Dr. Amjad Ali got awarded D.Litt.-Deputy Librarian, Aligarh Muslim University

Dr. Amjad Ali got awarded D.Litt.

• Posted by Intekhab Alam Siddiqui on April 28, 2012 at 16:40 in News and Discussion
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Dr. Amjad Ali, Deputy Librarian, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh has achieved a rare distinction by getting the D. Litt.  degree awarded on the  5th of April 2012 joining the D. Litt. club with just one person in front of him. Dr. Ali has got the degree from Sambalpur University, Odisha under the supervision of Prof. Krushna Chandra Panda, Head of the Department, Library and Information Science who completed higher education in the United States of America. The topic of of Dr. Ali's research was the Status of Digital Libraries in India: An AnalyticalStudy.

 

Dr. Ali has studied the initiatives of Digitization in Indian libraries and after comparison has suggested the policy and the methodology that has to be followed for enhancing creation of digital resources. Dr. Ali presented his thesis in the open session which was attended by the examiners, faculty, experts, university faculty, students and the public. The interactive session was full to its capacity and the intervention by the audience was remarkable. But Dr. Ali with his logical interpretations answered all the questions with logic and supportive data.

New Chief-Tata Tally

બ્રિટનમાં પીએમ ભારતીય વ્યક્તિ બનશે : કેમરૂન

લંડન 25, એપ્રિલ

ભારતીય મૂળની કોઈ વ્યક્તિ ભવિષ્યમાં બ્રિટનનાં વડાપ્રધાન બની શકે છે, તેવું બ્રિટિશ વડાપ્રધાન ડેવિડ કેમરૂને જણાવ્યું હતું. તેમણે પોતાનિ નિવેદનમાં કહ્યું હતું કે તેમની કન્જર્વેટિવ પાર્ટી દેશની એવી પહેલી પાર્ટી હશે જે ભારતીય મૂળનાં કોઈ બ્રિટિશ નાગરિકને વડાપ્રધાન બનાવશે.

કન્જર્વેટિવ ફ્રેન્ડસ ઓફ ઈન્ડિયાનાં ભોજન સમારોહ દરમિયાન કેમરૂને બ્રિટનમાં ભારતીય લોકોનાં યોગદાનનાં ભરપૂર વખાણ કર્યાં હતાં. આ અવસર પર તેમણે જણાવ્યું હતું કે, "અમારી પાર્ટી દેશની એવી પહેલી પાર્ટી જ્યાં એક મહિલાને વડાપ્રધાન બનાવવામાં આવી, જેણે એક યહૂદીને વડાપ્રધાન બનાવ્યાં અને હવે અમે કોઈ ભારતીય મૂળનાં બ્રિટિશ નાગરિકને વડાપ્રધાન બનાવવા જઈ રહ્યાં છે."

જો કે કેમરૂને આ ભારતીય વ્યક્તિ કોણ હશે તેની સ્પષ્ટતા કરી નથી. બ્રિટનમાં ભારતીયોનાં યોગદાન વિશે તેમણે કહ્યું હતું કે, "ઘણાં એવાં ભારતીયો છે, જેમણે બ્રિટનને આર્થિક રીતે પણ મજબૂત કર્યું છે. ભારત અને બ્રિટન વચ્ચેનાં સંબંધો મજબૂત છે અને અમે વધુ મજબૂત બનાવવા માંગીએ છીએ.  " 

મળો દુનિયાની જીવતી જાગતી બાર્બી ડોલને

મૉસ્કો, તા. 24

પ્લાસ્ટિકની ઢીંગલી બાર્બી ડોલની જેમ દેખાવું ગમે તે મહિલાનું એક સપનું હોય છે. પણ અમે તમને એક જીવંત બાર્બી ડોલનો પરિચય કરાવવા જઈ રહ્યા છે. આ 21 વર્ષીય 'વેલેરિયા લ્યૂકા'નોવાનો દાવો છે કે તે જીવતી જાગતી બાર્બી છે.

