I have the fortune to know Adri as a friend and listen to adventures for nearly 4 years now.. her slides that she presented during the BarCamp

i love looking at places from the old era and then compare it with the exact place today… Versailles is one such amazing example.

picture source

Barack and Michelle… congrats!

I want to go to Iran. The land of Persian, ancient history, Persian poetry and Tehran.

picture credit

on 4th November 2008, the historic win…

Sophia Magdalena Scholl (May 9, 1921 – February 22, 1943) was a member of the White Rose non-violent resistance movement in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich with her brother Hans. As a result, they were both executed by guillotine.

An interesting picture from wiki which depicts the growth of the UN member states in a timeline.

one good amazing website on packing when travelling! -onebag.com

Countries of Middl East includes…

Algeria , Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait,  Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan,  Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Yemen

Wow! Dubai has been spinning some very interesting Mega Projects:

1. Dubai Waterfront
2. Hydropolis
3. Dubailand
4. The Palm Islands
5. Burj Dubai
6. The World
7. The Lagoons
8. Business Bay
9. Dubai Marina

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8 largest cities of New Zealand include:

1. Wellington (capital)
2. Auckland (largest) 
3. Christchurch
4. Hamilton
5. Dunedin
6. Napier-Hastings
7. Palmerston North
8. Tauranga

The top 5 cities in Australia…

1. Brisbane
2. Perth
3. Melbourne
4. Adelaide
5. Sydney

Prime Minister of Israel is the most powerful political person of Israel. 

1. David Ben-Gurion 
3. Moshe Sharett
4. Levi Eshkol 
5. Yigal Allon (acting) 
6. Golda Meir
7. Yitzhak Rabin 
8. Menachem Begin
9. Yitzhak Shamir 
10. Shimon Peres 
11. Benjamin Netanyahu
12. Ehud Barak
13. Ariel Sharon 
14. Ehud Olmert 

 Socrates. Statement at trial condemning him to death, 399BC, Athens.

I need to read this. It is a puzzling even till today as to why a Greek society which was democratic would sentence a 70 year old philospher to death and that philosopher had been teaching for life. One excerpt from his speech…

I spend all my time going about trying to persuade you, young and old, to make your first and chief concern not for your bodies nor for your possessions, but for the highest welfare of your souls, proclaiming as I go, Wealth does not bring goodness, but goodness brings wealth and every other blessing, both to the individual and to the state

Here/s also a link to the trial and death of Socrates

Book Title: Great Speeches of Modern India

Author: Compiled by Rudrangshu Mukherjee
Year written/published: 2007
Book Source: here
Summary: A collection of 49 speeches by many great oersonalities of Indian history since the 1885
My Comments: The collection of speeches is excellent. I shall not summarise all these speeches into this entry. Hence, i’ll go into each speech individually because they are important to be studied in detail one by one. 
Contents page: Some speeches includes…

• Lord Curzon – On conserving ancient monuments in 1889
• Swami Vivekananda – Sisters and brothers of America in 1893
• Bal gangadhar Tilak – Free is my brithright in 1917
• Gandhi – Trial Speech in 1922
• Iqbal – Muslims of India in 1930
• Nehru – Tryst with Destiny in 1947
• Godse – Why I killed Gandhi in 1949
• Satyakit Ray – Education of a film maker in 1982
• Salman Rushdie – the Fatwa in 1993
• JRD Tata – Rekindling of enthusiasm in 1982

Some extracts: from the Preface of the book written by the compiling author…

speeches…

Speeches are meant to be spoken – and heard. For this reason, a speech is fundamentally different from other forms of written text, for it is not simply dependant on the words alone… 

on speech writing…

The style of the speeches too changed. Nehru and his contemporaries and almost certainly the generation preceding him has all written their own speeches. This cannot be said for the politicians of the post-Nehru era. Most, if not all, the major political figured from Indira Gandhi onwards had their own team whose members works on the speeches and wrote them. 

None of the great orators, during the 2nd WW and the period preceding it, employed speechwriters. Churchill wrote his own speeches and rehearsed them again and again.

on Sharda Prasad who used to write the speeches for Rajiv and Indira Gandhi…

Sharda Prasad was once asked why he, who had seen 2 prime ministers at such close quaters, did not write his memoirs. He reportedly quipped, “A man can become a ghost, but a ghost cannot become a man.”

Hinduism talks about the 4 ages of man or the Yugas

1. Satya Yuga or Krita Yuga – 1,728,000 years 
2. Treta Yuga – 1,296,000 years
3. Dvapara Yuga – 864,000 years
4. Kali Yuga – 432,000 years

The ages defining the human evolution and civilisation of mankind statrting with the Ice Age whcih ended at about 10,000 BC. The other 3 great ages defining the Pre-history of mankind are..

1. Stone Age - Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic  (ended at about 2500 BC)
2. Bronze Age  (ended at about 500 BC)
3. Iron Age  (ended at about 200 AD)

source

North East India is made up of 7 sister states along with Sikkim…

1. Arunachal Pradesh
2. Assam
3. Meghalaya
4. Manipur
5. Mizoram
6. Nagaland
7. Tripura

Happy Independance Day to India… 51 Years of Independance since 1947. I love these kind of videos of India… it really shows how diverse this country is – bustling with vibrancy!