I am writing this post after genuinely upset after watching the eye-opening program “The Truth About Adoption” on BBC about the challenges of our Children facing to be with a family.
In my teens, I had a chance to live and work with orphans and street children as part of my fathers charity orphanages in India. During that time, I could only understand the Indian perspective of this complex problem we are facing as a global society. Watching “The Truth About Adoption” certainly provide me an insight into other facets involved. Coping up with feeling of instant losses, pressure of making new bonds, uncertainty and the emotional roller coaster that our children had to go though at a very young age, makes me feel all the ‘big problems’ we are facing as adults are very very tiny and incomparable. It is very sad to see our children going through such suffer to have a reasonable life and being part of a family. For me this is the most disgrace to our own existence as human race. I am also very unfortunate to see children introduced to their moms as tummy mummies, that would be the most awful situation to be in. I am hopeful we can do much better things for our children. I am very proud and grateful to foster families, moms, dads, social workers and charities. Without these most amazing people i cant imagine!!!
They say, child is the purest form of a human being. No matter who gave birth, I strongly feel they deserve a better start. Please have a think about adopting a child before bringing a new one..Please show your caring…
IFRA Gold Award winning photograph by Himanshu Vyas of Hindustan Times shows a Bishnoi women, India caring an orphan fawn. Truly Amazing
When Facebook sets up a new account, it leaves default privacy settings very open in a way it like to have it. Several people never bothered to change these settings or only fiddle with few settings making themselves vulnerable to malware, spam, loads of commercial promotions, and most importantly handing personal information such as email address, location, likes etc, to unknowns without knowing. Here I will go though with all the Facebook settings, show how you can tighten up the screws for your own safety and privacy. By no means this would guarantee your Facebook experience safe, but at least makes the risk to minimal. Where I thought it is an important setting, I explained in detail (sorry for the boring explanation), also where I thought is an obvious recommendation, I made it to very precise without further explanation.
Here onwards, I call Facebook as FB
Lets go, Open:
Home > Account settings
Home > Account settings > General >
Email : I strongly recommend using your “secondary email address ” as “primary” email address in FB. What I mean is not using your main personal email address (your primary email) that you use to contact your family and real friends. You dont want your primary email address open to spam, possible hacking since it contains important conversations. I explain in more detail WHY you shouldn’t? Lets says, If you press “LIKE” button on one of your favourite brands FB page, say Starbucks, etc. It is very likely that you end up in receiving promotion emails from these companies, since either they know that you like them or they might have brought your details from FB. In any case, your primary email inbox is cluttered up with spam, promotions and may be potential malware. Another thing to realise is when you are using FB “apps” (applications) you are agreeing to give certain personal information to third parties, god knows how they use it. So, having your secondary email address as “primary” email address in FB allows all the junk not being caught up in your main email inbox, leaving it clean and hopefully risk free. Now HOW to change email address in FB? In case if you don’t have one, create a new email address that acts as your secondary email. Add this to FB using “Add another email address” option. Now make secondary email address you just added as “primary” address by using “Choose Primary” option. Then remove your main email address completely from FB. FB only needs one email address. If you are worried about checking two emails in mobile/tablet, then the simplest solution is to “forward emails” automatically from secondary email account to your primary email. Forwarding Emails from one account to another is very simple, and almost all major mail providers offer this as free service. If you are using google, you can find the instruction’s here: https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=10957. This way you only need to check your primary email for all important mails and also FB notifications, etc. Further you can also setup “Filters” on secondary email address to configure which emails will forward to your primary email address. Now if you are also serious to keep secondary email inbox clean, then “UNLIKE” all the business pages and “REMOVE” apps. Also, check the bottom of this post for general email tips.
Password: Change frequently, use mix of: numbers (not birthdays, car numbers), CAPITAL letters, and special symbols(ex: _ ,*) in between
Networks : NONE
Linked accounts : NONE
Home > Account settings > Security >
Secure browsing : ENABLE, This make sures you are accessing FB by a secure route.
Login notifications : ENABLE, What this mean is whenever you login into FB, say from you personal computer, you should give a device name, like “Home”. If you login from work computer you probably would give a device name like “Work”. The important thing is whenever someone logged into your FB from other computer, FB asks to setup a device name, then sends an email to inform you that someone logged in from external computer. This make sures, if anyone ever hacked your FB details and tried logging in, you would get an automated email, so you can either close down FB or seek advice. You can check your existing devices by looking at “Recognised devices” option
Login approvals: If you are really really serious about security, ENABLE.