'બાર્બી  ડોલ' જેવા સુગઠિત દેહને લઈને લાંબા વાળ ધરાવતી વેલેરિયા ઈન્ટરનેટ પર ભારે સનસનાટી મચાવી છે. તેના બ્લોગ પર દાવો કરાયો છે કે રશિયન ભાષી ઈન્ટરનેટ પર તે સૌથી વધુ લોકપ્રિય મહિલા છે. જો કે તેના ટીકાકારોનું કહેવું છે કે બાર્બી જેવો તેને દેખાવ અને દેહ અસલી નથી. વેલેરિયા પર શંકા કરતો એક એનિમેટેડ વીડિયો પણ જારી કરાયો છે, જેમાં બતાવવામાં આવ્યું છે કે બાર્બી ડોલ જેવો તેનો દેહ પ્લાસ્ટિક સર્જરીની એક માત્ર કમાલ છે. આવી સ્થિતિમાં કેટલાક લોકો તેને ખીજવે પણ છે. જ્યારે કેટલાકનું માનવું છે કે આ તેની પ્રાકૃતિક સુંદરતા છે. આમછતાં આ સવાલ હજી સમાપ્ત નથી થયો કે વેલેરિયા અસલી છે કે, 'ફોટોશોપ' જેવા કોઈ સોફ્ટવેરથી કમાલ કરાઈ છે.

તેના અસ્તિત્વને 'પ્રમાણિત' કરવા માટે ફેસબુક પેઝ પર તેની કેટલીક સામાન્ય ફોટો પણ પોસ્ટ કરાઈ છે. જેમાં તે મેકઅપમાં નજરે પડે છે. સોશિયલ નેટવર્કિંગ સાઈટ્સ પર તેની પ્રોફાઈલ પર મિત્રો 78 છે, જ્યારે આનાથી બેગણા સબસ્ક્રાઈબર (155) છે. અહીં દેખાડેલી છબિ તેના બ્લોગ પર છે, જેમાં તેણી મ્યૂઝિક અને મેડિટેશન વિશે લખી રહી છે.

(જીવંત બાર્બીનાં ફોટો જુઓ...)

NEWS Two Indians selected for Yale World Fellows Programme 05 Apr 2012

Two Indians have made it to the 16 World Fellows List made by the prestigious UK based Yale University. The Yale World Fellows Programme is the University's signature global leadership development initiative and a core element of Yale's ongoing commitment to internationalisation.

Ayush Chauhan, co-founder and Managing Director of design consultancy company Quicksand and Ruchi Yadav, senior program officer at The Hunger Project will join 14 others from countries like Argentina, Chile, China, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa and UK for an intensive four-month period of academic enrichment and leadership training at Yale. 

Till now, 12 Indians have been selected as Yale World fellows since the inception of the programme in 2002.

Chauhan heads the multi-disciplinary design and innovation consultancy, working at the intersection of business, development, and culture. He is also a partner at the Box Collective, where he conceptualised and launched UnBox, the first interdisciplinary festival in Delhi bringing together leading voices from across the world for inspiration, debate and reflection.

Ruchi Yadav has focused to empower elected women representatives at the grassroots level as key change agents in local institutions of government across seven states in India.

"The 2012 fellows were selected from a global pool representing thousands of innovative difference makers. We are proud to offer them this unique opportunity to develop their leadership skills while enriching the Yale community through active participation in campus life," said Michael Cappello, director of the programme and professor of pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine.

[Source: Zee News]

Nelson Mandela archives, letters go online in Google-backed project

Thousands of letters, photographs and documents relating to former South African President Nelson Mandela went online Tuesday to help people find out about his struggle for freedom.

Items including letters Mandela wrote to his family that were smuggled out of prison, his Methodist church membership card from about 80 years ago and hand-written diaries have been digitized and laid out on a website designed to look like a museum exhibit.

"The one thing that it does immediately is make a much sought-after legacy available to the world," Achmat Dangor, the chief executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, said.

The project, with an initial cost of $3 million, was put together by the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory and the Google Cultural Institute.

It is a first for Internet giant Google, which has made sure the material is open to all and original copyright holders keep their rights.

Google is planning to use this project as a springboard to bring more content online from other historical figures of the 20th century. Google has been criticized for trying to use its technological might to wall off material from rivals.

"You can interact with the content. You can search the content. Although we have mimicked the museum experience, we are now in a place where we think we have augmented the experience," Mark Yoshitake, who leads project management for the Google Cultural Institute, said.

Sections such as "Presidential Years" include photos with links to videos, text, personal notes and testimonials laid out for use with typical computers and tablets.

Ndileka Mandela, the granddaughter of the former president, said he has always been a progressive person and was elated by the online archive.

"As much as we would like to claim him as our grandfather, he is a public figure. The publishing of the letters he wrote to various family members is not really a problem because it shows people that he is a human being," she said.

Mandela, 93, underwent a keyhole abdominal examination last month that showed nothing was wrong with the man awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for helping bring down white-minority apartheid rule in South Africa.

"For a man his age, he is doing well. He hasn't lost his sense of humor," Ndileka Mandela said.

