Advanced BrahMos supersonic cruise missile tested successfully

Advanced BrahMos supersonic cruise missile tested successfully

This is the first time in the world that a supersonic steep dive manoeuvre has been realised by a cruise missile

In a major victory for the army, an advanced version of BrahMos block-II was successfully tested from the integrated test range at Chandipur off Orissa coast on Sunday.

The missile flew in its designated complex trajectory, which included large manoeuvres and steep dives. This is the first time in the world that a supersonic steep dive manoeuvre has been realised by a cruise missile.

The launch was conducted in the presence of Lieutenant General Vinod Nayanar, director general of artillery, AS Pillai, chief executive officer of the Delhi-based BrahMos Aerospace, scientists from Defence Research and Development Organisation, industry representatives and officers from different units of the army.

The sophisticated cruise missile has been already inducted into the army and navy. A regiment of BrahMos block-I with anti-ship and land-based radio contrast target capabilities is already operational in the army.

The army is looking to induct two regiments of the block-II advanced version in a few months.

Block-II has the capability to precisely hit a small target in a cluster of large targets, as was demonstrated in Pokhran recently, making it even more lethal.

Brahmos is a two-stage missile that has a solid propellant booster and a liquid propellant ramjet system. It can fly at 2.8 times the speed of sound and carry conventional warheads up to 300 kg as far as 290 km.

The cruise missile can be launched from multiple platforms — land, ship, submarines and air. Currently, the focus in on developing its air-launch and submarine-launch versions.

 

Brand Value

'The most successful companies in the world have multiple brands. Tata needsto do that too'

They are the world's premier marketing consultants, the father and daughter duo of Al and Laura Ries, who together run Ries & Ries Focusing Consultants. "One of the most successful companies in the world is Proctor and Gamble and they have got twenty two brands that each do more than a billion dollars of business in a year. Last year for example Procter and Gamble had a net profit margin after taxes of 17.2%. I don't know how accurate this is but I worked out…that the Tata group of companies has a net profit margin of 2.7%. The most successful companies in the world are ones that have multiple brands," says Al Ries. The duo was in India to address a seminar organised by Curtains Up, a company focused on presenting high-end business seminars to corporate leaders. In this interview the father-daughter duo speak to Vivek Kaul.

