This arrangement will discourage hard work on a constituency's behalf.

Another reasonable fear is that male politicians will put up biddable wives and daughters for election. They already do—as Mrs Gandhi hinted at when facing down one of the bill's main opponents, a former chief minister of northern Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, who, after being sent to prison, installed his wife to rule the state on his behalf. “Your wife has been chief minister. You have seven daughters. What's their view on the bill?” Mrs Gandhi asked him.

Unconvinced, Mr Yadav, whose party was among the hooligans in parliament, withdrew its support from the government. So did another north-Indian, low-caste party, Samajwadi. Both parties say the reservation should be dedicated to low-caste women. They also fear it will benefit educated, high-caste women, who are more likely to stand for Congress or the BJP. If, as expected, a third opponent of the bill, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the pro-dalit ruler of northern Uttar Pradesh state, also forsakes the government, it would be reduced to a majority of two in the Lok Sabha. In the worst case, it might even fail to get the necessary support for the budget announced on February 26th, and fall.

Recent grumbling from Congress's two biggest allies, West Bengal's Trinamul Congress (TC) and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam of Tamil Nadu, have raised fears of this. Both parties oppose a proposal in the budget to raise petrol and diesel prices, and the TC abstained over the women's reservations bill. But the government will probably survive. Most opposition parties, including the BJP, still feel bruised after a thumping general-election victory by Congress last year, and none wants an election soon.

Yet the government's reduced support is worrying. Barely ten months after Congress was returned to power at the head of a more solid-looking coalition than it had previously led, it will struggle to pass any contentious legislation. And it will have to pay a heavy price to its, now indispensable, allies to do so. Liberal reform of India's state-controlled financial and overprotected retail sectors, for example, looks unlikelier than ever. In announcing the budget, Pranab Mukherjee, the finance minister, said India's priorities were to return to the annual 9% growth it achieved for most of the previous government's term, then “find the means to cross the double-digit growth barrier”. Without bold reforms, that will be impossible, and even 9% may be out of reach.

So the timing of Mrs Gandhi's push for women's quotas might seem reckless. It suggests an overestimation of Congress's strength, and the party's failure to reassure the TC's irascible leader, Mamata Banerjee, is careless at best. Mrs Gandhi has picked her political fights carefully since taking over her murdered husband Rajiv's party in 1998, and won most of them. So she may not be too perturbed. The economy looks healthy enough, with growth forecast at 7.2% for the financial year ending this month. She will be more concerned by the government's failure to introduce more crowd-pleasing measures, like the lavish welfare schemes, paid for with the bumper revenues that rapid growth affords, launched in its previous term. With this year's budget deficit nudging 10% of GDP, if you include the state governments, these are harder times. Yet reservations for women should at least please half the crowd.

Devout Congressmen, buoyed by last year's election result and the havoc it has played with the BJP, are pleased merely to see a Gandhi calling the shots. Many have a jaundiced view of Mrs Gandhi's technocratic prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and look forward to her 39-year-old son, Rahul, taking over. This is likely to happen in Congress's next government—but when that will come is hardly worth guessing. The party has been doing well. But with only 208 of the Lok Sabha's 545 seats, Congress, and its government, are weaker than its leaders seem to think.