Musharraf imposes Emergency in Pakistan

Pakistan's beleaguered President Pervez Musharraf on Saturday night imposed a state of emergency in the wake of a rapid deterioration in the security situation and growing uncertainty over his position in the face of a legal challenge to his re-election in uniform.

An eight-member Supreme Court immediately set aside the Presidential order declaring Emergency amid reports that Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who has been at loggerheads with Musharraf, has been asked to go.

All land and mobile telephone services were suspended and several private TV channels were taken off air.

After days of speculation about the General resorting to "supra-constitutional measures", the military ruler issued a "provisional constitutional order" imposing emergency rule in the country.

"The chief of army staff (Musharraf) has proclaimed a state of emergency and issued a provisional constitutional order," the state-run Pakistan TV said.

Security forces were deployed in the capital and other parts of the country.

All land and mobile telephone services were suspended and several private TV channels were taken off air.

After days of speculation about the General resorting to "supra-constitutional measures", the military ruler issued a "provisional constitutional order" imposing emergency rule in the country.

"The chief of army staff (Musharraf) has proclaimed a state of emergency and issued a provisional constitutional order," the state-run Pakistan TV said.

Security forces were deployed in the capital and other parts of the country.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Musharraf_imposes_Emergency_in_Pakistan/articleshow/2515052.cms

Afghanistan Terrorist School:::Human Bomb Class [Hilarious Pic]

80% of Indians live on less than $2 a day: World Bank

What does it mean to be poor? It depends on which set of figures you consult.

“India is a bit of a curious case because it is one of the few countries in the world where the $1 (Rs39.3) a day poverty line is much higher than the national poverty line,” said Rinku Murgai, a senior economist in the World Bank’s New Delhi office.

The difference between those that qualify as extremely poor according to World Bank standards versus government standards has been a cause for debate among some government officials and the development community.

By World Bank estimates, 80% of India’s 1.1 billion people live on less than $2 a day, meaning more than one-third of the world’s poor live here. One in three Indians lives on less than $1 a day, meaning they qualify as extremely poor, according to the bank. The government says that, on average, those who earn less than Rs356 per month (less than $9) in rural areas and Rs538 a month in cities are poor, but the actual line varies from state to state.

Though overall poverty rates are falling when measured by both the World Bank and the government, India may miss a target set by the United Nations as part of the Millennium Development Goals to halve the number of people living on less than $1 a day from 1990 levels by 2015, according to a report released last week by the UN in partnership with the Asian Development Bank. The country has also achieved less than half the targets to cut hunger in half according to a recent study by the US-based International Food Policy Research Institute.

“India is such a diverse country that aggregates and averages can never adequately describe the depth of poverty,” says Abusaleh Shariff, chief economist and head of the human development programme at the National Council of Applied Economic Research.

“In many ways poverty estimates are just an artificial wall. What matters is the quality of life on $1 a day or $2 a day or whatever line you choose,” he adds.

A closer look at the extreme poor shows some clear patterns: they are often members of marginalized communities, such as scheduled tribes and Muslims; and indicators such as anaemia and illiteracy are high among them, which means these people have little chances of climbing out of poverty, according to analysts.

On Wednesday, the midpoint for the Millennium Campaign, activists around India will hold thousands of events as part of the “Stand Up, Speak Out” campaign, a joint effort of the UN Millennium Campaign and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, which is hoping to break a world record by having more than 23.5 million people turn up at demonstrations that urge governments to honour their anti-poverty commitments and meet the Millennium Development Goals targets.

“They may fall through the gaps and when it comes to them, there may be lapses in programmes, but [today] we can help them raise their voices,” says Sharad Joshi, secretary of Jaipur-based Centre for Community Economics and Development Consultants Society, which organized more than 300 events in several states focusing on marginalized communities.

The quality of life for many of the poor is highly dependent on where they live and which community they belong to, with the vast majority of the nation’s poor located in a handful of states and members of scheduled castes and tribes, Muslims and women being among the poorest in the country.

Government schemes to counter poverty such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme haven’t had a big enough impact in places where they are most needed, say grass-roots aid workers.

“The implementation is still uneven and doesn’t do enough to counter the need to migrate for work,” says Praveer Peter, a convenor of the Ranchi-based Gender, Livelihoods and Resources Forum, which works in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa, where poverty rates are high and health indicators are dim. “Social security schemes for the unorganized sector are also necessary.”