The Toyota Production System is world famous for its focus on "continuous improvements." With all those improvements continuously taking place, why has Toyota suddenly found itself in deep trouble having to recall so many cars that had been sold? You call the problem 'Modelitus'. Can you explain that to us? Al Ries: Fundamentally my feeling is that they were into far too many models. There isn't just one Toyota production line. There are dozens. Currently the company produces 18 different Toyota models. Starting prices range from $12,605 for the Yaris to $65,970 for the Land Cruiser. In addition, Toyota makes three Scion models sold in showrooms adjacent to Toyota showrooms as well as 15 different Lexus models. In total, Toyota Motor Corporation produces 36 different models, up from 18 a decade ago. Thirty-six models? It's one thing for a company's engineering staff to continuously improve one model. But thirty-six? And what about all the new Toyota models currently on the drafting boards? Did that cause the problem? Al Ries: I don't know but just psychologically the more you try to do the more likely it is that you are gotta screw up on something. I can't believe that a company can handle thirty six as well as a company that could handle eight models or six or two. From a marketing point of view the proliferation of models was not helpful. The more models you make the more confusing your product line is. We find a lot of times in many categories whether it is breakfast food or coffee, the more the different kind of variations you make, the consumers get confused and possibly turn away and buy something else at some point. So who does it benefit then? Al Ries: There is a philosophy in business today that the more models you have the more you sell. That isn't right, isn't true. Saturn, a car brand, introduced by General Motors came out only in one model. That's it. It was the actually the only automobile brand in the market that was available only in one model. Four years after the launch the average Saturn dealer sold more cars than any other dealer. Then Saturn went on to introduce five additional models. They never achieved the peak that they achieved with one model. And they had expanded their dealer network. By the last year they were in business, the average Saturn dealer did less than half than they were doing when they had one model. That's progress? Not to me at least. Can you give us any other example? Al Ries: The world's largest seller of espresso coffee is Illy. Illy buys coffee from 18-19 countries. But they have one blend. The coffee tasters sit around for weeks trying to mix around this one with that one and so on, to have one blend that they figure is the best. When they roast it, they will dark-roast it, medium-roast it, light-roast it and decaffeinate it, but it's the same blend. And they are the largest espresso. That, to me, is the direction that most marketing programmes should take. Make it easy for the consumer. Why does this happen, if it is not good for the consumer, if it is not good for the company, why do they do it? Laura Ries: There is a feeling within companies that they got to be doing something. They can't just stick with what they are doing. They have enormous pressure to increase sales. As a way to do that quickly, they feel if we sell more stuff, we will have more sales, and then it looks like they are doing something. Like they are launching new models, they are launching new products. And with all of that work, is their any benefit? The answer is there isn't any and that's the problem. So what is the moral of the story? Laura Ries: Big companies need to learn from entrepreneurs and companies that are building great brands today. Google is an excellent example. When everyone was adding stuff to their portals, Google white-paged it, and wiped it all out. It had one box. And today it is one of the most powerful companies on the planet. And it says a lot for not always doing to do more but sometimes doing less is best. What about a brand like Toyota, it has got so much of negative PR. What do they do now? Al Ries: In the first place, the Toyota brand was very strong and had a reputation for reliability. And that is one of the reasons why the PR has been so negative... Laura Ries: They are in shock. Al Ries: It had a reputation for reliability and now some people think it is not reliable. That is devastating. But because it is strong brand, if they give enough time, people will forget and I think the brand will come back, granted their cars don't have any more problems. As a matter of fact, if you look at sales, they are down 10-15% but nothing drastic. Nothing like, for example, a similar problem with a German car brand called Audi. They had exactly the same problem called unintended acceleration. The brand compared with Toyota, was not a very strong in America. So their sales fell from roughly 60,000 a year to a third of that. And I had measured that it took them 15 years after that PR problem to come back to the same level of sales. Toyota is a strong brand, it will comeback a lot quicker, a couple of years at the most. You can't kill a strong brand. Look at Bill Clinton. What about a brand like British Petroleum (BP)? Laura Ries: Tha's the opposite situation to Toyota. BP is headed for disaster and the likelihood of survival is pretty dim. First of all, it is in an industry that people just naturally hate. Nobody likes Big Oil. You also have a situation where they have had several disasters previously. They had a big explosion in Texas which killed several workers. They had an Alaskan pipeline that burst. So they have had a poor history of safety. They also compounded that by running a massive advertising campaign talking about how they were going beyond petroleum. How they were the greenest of the oil companies. But behind the curtain, none of this was actually happening, I think it was a slap in the face to the people when they finally realised what really happening, seeing the tragedy of the worst natural disaster ever. In that way, the best hope for BP is to be bought out. The oil situation is totally dependant on governments giving them oil wells to drill. And a company with such a bad reputation, no politician is going want to go near them. Certainly the company has assets and perhaps a future, but only if they are bought by someone else and the brand is wiped out. What about a brand like Tiger Woods which has been in some trouble like BP? Al Ries: If he comes back on the golf course, he will do fine. But since he has had his problems he hasn't done very on the golf course. And that's his biggest problem today. People could admire him for the golf part and they can forget about everything else. We have had lots of sports heroes who have serious problems, multiple girlfriends, wives, drugs, whatever ... you name them. But people still admire them because of their athletic abilities. And he is going to rise or fall depending on this backswing. Laura Ries: Closing the chapter on the wife is probably the right direction. He did have some short-term improvement in his game after the divorce was finalised. The uncertainty of his marriage, I think, was causing a lot of talk in the press and put pressure on him. But, again, his survival is going to be dependant on his game. I guess Nike is praying everyday that it comes back quickly. So you do feel that if his game continues to improve advertisers will come back? Laura Ries: Sure. But womanising it is very low in the totem pole in terms of bad offences. Certainly it is not a