Active sessions: Here you can check your login sessions, when and from where you have logged in. Its a good practise to check this section time to time.
Home > Account settings > Notifications >
I will leave up to you to change the settings of what you would like to be notified from FB
Home > Account settings > App >
Apps are the primary culprits, I personally remove everything listed here.
Home > Account settings > Mobile >
DON’T ADD YOUR PHONE NUMBER HERE
Home > Account settings > Payments
Do you want to store your card details in FB? No way..
Home > Account settings > Facebook Adverts
I hate them
Home > Privacy settings >
Home > Privacy settings > Control Your Default Privacy
This is very important setting, here you can choose who can see your posts by default.
NEVER EVER SELECT PUBLIC
I recommend always using CUSTOM, where you can choose to share your content with specific group of people, say “Friends” only or “Friends of Friends” only or a mixed people of your choice.
Here you can also block some of your friends from viewing your posts
Home > Privacy settings > How do you connect Edit Settings >
Who can look up your profile by name or contact info?
Not everyone obviously?? OR Friends/Friends of Friends
Who can send you friend requests?
Everyone??? or Friends of Friends
Who can send you Facebook messages?
Friends or Friends of Friends
Who can post on your Wall?
Only Me
Who can see Wall posts by others on your profile?
Only Me
Home > Privacy settings > How tags work Edit Settings >
Profile review
Off
Tag review
Off
Maximum Profile visibility
CUSTOM, Only me
Tag suggestions
Only me
Friends can check you into places:
Do you really want to tell everyone where have you been??? Off, Otherwise
Home > Privacy settings > Apps and websites This is very important setting Apps you use:
I would make it to None. Then MAKE SURE to “Turn off all platform apps”. Do you realise whenever you go to some websites, they already know who you are, allowing you to comment on their content using your FB details. This is because if you logged into FB, other websites can recognise you by checking FB details. So, turning off “all platform apps” make sures your identity is not provided to or visible to external websites, even though you are logged in FB.
How people bring your info to apps they use:
UN SELECT all options
Instant personalisation
Disable, if enabled
Public search
You don want your FB account page ended up in google search, do you? Disable, if enabled
Home > Privacy settings > Limit the Audience for Past Posts
Make sure to click “Limit Old Posts“, this will restrict all your previously posted public posts to “Friends” only. Its a good practise to do this time to time.
Home > Privacy settings > Blocked people and apps
Here you can add your friends to block lists
A note on Photos and Content:
Every time you upload a photo, or content of type intellectual property on FB, you are granting a “non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to Facebook. ( Please see the terms: https://www.facebook.com/terms.php). So, try resist your appetite to post children, family, private and photos having other people (like group photos). There are number of ways you can share photos like uploading to Picasa,Flickr, or the good old way of sending an email with photos attached or link.
General Email Tips:
If you keep on getting promotional emails, rather then tag them spam or delete every week, check the mail for “UNSUBSCRIBE” link, click and follow instructions to remove your email address for good from their database. Typical if you do this for a week, you will almost remove 80-90% subscriptions, promotional emails, leaving your inbox clean. By the way this only applies to promotional emails coming from known/trusted sources. If the subject is “You Won a Lottery” or “African Appeal” dont even open it, tag SPAM and DELETE . If you still like to receive promotional emails from some companies make sure to provide your secondary email address to them instead of your precious primary email address.
Chrome is cool, but no secure browsing plug in available yet, otherwise recommended it.
I hope you find some of the tips useful. I also know that some may find my recommended settings Anti/UnSocial. Its better you decide what is social rather then Facebook does it for you
Just want to share this beautiful Inforgraphc on Indian Classical Music : Raag Rang. I am glad to see Indian designers taking interest on Inforgarphics recently. Full credits to the designer pratyush89 and visual.ly for sharing..
Supporting characters: Uncorrupted Indians (It seems they are about 90+%)
Main villains: Manmohan Singh & UPA
Side villains: Corrupted Indians (there are very few, it seems), Police, Govt officials, Switzerland banks
Produced by: BJP and other opposition parties.