Meanwhile, the performance of some Indian states on several developmental parameters compares poorly with that of poorer countries.

“We need to figure out why it is—though there has been a lot of progress—(that) immunization rates and rates of child malnutrition are comparable to some of the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa in some states” of India, says the World Bank’s Murgai.

To that end, the international agency’s New Delhi office recently began work on a study of poverty and inequality in India that is likely to be released in 2009, she said.

Aside from addressing regional disparities, improving the quality of education and not just access to it is key to maintaining the nation’s economic growth targets and alleviating poverty, according to Shariff.

“If you have education, it doesn’t matter where you live,” he says, with educated households less likely to be poor than their uneducated counterparts.

Despite the fact that India has successfully increased primary school enrollment targets and is on track to meet UN Millennium Development Goal targets in this area, the quality of education remains questionable in many places, he says.

Among children aged 8-11 enrolled in school, more than one in 10 can’t read at all, 14% can’t read letters, one in five can’t read words, and close to 40% can’t read a one-page story.

“The moment you use the word quality, you need to ask how many can read or write a single line and understand it,” he says. “That’s troubling because education can be one of the strongest factors for poverty alleviation.”

http://www.livemint.com/2007/10/16235421/80-of-Indians-live-on-less-th.html

11 phenomenal images of earth

below are 11 incredible photos taken from space which illustrate just a few of earth’s fascinating geographical features and nature’s frightening unpredictability.

click on all pictures for humongous versions.

1. sri lankan coast, 26th december 2004

(above) the ocean rapidly retreats 400 metres on the south-western coast of sri lanka, just 5 minutes prior to the arrival of a devastating tsunami.

(above) the swirling waters continue to batter the coast just moments after the main wall of water has hit.

2. an alluvial fan, xinjiang province, china

(above) covering an area 56.6 x 61.3 km and taken on may 2nd, 2002, this photo shows an alluvial fan that formed on the southern border of the taklimakan desert in china. an alluvial fan usually forms as water leaves a canyon, each new stream eventually closing up due to sediment - the result being a triangle of active and inactive channels. the blue ones on the left are currently active.

3. retreating glaciers in the bhutan-himalaya

(above) a beautiful but clear sign that glaciers are slowly melting due to global warming. easily visible are the ends of most of these glacial valleys’ surfaces turning to water to form lakes, a trend which has been noticed only in the last few decades.

4. hurricane isabel, 2003

(above) this terrifying photo of hurricane isabel was taken on the international space station in 2003 and illustrates the immense size of the hurricane’s eye. this particular hurricane was the deadliest of 2003 and winds reached 165 mph at its peak.

6. greenland’s eastern coast, august 21st, 2003

(above) the fractal coastline of greenland and its numerous fjords as seen from space.

‘little spots of white in the water seem to be ice originating from the deeper fjords that reach all the way to the icecap covering most of the island.’ link

6. aurora borealis

(above) an astounding and spooky photo of the natural phenomenon known as aurora borealis, taken on-board space shuttle atlantis during the sts-117 mission.

7. a total solar eclipse from space, 1999

(above) the shadow of the moon covers part of earth on august 11th, 1999 in this photo taken from mir space station. this shadow raced across earth at 2000 km/h, all areas under the centre of it plunged into darkness during a total solar eclipse. this was apparently one the final photos taken from mir.

8. egmont national park, new zealand

(above) mt. egmont volcano last erupted in 1755 and is now situated at the centre of egmont national park. park regulations have ensured the survival of a forest which extends at a 9.5 km radius from the summit of the volcano, the result of which can be seen from space in the form of huge dark green disc. this photo was taken during the sts-110 mission, april 2002.

9. mt. etna eruption, october 2001

(above) taken from the international space station in 2001, this is a photo of a particularly violent eruption on the island of sicily which produced a cloud of ash that travelled as far as libya. on the humongous version of the photo lighter coloured smoke can be seen near the volcano - this was caused by lava igniting nearby forests.