good idea to cheat on your wife, but look, he certainly got his punishment... And it wasn't one woman... Laura Ries: It was a lot of women. But his wife did the right thing and divorced him. People like to see that. They like to see consequences. One of the biggest things that people seem to have had against Hillary Clinton was that she did not do anything. A lot of people that I talk to say, only if she had just divorced him…I would have felt better about it. Al Ries: She would have had a better political career if she did. She would have been perceived as decisive. People want their politicians to make decisions. Not to be weaklings. You have always maintained that the association of the brand in the minds of the customer is very important. If what a brand stands for was so important how did Hewlett Packard (HP), which most people think is a printer company, become the number one personal computer selling company in the world? Al Ries: Well they are perceived as a leader but not necessarily a very strong leader. Most people know or believe that HP is the largest seller of personal computers. But you don't see the same admiration for the brand that you might find for Heinz ketchup or Coca-Cola or Mercedes-Benz, or Apple for that matter. It is a leader brand and it became a leader brand not so much because of what it did, but because of what (rival) Dell did. Dell shot itself in the foot and left HP standing. Dell was essentially a direct selling business. They cut out the middleman and they saved business money and that's a message that business people loved. But then they decided to get into the consumer business and things started to go wrong. But what about HP? Al Ries: As you know, HP is known for inventing the desktop laser printer. They are perceived as a printer company and they do much better in computer printers than they do in computers. They bought Compaq, for example, and if I were HP, I would have used Compaq as the computer name, desktop and laptop, and let HP be the printer brand. But there again, you see this all over the world, I'd rather put everything under one brand, so that I can spend all of money promoting that one brand, which, theoretically, makes sense. But not when you look at the brand, the package they are talking about. It does not make sense. What is a Hewlett Packard? What are you going to say in the advertisement? And why should I buy a Hewlett Packard, if I do not know what it is? It is the classic line-extension problem. It's a philosophy-type problem. People think, let's launch more products and more models, and we are going to sell more. We disagree. To most companies, line extension is a good idea. We think it is a bad idea. The more you expand, the more you weaken. Google is a good example. Laura Ries: One problem now is that for the short term, Google gets tremendous credit with the stock market, when they make all the announcements that they are getting into this and they are getting into that. It pumps up the stock. For the short term, everyone is happy. All of a sudden, ten years later, it hasn't panned out. We have seen that with Microsoft. It luckily still dominates on the operating system, but all of the other things they have gotten into they haven't been successful. They have lost tonnes of money, but initially people got so excited. Oh MSN is going to rule the world. Xbox is going to rule the world. All of these things were supposed to take over, but none of this has happened. Seemingly nobody seems to learn from history. Al Ries: They reportedly have lost $6 billion on the Xbox, for example. I believe outside their software business, they have not made any money on anything. If they would have stuck with software they would have been a stronger company. Now take the case of Google. The revenue growth rates have constantly fallen for Google as they have introduced more and more products into the market. Look at the year-over-previous-year revenue growth rates for Google's past seven years. It doesn't take a mathematician to figure out that Google's rapid growth is coming to a screeching halt. Then what? Instead of expanding in all directions, a better strategy for Google might have been to launch a second brand. A second brand? Al Ries: As a matter of fact, almost any large company should be thinking about launching a second, a third or a fourth brand. One of the most successful companies in the world is Procter & Gamble and they have got 22 brands that each do more than a billion dollars of business in a year. There are another 20 that do between a $500 million and a billion a year. Last year, for example, Procter & Gamble had a net profit margin after taxes of 17.2%. I don't know how accurate this, is but I worked out this afternoon that the Tata group of companies has a net profit margin of 2.7%. The most successful companies in the world are ones that have multiple brands. What's the biggest branding mistake that a company can make? Al Ries: I guess you have to say the most common mistake for big companies is launching a line extension instead of launching another brand. We have worked with a lot of companies on this issue, actively recommended to IBM that they launch a second brand, to Microsoft, as a matter of fact, and others as well. I have been on a lot of boards of directors. The word you hear in the boardrooms is how do you expand the brand. I have never heard anyone say how do we narrow the focus on a product, except for me. How do we narrow the focus that we stand for something? Can you elaborate? Laura Ries: A part of the problem is that companies are so in love with their brands. Company people in launching a second brand sometimes feel disloyal, and that lures them into the line extension mode, where they can't even consider a second brand and that is a true problem. They need to sit back and realise that we need to do the best thing for the company and to keep that brand standing for something. The question about Tata always comes up, whether or not they should be launching more second brands without the Tata name. People love Tata, but the fact it isn't making money because the strategy of putting Tata name on too many things is not effective branding. So that's truly a problem that we see over and over again and hopefully will change some day. So you suggest that Tatas should be launching more brands? Laura Ries: Of course. Any company that has the means and ability to be looking for new opportunities should. Consumers don't care about brands. The advantage in business comes from dominating categories and only brands that dominate individual categories and keeps that as clear as possible, progress. The best thing Google had was YouTube and they had to buy it. But why can't they be launching things like that with a separate name? Al Ries: What we have been saying is that every category as time goes on will diverge and become two or more categories. You see that happening, for example, in cellphones. Very definitely, we are going to have cellphones to make the phone calls and we are going to have smart phones for tapping on to the internet. Now this ties in with the second brand idea. If companies appreciate the fact that categories divide, they are more likely think about second brands. Nokia, we think, is getting into a weak position with smart phones because they did not launch a second brand. Yet, if we don't understand the philosophy of divergence then you won't see this. And guess what most big companies think? The opposite. They don't talk about divergence, they talk about convergence.