Executive producers & Cinematography: 24 x7 Media
Action & Stunt coordinators: VHP, RSS, right-wing groups and some ….
Publicity & Media Partners: Facebook, Orkut, and other Social Media
Story line: Fighting for a bill that will eradicate corruption and change the fate of Indians.
Highlights: Poor Anna been sent to Tihar jail (very emotional scene), Rakhi Sawant-Baba Ramdev-Rahul’s Item song in Tihar, UPA’s comedy of errors, Punch dialogues in parliament.
Budget: Several sessions in Parliament, Increased flights & trains, Intense policing, public disorder maintenance, holidays to government offices & schools, and cant fit all here. Only white money will be used.
BoxOffice verdicit: Running successfully
Awards and Nominations: Will be nominated for ‘Bharat Ratna’, if BJP comes to the power. Some say ‘new age Gandhi’ and others ‘media-fed megalomaniac’?
My Review: A great story on dependent personality disorder. The classic hope of ‘one thing’ presumed to change everything.
Last but not least, ‘Mirror Mirror Who’s the Fairest of All’?
The one thing I like the most about India is its “Unity in Diversity”, Millions of great people were united despite several cultural, social, religious, political, geographical, linguistic and many other differences, for one dream of achieving a free nation. Thanks to their selfless sacrifice’s, at the stroke of the midnight hour on 14th August 1947, when the world was sleeping, India has awakened to life and freedom(1). This is the day to remember who gave their lives for our rights, freedom, prosperity and unity we enjoy today. May God Bless Their Souls. As our forefathers anticipated, this is also the day to refocus on building a noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell(1).
Celebrate the Freedom, Happy Independence Day…
The first Prime Minister of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru’s most famous ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech to the Indian Constituent Assembly, on the eve of India’s Independence, towards midnight on 14 August 1947
39 elite Indian voices singing Jaya He, with English translation..
{"Friend":"Human companion","Types":{"Good Friend":["can seek help","can ask money"],"Close Friend":["can tell secrets","cry out all problems","can be stupid with","all the benifits of a good friend","and many more"]},"No Friend":["lonely","boring","no life","can't fit all here"],"Why Friend":"except above"}
Just watched Google chromebook video.
Bit surprised to see for the first time (may be I don’t aware of any previous attempts) Google’s public satire on Microsoft.
Watch the video 0.34-0.38sec’s. The voice says : “No Desktop – No Rolling Hills of Green”.
Clearly the first thing that comes to mind is “Windows signature default Desktop Background”. Is it intentional or have I been too picky?
Quick fix VMware player Error: “Taking ownership of the virtual machine is failed”
Reason (one of..): Host OS might have shutdown unexpectedly causing a running Virtual Machine to die without saving its state.
Quick fix:
1. Stop VMware player
2. Go to the virtual machines directory, i.e. where VM files are stored on host OS.
3. Check for lock (.lck) files. Usually in Windows: vmdk.lck, vmem.lck, vmx.lck
4. Move .lck files to another directory( for backup purposes)
5. Restart VM
6. If its fixed, delete .lck files
After watching Dr Adam Rutherford’s BBC program The Gene Code, I can see the future workflow of Indian Matrimonial Agencies.
Just give you a bit of background Adam talks about an Indian study that shows certain genes behave differently in specific Indian caste people. This is because most of the Indian people marry within their caste, the chances of carrying their distinct qualities to the offspring is high.
The Future Workflow of Indian Matrimonial Agencies:
1. Get grooms blood sample along with other bio-details
2. Get the genome sequencing done. By this time there will be ‘n’ number of gully sequencing centers providing the sequencing service for Rs1000.
3. In-house bioinformatician does the similarity search against bride’s ‘caste based reference genome’
4. If Brides ‘caste specific genes’ exist:
If there is a strong evidence: go ahead with marriage, but check for susceptibility to future disease.
Else: No Marriage. There will be no further pipeline to deal with Distant Relationships. Poor boys.
A new group of brokers emerge to assist grooms to get thier genomic data modified for a price. Well, dont know how Anna Hazare will respond {:-)
This could also be used as an alternative method to find out same caste people, if Indian government abandons the caste system. Instead of ‘what caste you are’, People may ask ‘what are your family genes’? Of course it only works until Inter-caste marriages are not much popular in the population.
