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Nidhi Thakur: #Is that really you?
Brunch (Photo credit: shareski)
It is really ironic that the moment I read this topic in Brunch, I didn’t turn to the 50 people sitting around me at work. Instead, I logged onto my Twitter account and posted a tweet asking a bunch of strangers for their valuable inputs and bounced ideas and theories off them. What is funny is that discussing it with people didn’t even occur to me. Also, before posting the tweet, I didn’t spend a second to decide whether I agreed with the viewpoint or not. But the response I received just endorsed my subconscious decision.
Today we live in an age where a city-wide distance from our loved ones doesn’t hurt us as much as the detachment we feel when we charge our phone and it’s inaccessible. So important has virtual acceptance become, that we do not realise how and when it takes over our real existence.
Continue reading on Brunch…
Geography strikes back
English: Map of Caucasus, Asia Minor and Middle East (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
If you want to know what Russia, China or Iran will do next, don’t read their newspapers or ask what our spies have dug up—consult a map. Geography can reveal as much about a government’s aims as its secret councils. More than ideology or domestic politics, what fundamentally defines a state is its place on the globe. Maps capture the key facts of history, culture and natural resources. With upheaval in the Middle East and a tumultuous political transition in China, look to geography to make sense of it all.
As a way of explaining world politics, geography has supposedly been eclipsed by economics, globalization and electronic communications. It has a decidedly musty aura, like a one-room schoolhouse. Indeed, those who think of foreign policy as an opportunity to transform the world for the better tend to equate any consideration of geography with fatalism, a failure of imagination.
Continue reading on Wall Street Journal…
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Breaking the glasses ceiling
DIY Glasses (Photo credit: bre pettis)
Kids think it’s not cool to wear spectacles. Some students developing a plan to make eyeglasses more acceptable hope to change that.
The ‘Spectacular Man’ doesn’t spin a web, haveBatmobile or killer laser beams. He just whips out his glasses, probably Rajini-style , to unleash his superpowers. It’s what he aspires to do that sets him apart from other superheroes – he wants to encourage the use of spectacles by kids who need to wear them and to sensitise others on the issue.
The quirky superhero computer game is the brainchild of RiteSight, a young team of students. They are competing in a challenge set by NGO Sightsavers and Financial Times of London to develop a plan to make glasses acceptable and accessible to children or young people in Africa/ Asia. Aaron Basaiawmoit, a Young India Fellow and member of RiteSight, says, “When children play games, they don’t discriminate between the bespectacled ones and those without glasses. Our idea is to use games to develop better understanding between them.”
Continue reading on The Times of India…
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5 Biggest Career-Costing Jokes
CHARLESTON, SC – JANUARY 20: Comedian Stephen Colbert hosts a rally with former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain at the College of Charleston on January 20, 2012 in Charleston, South Carolina. Colbert held the event with Cain, titled ‘Rock Me Like a Herman Cain South Cain-olina Primary Rally’, as part of his pseudo-run for president of ‘The United States of South Carolina.’ (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
In the world of comedy, there are few things that are off limits. People have made jokes about the President of the United States, race relations and just about anything else you can think of. However, there are limits to when and where you can say such things. The rule of thumbs to follow is “if you are not a professional comedian, then certain things may be off limit to you” and “even if you are a professional comedian, there are still things that are off limits.” This didn’t stop a few individuals from making jokes when they were not at all appropriate. This article will touch on some of the biggest comedy blunders of the past.
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Ten reasons why IPL IV failed to capture hearts, minds and wallets
It was to be bigger,better, grander.
However, it has not worked out that way—for IPL 2011.
Television viewer’s interest plummeted, ticket sales tapered off and there was a jaded, sleazy feeling to the largest sporting extravaganza on the Indian sub-continent.
You can’t get drunk unless you’re 25
The Maharashtra State government devised a novel solution for the menace of drunken driving.
Simple, let’s just raise the minimum age for alcohol consumption from 21 to 25. A youngster can purchase beer at the age of 21. Other hard liquors are to be consumed only at 25.
You can get a driving license at 16, marry at 21 but can’t drink until 25.
I guess, the state of Maharashtra won’t have any young drunk drivers any more.
PS: I’m mostly a teetotaller but some laws are truly absurd.
If fake pilots are flying, what are real pilots doing? (Satire)
Image via Wikipedia: A flight simulator
The shocking news that fake pilots have been flying jumbos and airbuses for SpiceJet and Kingfisher has eviscerated the flying public. There exists widespread outrage.
An intrepid journalist decided to investigate and find out what genuine pilots in Mumbai city are up to , in the absence of jobs (taken up by fake pilots) in the private and public sector.
A few pilots have been discovered practicing their craft on flight simulators; the simulators give them a feeling for the real thing and are less expensive on their pocket-books.
Other licenced pilots have been discovered at Lions Park, Juhu, pretending to fly the concrete airplane.
Yet, other pilots have made it a daily ritual to watch air planes take off and land at Sahar and Santacruz aerodromes.
It has been learnt from reliable sources that the Indian government will be floating tenders for private ‘fake’ airlines who will be allocated ‘fake’ routes.
Details of the tender bids will be advertised in the online journal “Faking News”.
Image via Wikipedia
Kindly watch this space for more details.
Disclaimer: The facts in this article are made up but you knew that already, didn’t you?
Quote of the day:
No man ever listened himself out of a job. – Calvin Coolidge
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