'A lot of billionaires don't know how much fun giving can be' - Bill Gates

'A lot of billionaires don't know how much fun giving can be'

Jason Pontin, the editor in chief of Technology Review, spoke to the chairman of Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on philanthropy, energy and poverty. excerpts:

Explain the moral imperative behind "The Pledge" (in which Gates and Warren Buffett have asked America's 400 wealthiest individuals to pledge half their wealth to charity). What will it achieve that conventional philanthropic giving cannot, besides raising a greater supply of money? Or is that the point?
Well, I think the idea is pretty simple, and I wouldn't use the term "moral imperative." It's absolutely the case that the US is the most generous country in terms of philanthropic giving. If you look at the large estates in the country, about 15% of the value goes to charitable causes, and there are more billionaires today, with more wealth on average, than ever before. And a lot of them may not know how much fun it is to get involved in giving, or know that it's kind of like starting a new career. And so we decided to create this group who had in common a pledge to give — not to all take one approach or pool money, but merely to find people who had things in common. How long should a foundation last, how do you staff, how do you involve your family? Different things will fit for different people. We did these dinners with some wealthy people, some of whom have done a lot of philanthropy, some of whom have done less. Another key factor is that the earlier in life you think about this stuff, the more opportunity there is for you to take your talent and get involved, or have associates that you know are talented through their work with you get involved. You're not going to do your best thinking about this if you wait until you're 92 and probably quite influenced by a small group who may have different thoughts. Starting earlier, giving earlier — that works. Those are the themes, and as this year goes on, hopefully we'll get more people to sign up, and we'll share that at various milestones. But so far we've had a lot of acceptances.

How many people have committed to making major…
We're not saying that. There will come a milestone, and we'll give people an update. We're going to have some more dinners, because that format worked very well. A separate but similar thing will be done in China and India. I'll pick people I know there. They'll get out in front and drive it.
Giving in China isn't particularly well established, is it?

Well, India's further along. China is just asking itself, "When you have billionaires, what are they expected to do?" In India, a lot of the tech billionaires are incredibly generous and are giving away the majority of what they've done.

The Gates Foundation has invested in solutions to big problems like infectious diseases in poor countries. Providing clean energy for the 9 billion people the planet will hold in 2050 is a problem that's also civilizational in scale. What can philanthropy contribute to energy research?
Well, basically not much. The energy market is a gigantic market, and the price of energy is a key determinant in improving lifestyles, whether for the rich, the middle-income, or the poorest. It seems slightly more intense for the poor: things like fertilizer and transport, or health care, are very expensive for them. You know, things like basic lighting are very expensive.

The way capitalism works is that it systematically underfunds innovation, because the innovators can't reap the full benefits. But there's actually a net benefit to society being more R&D-oriented. And that's why in health research, governments do fund R&D.

The Gates Foundation is in that health area, and when we pick a disease to work on, we pick a disease where for some reason the market is not working. Like malaria: rich people don't need a malaria vaccine. They are rarely in malarial areas, and when they are, they can take prophylactic drugs and not worry about it. And yet for the people who live there, over a million a year, mostly kids in Africa, die. When we did our first $50 million grant for malaria, about a decade ago, we more than doubled the amount of money going into malaria research at the time. It's a horrific disease, but there's not a market reward for coming up with a malaria vaccine.

So you made a market.
Yes, you can create a market where there's no natural market. The biggest project, the one that's furthest along, is where GlaxoSmithKline is doing a vaccine called R2SS, which is now in phase 3 (trials). It's not a perfect vaccine. It reduces mortality a bit more than 50 percent.

But to go back to your question, the reason we're involved is because there's not a market. And so our investment is mind-blowing compared to anything else. And you do have that in diseases of the poor world. You know, in the rich world, the percentage of people with AIDS is fairly small, and so the cost of treating people with drugs for a lifetime is affordable. It's not perfect for those people, it's not perfect financially, but the difficulties of coming up with a vaccine are such that there's not a market incentive for it. So an AIDS vaccine is another one that is being funded by a combination of government budgets and philanthropy. The two biggest funders by far are our foundation and the US.