Source | http://archives.nelsonmandela.org/

Ranjan Das, CEO and MD of SAP

Ranjan Das, CEO and MD of SAP Indian subcontinent
died after a massive cardiac arrest in Mumbai on Wednesday.
One of the youngest CEOs, he was 42

What killed Ranjan Das and Lessons for Corporate India A month ago, many of us heard about the sad demise of Ranjan Das from Bandra, Mumbai. He was very active in sports, was a fitness freak and a marathon runner. It was common to see him run on Bandra's Carter Road. Just after Diwali, on 21st Oct, he returned home from his gym after a workout, collapsed with a massive heart attack and died. It was certainly a wake-up call for corporate India. However, it was even more disastrous for runners amongst us. Since Ranjan was an avid marathoner ( in Feb 09, he ran Chennai Marathon at the same time some of us were running Pondicherry Marathon 180 km away ), the question came as to why an exceptionally active, athletic person succumb to heart attack at 42 years of age. Was it the stress? A couple of you called me asking about the reasons. While Ranjan had mentioned that he faced a lot of stress, that is a common element in most of our lives. We used to think that by being fit, one can conquer the bad effects of stress. So I doubted if the cause was stress. The Real Reason However, everyone missed out a small line in the reports that Ranjan used to make do with 4-5 hours of sleep. This is an earlier interview of Ranjan on NDTV in the program 'Boss' D! ay Out':Boss' Day Out: Ranjan Das of SAP India . The Evidence  Last week, I was working with a well-known cardiologist on the subject of ‘Heart Disease caused by Lack of Sleep’. ! While I cannot share the video nor the slides because of confidentiality reasons, I have distilled the key points below in the hope it will save some of our lives. Some Excerpts: · Short sleep duration ( <5 or 5-6 hours ) increased risk for high BP by 350% to 500% compared to those who slept longer than 6 hours per night. Paper published in 2009. As you know, high BP kills. · Young people ( 25-49 years of age ) are twice as likely to get high BP if they sleep less. Paper published in 2006. · Individuals who slept less than 5 hours a night had a 3-fold increased risk of heart attacks. Paper published in 1999. · Complete and partial lack of sleep increased the blood concentrations of High sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hs-cRP), the strongest predictor of heart attacks. Even after getting adequate sleep later, the levels stayed high!! · Just one night of sleep loss increases very toxic substances in body such as Interleukin-6 (IL! -6), Tumour Necrosis Factor-Alpha (TNF-alpha) and C-reactive protein (cRP). They increase risks of many medical conditions, including cancer, arthritis and heart disease. Paper published in 2004. · Sleeping for <=5 hours per night leads to 39% increase in heart disease. Sleeping for <=6 hours per night leads to 18% increase in heart disease. Paper published in 2006.  Ideal Sleep For lack of space, I cannot explain here the ideal sleep architecture. But in brief, sleep is composed of two stages: REM ( Rapid Eye Movement ) and non-REM. The former helps in mental consolidation while the latter helps in physical repair and rebuilding. During the night, you alternate between REM and non-REM stages 4-5 times. The earlier part of sleep is mostly non-REM. During that period, your pituitary gland releases growth hormones that repair your body. The latter part of sleep is more and more REM type. For you to be mentally alert during the day, the latter part of sleep is more important. No wonder when you wake up with an alarm clock after 5-6 hours of sleep, you are mentally irritable throughout the day (lack of REM sleep). And if you have slept for less than 5 hours, your body is in a complete physical mess ( lack of non-REM sleep ), you are tired throughout the day, moving like a zombie and your immunity is way down ( I’ve been there, done that ). Finally, as long-distance runners, you need an hour of extra sleep to repair the running related damage. In conclusion:  Barring stress control, Ranjan Das did everything right: eating proper food, exercising ( Marathon ), maintaining proper weight. But he missed getting proper and adequate sleep, minimum 7 hours. In my opinion, that killed him.  If you are not getting enough sleep ( 7 hours ), you are playing with fire, even if you have low stress.  I always took pride in my ability to work 50 hours at a stretch whenever the situation warranted. But I was so spooked after seeing the scientific evidence last week that since Saturday night, I ensure I do not even set the alarm clock under 7 hours. Now, that is a nice excuse to get some more sleep.  Unfortunately, Ranjan Das is not alone when it comes to missing sleep. Many of us are doing exactly the same, perhaps out of ignorance. Please forward this mail/article to as many of your colleagues/friends as possible, especially those who might be short-changing their sleep.