Also, imagine what would happen to those Indian cinema’s famous caste/vamsam based dialogues?, hilarious..
The hero says “Hum ‘BRCA1,BRCA2” kaandhan se hain“
{ Just for fun… }
Comments:
@Vasu : Take it a notch further … The sequencing centres will have Bolt ON (perfect family package) that will check that the bride has a Pharma and therapeutic angle to provide genetic medications that express (or suppress) the transcription enhancers that will coordinate with the variations that help in grooms liking to cricket, guitar or kishore kumar … or nappy changing.
@Vasu: Ironically, the database that contains the India specific caste compatibility variations is going to be much bigger than the UK10K DB, that only gully Seq centres should handle and they will customise it well I presume. – Specialised sequencing canters for each caste may be
Jonathan Rosenberg: Rules to success : Source : GOOGLE VIDEOS
In his quarter century of working in Silicon Valley at such companies as Apple, @Home, and Google, CMC Alum Jonathan Rosenberg has had ample opportunity to watch successful people in action. He will share his observations on what makes great people tick and draw conclusions on how a liberal arts education can arm the next generation of leaders. His talk will include a set of “rules” that promise to be excellent preparation for any student who plan at some point to enter the real world.
Here is the video:
Everyone has got a list of the things they wanted to do atleast once in their life time. One of the things I wanted to do is see AR Rahman performing live. Lucikly I got the tickets for this saturday(24th July 2010) to see him at o2 arena, London(Jai ho world tour)..I am so happy – will post the pictures soon…Am on the moon right now.
India will be the focus of the latest country-themed week of events at Clare Hall next week. The enterprising international graduate college will be hosting lectures, dance, drama, music an exhibition and a cookery demonstration in India Week between 6 and 12 June.
Free admission to all events, except for the formal dinner.
More details:
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2010052702
http://www.clarehall.cam.ac.uk/index.php?id=327
Thursday 3 June
6.00pm – 8.00pm
Clare Hall Gallery
Exhibition : BLOW HORN
Signs and Life in India: a solo exhibition by Natasha Kurmar
Sunday 6 June
6.00pm, Clare Hall Dining Hall
Event: Sanskruti School of Dance
Nritya Margam – A dance recital by Krishna Zivraj-Nair
Monday 7 June
6.00pm, Richard Eden Room
Lecture & Workshop: The multitude of colour in saris
Mrs Anindita Lipner and Mrs Purbani Chakrabarti
will talk about the different saris and how to wear them
Monday 7 June
8.15pm, Richard Eden Suite
Play and Poems: Indian Interludes, Readings from a play,
two short stories,and six poems
Written and devised by: Rani & John Drew
Followed by Reception
Tuesday 8 June
6.00pm, Richard Eden Suite
Lecture: Innovation in India:A Threat to the West
Professor Jaideep Prabhu
Jawaharlal Nehru Professor
Judge Business School
Followed by Reception
Tuesday 8 June
8.15pm, Richard Eden Suite
Lecture by Sir Mark Tully
The Voice of India: India not a failing but a flailing state
Followed by Reception
Wednesday 9 June
6.15pm, Richard Eden Room
Lecture: India’s Foreign Policies
Mr. Asoke Mukerji
Deputy High Commissioner (Short Bio)
Wednesday 9 June
7.00pm
Reception, followed by Formal Dinner
Indian Meal produced by the Rice Boat Restaurant
authentic South Indian Cuisine
Thursday 10 June
6.00pm, Richard Eden Room
Lecture: Professor Julius Lipner
Faculty of Divinity
A unique point of view, or how the Hindu view of life has helped India to survive
Followed by reception
Thursday 10 June
8.15pm, Dining Hall
Music Concert: Sarod Player Soumik Datta
Friday 11 June
6.00pm, Richared Eden Suite
Pinky Lilani OBE, of Spice Magic
Coriander makes the difference
How each of us can make a difference
Talk to be followed by demo of spicy Bombay potaoes and tasting
Friday 11 June
8.15pm, ALB
Bollywood movie: 3 Idiots
. If you still like to receive promotional emails from some companies make sure to provide your secondary email address to them instead of your precious primary email address.