So why couldn't huge, regular, dependable investments from your foundation make a difference?
In energy, we might have some involvement where it's connected to things that wouldn't happen for poor people otherwise. There may be some particular biomass approaches for getting local energy out where there's no roads and infrastructure - there might not be a market signal for that type of innovation. You know, the poor people are the ones who are going to suffer the most from climate change. It's unfortunately the poor people of the world who live in tropical zones, and there's a variety of reasons for that. But that's where agricultural productivity is already barely good enough for survival.

But I've put money into Vinod Khosla's venture fund. I've put money into Nathan Myhrvold (and his Intellectual Ventures Fund). Nathan has this thing that invents ideas broadly, many of which are energy-related. And some of those energy-related things will result in startups. One has so far: this amazing, wild nuclear (reactor design company), TerraPower.

You've talked about the need for "energy miracles." But we've been waiting for such breakthroughs for decades. TerraPower is a travelling -wave reactor, a design that dates back to the 1950s. We've been working on energy miracles _ and we've seen nothing. Wouldn't we be better off making the energy technologies we have more efficient?

Well, no, we haven't been working on those things. The nuclear industry was effectively shut down in the late '70s. And so evolutionary improvements on those so-called Gen 3 designs really didn't happen. And more radical designs that were measured according to their economics didn't happen. There's a lot of paper designs under the heading Gen 4, but most of those are going to be very expensive. They're kind of cool science, but they're very expensive.

What has been the most important health care innovation from the Gates Foundation? The biggest-impact thing we work on is vaccines - in particular, hepatitis B and Hib. (The Gates Foundation was instrumental in getting two vaccines into widespread use: one prevents hepatitis B, an infection that causes liver cancer in adults; the other prevents Haemophilus influenzae type B, a bacterial infection that causes meningitis and other life-threatening diseases during childhood.) In terms of saving lives, changing the rules, that's probably number one on the list.

How many people is that expected to save?
Well, every year you get to add about another 300,000 lives.

That's pretty cool.
It starts to add up. In vaccines, the effect is pretty incredible. The one that I hope to be able to add to that list which isn't there yet is polio eradication. We've gotten very involved, we've put a lot of money in and we're fairly close. The last part is absolutely the hardest part. But the benefit to the world of that second disease eradication after smallpox, and the kind of energy that would create — it would free up money, it would energise the whole global health initiative. That's a big one.

How has your experience as a software executive and visionary translated into your post-Microsoft career?

Well, I've had to learn a lot of new things, which I enjoy. I didn't understand much about vaccines or immunology or how they got delivered, or how they got funded. So I've gotten to meet a lot of people. There's a more political aspect to this in terms of the money that rich-world governments give and in terms of how well governed the recipient countries are and how they make things either easy or hard. We didn't have that complexity at Microsoft. The one thing we have that's great is that everybody has the same goal: saving the children's lives or improving their health. So you really don't have competitors in a sense. You get a level of cooperation when you can get everybody in the malaria community together and have them share their best ideas when there isn't a market for the vaccine. Same for TB. It's different from Microsoft. In some ways it's more like when Microsoft was 400 to 500 people. The foundation's about 700 people.
You and Charles Simonyi created a software factory, this multigenerational software enterprise, where nothing like that had ever really existed before. It was a place where big programs could be developed and launched and maintained and managed over many decades. But now you have to work with enormous numbers of people over whom you have no direct authority. How many of the management techniques you learned at Microsoft are still useful to you?

I think it's all useful. As Microsoft got larger, I couldn't threaten to code things over the weekend. I had to convince people and take the scenario I wanted them to do something with and articulate it in a very clear way, so I had to get good at doing that. I think over time I've gotten better at working with large groups and not being as impatient about cases where people only see part of the picture, and yet they're an important part of things. But it's very similar. It's working with smart people.

How has being a philanthropist broadened you in a way that your career as a software engineer did not?

Well, I'm not trying to make any moral judgment about one versus the other. Believe me, when somebody's in their entrepreneurial mode — being fanatical, inventing new things — the value they're adding to the world is phenomenal. If they invent new technologies, that is an amazing thing. And they don't even have to know how it's going to help people. But it will: in education, medical research, you name it. So I was one of those fanatics in my 20s where I didn't know about poor people or even government budgets much at all. I worked night and day on software. I thought a lot about software. I said, "Hey, I'm a software fanatic. What is that about?" Even some of the marketing and sales things that I eventually learned, I said, "Hey, if the software's good enough, how far do you have to go?" Well, we certainly didn't build an IBM-style sales force; most of our customers we never met. We didn't duplicate the old model, but the truth of what we had to do was not quite as pure as I started out thinking. It wasn't "Hey, here's the software."

