Professor Dan Fleisch set a new standard in after-sales service when he flew 600 miles on Christmas Day to hand-deliver his book to a buyer who had posted a comment on the Amazon web site that his copy of the book had missing pages.
Read the Telegraph article
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1 minute read | 48 words
Kids who are exposed to too much screen time (TV, Computers, video games, iPods) during their teen years are likely to display depression symptoms later. Science News article says:
“Exposure to more television and other electronic media during the teenage years appears to be associated with developing depression symptoms in young adulthood, especially among men, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry…”
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1 minute read | 68 words
Finally, someone has spoken out against the strident, unrelenting branding of all terrorism being Islamic, and all Muslims being terrorists. According to a news report in The Times of India, Sharad Pawar asks a very pertinent question: “Why are only Muslims on the media’s and society’s terror radar? Why not Hindu terrorists like the Bajrang Dal? Read the full story here.
In the last few weeks, especially after the blasts in Delhi, I am deeply disturbed by the deeply etched biases in large groups representing the educated upper middle class in India.
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2 minute read | 220 words
I find it hard to breathe when I think of the scale of the catastrophe in Bihar. More than 25 lakh people affected by the raging waters of the Kosi. As I browse through news reports out of Bihar, it is depressing and infuriating to see the depths of human behaviour in the looting, raping and pillaging of fleeing villagers. The very boatmen who are supposed to rescue people, are turning tormentors, in the worst way possible.
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1 minute read | 111 words
If you were running a bar, would you refuse to serve an underage customer? Would you make systems to prevent the serving of alcohol to children? How about if you sold cigarettes in your store? What about adult content – either in your store or on your website?
What if you were a social networking site? Would you do something to prevent the eight-year-olds from registering?
I know all of these are not exact parallels, but the fundamental idea is the same.
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2 minute read | 305 words
It does not always feel like what you may have seen in the movies or on TV. Sometimes it can even feel like a bad case of indigestion.
Interesting story in Guardian quoting a British Heart Foundation (BHF) survey that found that four out of 10 people get information about heart attacks from movies or TV and that can be “dangerously misleading and because of it, many of us ignore the real symptoms until it is too late.
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2 minute read | 232 words
Ethical Traveler has created a list of 13 tips that focus on travelers creating a positive impact by “by being open, informed, and willing to immerse themselves in other cultures”. A couple of them that I really like (the entire list is available here) :
Take the time to learn basic courtesy phrases : learn how to say “please” & “thank you” in the local language Remember the economic realities of your new currency : A US Dollar is worth 40 times an Indian rupee and a Euro is worth 70.
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1 minute read | 203 words
From Ahmadabad to Baghdad, from Bosnia to Calcutta, from Darfur to…. there is far too much warfare, crime, hatred and genocide than I would like. Steven Pinker, however has another take on this.
“ In a preview of his next book, Steven Pinker takes on violence… Pinker charts a history of violence from Biblical times through the present, and says modern society has a little less to feel guilty about.
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1 minute read | 81 words
Research suggests that most clear hard plastic (your baby’s bottle, the bottles in the refrigerator, the sippers, the food jars on the kitchen shelf) contain a chemical called bisphenol A (BPA), which is at the minimum toxic, but perhaps even carcinogenic (can cause some forms of cancer).
The Telegraph of UK explains what BPA is:
BPA is a synthetic version of oestrogen, the female sex hormone, and experts have suggested for more than a decade that chemicals in the environment and in consumer products may be contributing to male and female diseases, such as prostate and breast cancer.
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2 minute read | 260 words
The list of the worlds worst polluted place, compiled by the Blacksmith Institute is called the Dirty Thirty. The top ten ‘dishonors’ are shared by India (2), China (2), Russia (2), Azerbaijan(1), Peru (1), Ukraine (1), Zambia (1).
Click on the name below to read a profile of the place at the Blacksmith Institute website.
Sumgayit, Azerbaijan Linfen, China Tianying, China Sukinda, India Vapi, India La Oroya, Peru Dzerzhinsk, Russia Norilsk, Russia Chernobyl, Ukraine Kabwe, Zambia See all these places on the map
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1 minute read | 98 words
Talking of networks and ‘network effects’, Duncan J. Watts professor of sociology at Columbia University and the author of “Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age”, has written a very interesting piece in New York Times on why the business of ‘cultural’ is so unpredictable. He shows how the power of social influence is not just limited to ‘cultural’ products like music (visit his MusicLab project), but also to technologies, consumer products… perhaps anything where people have a choice and where these people are part of a society.
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1 minute read | 199 words
The class seven students of The Shri Ram School, DLF Phase 3, made a trip to the Yamuna to experience first hand the state of the river just before it enters Delhi from neighbouring state of Haryana, and the quantum of untreated sewage and waste matter that is released into the river once it enters Delhi. From a frolicsome dip in the monsoon-fed Yamuna to the sombre sight of the black stink coming out of the Najafgarh Drain that enters the river, the children had a lot to process on the trip.
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1 minute read | 94 words
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