10. richat structure, mauritania

(above) the cause of the richat structure in the sahara desert of mauritania has been debated for many years. at first it was thought to be a meteor impact crater due to its circularity but this has since been disproven due to the lack of shock-altered rock in its vicinity. this massive (30 mile diameter) oddity is now believed to have been a rock dome sculpted over time by erosion. this incredible image was taken by the advanced spaceborne thermal emission and reflection radiometer (aster) on october 7th, 2000.

sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Indian in Australia scoring high with Hindi

An increasing number of Indian-origin students in Australia are choosing Hindi as a subject for the High School Certificate (HSC) or Class 12 exam to improve their overall percentage and seize the opportunities offered by India's economic growth.

Jasmine Sodhi, who migrated here at the age of eight, has just done the voiceover in Hindi for one of Australia's most successful children's entertainment programmes, 'The Wiggles', for the Indian market.

She said, "Learning Hindi has opened up many opportunities. It will be of great help if I choose to work in India as I can now interact with different people with ease."

Fluent in French and English, Jasmine has been attending the Sunday Hindi classes for the past six years. She said, "I have chosen Hindi for HSC to scale my UAI."

UAI or University Admission Index is a numerical measure of a student's overall academic achievement in the HSC exam. It is used to determine a student's eligibility for admission to undergraduate courses.

A spokesperson for the Board of Studies of New South Wales said, "In 2007, 40 students enrolled in the HSC Hindi Continuers course in the state. In 2002, there were only eight students enrolled in the course. The biggest jump occurred in the past year with the number of candidates nearly doubling from 22 in 2006 to 40 in 2007."

Cheshta Hooda, who topped the state in Hindi in 2006, came to Australia at the age of 13 and had not studied Hindi after Class 5.

"I joined Hindi in Class 11 to score a higher UAI. It took a couple of months to get back into the groove of reading and writing the language, but now I can talk to naniji without needing mummy to translate the bits I didn't understand earlier."

"I can also better follow the epics, Mahabharat and Ramayan, and enjoy Bollywood films without having to concentrate on subtitles," she said.

"The way Hindi is taught here is very different to the 'learn by heart' concept followed in India. Here, we do a lot of listening tasks and translation, which is difficult, but it tests one's command over Hindi and English," added Cheshta, whose mother used to be a Hindi teacher in Mussoorie.

Abhishek Sood, who migrated at the age of 12, said, "The prospect of high UAI lured me to do HSC Hindi, and then my mother, who had been a Hindi teacher in India for 16 years, was also there to help. Here, the essence is to make you conversant in Hindi and the focus is largely on speaking skills. You can respond to a lot of exam questions in English."

However, the HSC Hindi course has helped him retain the writing skills and he enjoys writing letters in Hindi to his grandparents back home in India.

Most migrant children attend the Sunday Hindi classes at the Indo-Australian Bal Bharati Vidyalaya in suburban Sydney. The Vidyalaya has come a long way since its inception in 1987 when a group of mothers, some with teaching backgrounds, started the Hindi classes.

Mala Mehta, the honorary founder, coordinator and teacher at the Vidyalaya, said, "I used to teach Hindi to my daughter at home but she kept winging and found learning by herself a chore. So a group of mothers got together to set up the school and make learning Hindi fun. We started with 35 students and now have about 150 students and 11 trained teachers."

Most students who take HSC Hindi secure 80 percent or more marks. The students are tested for speaking, listening, reading and writing skills. The text is interactive and contemporary, based on current affairs and topical events.

The Vidyalaya also has classes for adults. For example, some medical students are learning Hindi to gain clinical experience in India and a few Australians are learning the language to live up a dream in Bollywood.

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1131059

Four Famous Ghost Pictures

Everybody loves a good ghost story, so here's four pictures taken by ghost hunters over the years. A couple are quite famous. Ghost Hauntings has a full explanantion and both sites mentioned below have more pix on the subject.

From Idaho Ghosts the World Trade Towers 'face in the smoke':


Another creepy 'face from the smoke' picture:


The famous Newby Church ghost picture's next. From Ghost Hautings:


And lastly, another from Ghost Hauntings, this time the famous "Toys-R-Us Ghost". This last one was shot under extremely verifiable circumstances after the store suffered many strange happenings and a psychic was called in.


http://deathby1000papercuts.blogspot.com/2007/10/pixelaneous-four-famous-ghost-pictures.html

JAB WE MET- View Online or Download (DVD)

1st Part :-http://www.vidoshare.com/video.php?id=1657
2nd Part :- http://www.vidoshare.com/video.php?id=1669
Last Part :-http://www.vidoshare.com/video.php?id=1670