So that's a great mode to be in, but throughout the Microsoft experience, whether it was piracy or privacy, policy, or whatever would come up, I got down the learning curve because Microsoft was in a position to hire incredible people. I got to see how they did things. They wanted me along because they thought I would be paid attention to and could be articulate about the software. So in my 20s I was almost just a developer and a fanatic; in my 30s, I got exposure to management, although I was still writing some of the code; then in my 40s, the majority of what I was doing was large-organisation management and picking some strategies, but I didn't write any code that shipped in products. Now, in my 50s, I'm in a role that's kind of like that. I like that my relationship to some of these development teams is like a smaller Microsoft, because for better or for worse, when you have all the TB experts in the world in the room, the room is not very full. That's about 10 or 12 people that you're sitting and talking to about the TB vaccine. —NYT

 

Top 10 Tough Laws in the World

Top 10 Tough Laws in the World Ignorance is no defense – especially when it comes to ignorance of the laws in countries you plan to visit. While it may seem natural to study some of the general customs and laws in major foreign countries you might not expect, for example, to have to look for strange law changes in somewhere like Florida. Most places in the world are relatively easy to get along in. Some strange laws are nothing more than folklore. Every once in a while, though, you're going to run into something a bit off the wall and it's important for you to be prepared in advance. 10. DON'T FEED THE PIGEONS (ITALY) In Italy it is illegal to feed the pigeons. Ok, that's a bit of a blanket statement. The rule actually has the potential to change from city to city. Make sure you leave the pigeons alone while you're in Venice, though – the locals are tired of cleaning up pigeon poop. You'll also want to avoid jumping into fountains, walking around without your shirt on (would you DO that as a tourist), and sitting on the sidewalk to eat your lunch. Fines range from a warning to monetary infractions anywhere from $50 to $600. 9. EATING IN PUBLIC (UNITED ARAB EMIRATES) Before you leave for the United Arab Emirates you'll want to make sure you aren't visiting during Ramadan. During that time you are not allowed to eat or drink in public during fasting hours (ie. daylight hours) at all. Think we're kidding? Tourists have been fined up to $275 for drinking juice in public. Avoid public displays of affection as well unless you want to spend a few months in jail. 8. DON'T PAY IN CHANGE (CANADA) Ever have the urge to empty your piggy bank of quarters and run down to the corner store? Don't do it in Canada. The Currency Act of 1985 prohibits consumers from using unreasonable amounts of coins to pay for purchases. This means you can't pay for an item in all coins (especially if it's over $10). Even the use of dollar-coins is limited. The shop owner has the right to choose whether or not he wants to take your coins but doesn't have to. 7. WASH YOUR CAR (MOSCOW) In the beautiful city of Moscow it is illegal to drive a dirty car. The definition of dirty, however, is up in the air. Is a dirty car one on which you can draw pictures in the dust? Does it hide the license plate? Does it make the driver invisible? We suppose you'll find out if the police poll you over but the fines tend to be whatever the police decide to charge you – unless, of course, you offer him a bit of cash. 6. LEAVE YOUR HEADLIGHTS ON (DENMARK) Studies in Denmark have shown that vehicles with their headlights on are more noticeable by other drivers than those who have their headlights off. You'd think this law would apply to night driving but it doesn't. Drivers here are required to leave their headlights on during the day as well or may face a fine of up to $100. 5. DON'T STOP ON THE AUTOBAHN (GERMANY) You've heard of the Autobahn, right? The notorious German road where there are no speed limits? Make sure you fill your gas tank BEFORE you get on this daunting road. It's illegal to pull over on the side of this road for any reason and, if you do, it's illegal to get out and walk. You are, after all, endangering the lives of the people who are still driving at warp speeds. 4. PUT YOUR SHIRT ON (THAILAND) In Thailand it is illegal to drive a car or motorcycle without a shirt on – regardless of how hot it is that day. Punishments range from verbal warnings to tickets costing about $10. This is no joke – the local police will pull you over. 3. DON'T KISS YOUR LOVER GOODBYE (FRANCE AND ENGLAND) Love died a little bit on April 5th of 1910. Lovers spend so much time kissing each other goodbye at train stations that trains were actually running late. The law is relatively old, though, and really isn't enforced today – in France, that is. In Warrington Bank Quay in England, however, you'll be asked to move your goodbyes to the "kissing zone." 2. WEAR A COVER UP (GRENADA) The folks at Grenada really do have a point. Cruisers visiting the beaches for day excursions have taken to strolling city streets in nothing but their bathing suits. In order to reign in a sense of decency, the city has instituted a fine for those who aren't wearing decent clothing off of the beaches. Fines can reach up to $270 but the local tourist boards would like you to believe that the law is not enforced. Perhaps its best to simply cover up rather than trying to find out for yourself. 1. NO GUM CHEWING (SINGAPORE) Those with gum chewing habits may want to call it quits before heading to Singapore. The government really wants to keep the city clean and will fine you for chewing gum, feeding the birds (it causes poop) and forgetting to flush a public toilet. The only legal gum you can chew is Nicorette but you have to get it from a doctor and they will give your name to government officials to confirm you're allowed to have a wad in your mouth. These aren't the only strange laws around the world but they're certainly worth noting. Make sure you do your research before leaving on your next trip. Better safe than sorry!

Majhiya Priyala Preet Kalena - Title Song Download MP3

To Download Title song of Marathi serial Zee TV, click following link.

Majhiya Priyala Preet Kalena New Marathi Serial Title Song Download MP3 Maziya

Orangutan Cradles Lion Cubs - Babysitting

I've got my hands full aping Mum: Orangutan cradles lion cubs in unlikely babysitter role Nothing beats cuddles with mum. But when she's no longer around, these two lion cubs can rely on the most unlikely of babysitters. Hanama, a three-year-old male orangutan, is only too happy to cradle Skukuza and Simh, who are both male and a month old. Aping around: Orangutan Hanama cuddles two baby lion cubs. He formed a bond with them as soon as he met them The ape formed a bond with the boisterous cubs as soon as he met them, according to their keepers at Myrtle Beach Safari, in South Carolina in the United States. Hanama lies on his back to let the month old lions relax on his stomach and is often caught gazing down affectionately at the cubs before hugging them. The park's director, Dr Bhagavan Antle, said: 'Hanama is very smart and he was brought in to babysit the cubs. 'He took to them straight away and watches over them as they play. He runs about with them and sometimes picks them up to have a cuddle. 'He will occasionally balance them in his arms and shows them a lot of love.' It is standard practice for cubs at the park to be taken away from their parents at birth, because they are thought more likely to survive. Sadly, the cubs will have to be separated from Hanama in about six months because they will have grown too large for him to handle. 'They will grow apart eventually, it's inevitable,' Dr Antle said.

How to invest in the reality sector

How to invest in the reality sector

The Net Generation is the "smartest generation"

The Net Generation is the "smartest generation"

Critics slam the Net Generation, ranging in age from 11 to 30, saying they are hopelessly lost in their laptops and cell phones, and are chronically restless — spoilt by the glut of stimuli on the Internet. Are they the dumbest generation?

"In my view, this is the smartest generation ever," says New York Times bestselling author Don Tapscott, who has written Grown up Digital which drills down into the thinking and behaviour of the Net Generation.

Tapscott, who has written 10 books on business and technology, says it is a misnomer that Net Gen is disinterested in politics; no longer reads and is only interested in games and blogs. He says they are collaborative and adaptable. "What do we do with this collaboration-geared generation? We stick them in a cubicle, supervise them like they're Dilbert, and take away their tools (blocking sites like Facebook and Youtube)." Tapscott calls this creating a generational firewall. Tapscott, a professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, talked to Uttara Choudhury in New York about how India would benefit greatly from its Net Generation. His book was inspired by a $4 million private research study.

Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein bemoans the decline of intellectual habits in anyone under 30 in his book The Dumbest Generation. Will Generation Y become the dumbest or the next great generation?

There is a lot of cynicism about this generation. They are net-addicted, glued to the screen, losing their social skills. The only problem with this negative view of young people is that there is little data to support it. In my view, this is the smartest generation ever. Volunteering amongst high school and university students is at an all-time high and civic action became political which helped achieve the Obama presidency. In the US the percentage of kids that don't do drugs or alcohol is up year over year for 15 years, IQ is up year over year for many years, university entrance exam scores are at an all-time high and it has never been tougher to get into the best universities. This is a generation we can be enormously hopeful about.

Growing up digital has changed the way this generation's minds work in a manner that helps them cope with the challenges of the digital age. They're used to multi-tasking, and have learned to handle the information overload. They expect a two-way conversation. What's more, growing up digital has encouraged this generation to be active enquirers. Rather than waiting for a trusted professor to tell them what's going on, they find out on their own on everything from Google to Wikipedia.

How does the Net Generation approach work?

Digital natives are no longer satisfied with the old corporate model of recruiting, training, supervising and retaining. Companies should adopt a new model in retaining them that is, initiate, engage, collaborate and evolve.
Net Generation employees are savvy, confident, upbeat, open-minded, creative and independent, which makes them a challenge to manage. To meet their demands for more learning opportunities and responsibility ownership, instant feedback, greater work-life balance and stronger workplace relationships, companies must alter their management approaches. Properly cultivated, this generation's attributes will be a source of innovation to the organisation.

Employers can refuse to adapt to the Net Geners, stick to their old hierarchies, and reinforce the generational firewall that separates the managers from the newly hired. But if they do, they will forfeit the chance to learn from the Net Geners — to absorb both their mindset and their tools of collaboration. Instead, I think the winners will be those companies that choose to embrace the Net Geners' collaborative ways. Net Geners can help companies to win, period. Our research shows that companies that selectively and effectively embrace Net Gen norms perform better than those who don't. I am convinced that the Net Gen culture is the new culture of work.

Let me also say that companies shouldn't ban Facebook or other social networks. Figure out how to harness them. New tools like wikis, blogs, social networks, jams, telepresence, tags, collaborative filtering, and RSS feeds can be the heart of the new high-performance workplace. Rethink management processes and design jobs and work for collaboration. Give the Net Geners a chance to put collaborative tools to good use — for example by joining one of the company's volunteering efforts.

Do Net Geners watch less television that their parents? How will their preference for New Media affect print media companies and TV networks?

Today's youth are the first generation to grow up "bathed in bits," and as a result their brains are actually different. How young people spend their time during extended adolescence 8-18 is the number one predictor what their brains will be like. This is the time when the human brain gets built. Wiring and synaptic connections of the brain, and if you spend 24 hours a week watching television, like my generation did, you get a certain kind of brain. If you, on the other hand, spend an equivalent amount of time with digital technologies being the user, the actor, the collaborator, the initiator, the organiser, that gives you a different kind of brain as well.

When I was a kid growing up in a small town, there were three television stations, a small-town library, one newspaper and a couple of magazines that interested me. Today's youth in the US have access to 200-plus cable TV networks, 5,500 magazines, 10,500 radio stations, and 40 billion Web pages. In addition, there are 22,000 books published every year; 240 million television sets in operation, and there are even two million TV sets in bathrooms.

This generation has been flooded with information and learning to access, sort, categorise, and remember it all has enhanced their intelligence. They customise their media. Most kids watch their favourite TV shows when they want to rather than at the time of broadcast. With YouTube, television networks run the risk of becoming quaint relics. The industry will still produce programming, but where and when the programming is watched will be up to the viewer.

You have pointed out that there are twice as many Indian Net Geners as there are Indian boomers. How will this impact India?

The impact will be enormous. Around the world this generation is flooding into the workplace, marketplace, and every niche of society. These youth are bringing their demographic muscle, media smarts, purchasing power, new models of collaborating and parenting, entrepreneurship, and political power into the world. This will be particularly true of India, and I would encourage leaders of government, businesses and educational institutions to strive to understand this generation as best they can. They should a) read the book, and b) talk to young people.

Majhiya Priyala Preet Kalena New Marathi Serial Title Song Download MP3 Maziya

Majhiya Priyala Preet Kalena New Marathi Serial Title Song Download MP3 Maziya

Fwd: 21 Golden Rules From Feng Shui

21 Golden Rules From Feng Shui

 There's some mighty fine advice in these words, even if you're not superstitious. Do not keep this message. Share it with your friends, as they also deserve to be happy.

 

1. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

 

2. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to.  As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.

 

3. Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.

 

4. When you say, 'I love you,' mean it.

 

5. When you say, 'I'm sorry,' look the person in the eye.

 

6. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.

 

7. Believe in love at first sight.

 

8. Never laugh at anyone's dreams. People who don't have dreams don't have much.

 

9. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it's the only way to live life completely.

 

10. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.

 

11. Don't judge people by their relatives.

 

12. Talk slowly but think quickly.

 

13! When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile and ask, 'Why do you want to know?'

 

14. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

 

15. Say 'bless you' when you hear someone sneeze.

 

16. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

 

17. Remember the three R's: Respect for self; Respect for others; and Responsibility for all your actions.

 

18. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

 

19. When you realize you 've made a mist ake, take immediate steps to correct it.

 

20. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice

 

21. Spend some time alone.