Tsangpo river and the journey of a spy to uncover its mysteries : The Spy Who Went In To The Cold

The Tsangpo still thunders down a constriction 18,000 ft deep, just as it had all those hundreds of years ago when KP stood staring up at the spurs in awe. Few have seen it in that avatar, and almost no one has been able to chase it all the way. It continues to keep its secrets, defying all attempts to decode it as it hurtles down from the roof of the world.
The only man who ever came close to tracing its route and learning its secrets, and whose Herculean attempt was foiled by one letter gone astray, is now a footnote in the river’s history.
http://riverdiaries.tumblr.com/post/93317820572/the-spy-who-went-in-to-the-cold-early-1800s-asia

Where The Birds Are Is Not Where You'd Think :)

Suburbs offer a wide range of artificially designed garden habitats, providing a smorgasbord of nuts, fruits, seeds, insects and ponds, in dense concentrations. Because they are rich with different kinds of bird food, suburbs are rich with different kinds of birds.

In Leicester, England, one survey found 422 different plant species in a single garden. Another census of 61 private yards in Britain found 1,166 vascular plants, 80 different lichens, 68 varieties of moss.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2014/07/28/335142374/where-the-birds-are-is-not-where-youd-think?ft=1&f=1007

How Protecting Wildlife Helps Stop Child Labor And Slavery

When scientists talk about the destruction of rain forests or the acidification of oceans, we often hear about the tragic loss of plants and animals.

But ecologists at the University of California, Berkeley say there's also a human tragedy that frequently goes unnoticed: As fish and fauna are wiped out, more children around the world are forced to work, and more people are forced into indentured servitude.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/07/28/334107989/how-protecting-wildlife-helps-stop-child-labor-and-slavery?ft=1&f=1007

Don't sit tight on flight, it can kill you

If you have a long flight, drinking plenty of water and maintaining body movement can spare you a lot of trouble. Drinking adequate fluids, especially non-alcoholic beverages, is a must during long flights.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Dont-sit-tight-on-flight-it-can-kill-you/articleshow/38881181.cms

The Black Market Indian Wedding Rate Card for Runaway Couples

Arya Samaj wedding
1. Basic wedding: Rs 5,000-Rs 8,000
2. Wedding, materials and photographer: Rs 10,000
3. Combo package, including a wedding and court registration: Rs 15,000-20,000

4. Combo package with two witnesses and complete documents: Rs 22,000-25,000

5. Combo package with two witnesses and complete documents, all in one day: Rs 40,000-50,000
6. Combo package, two witnesses, complete documents and police protection, all in one day: Rs 65,000-75,000
Muslim wedding
Since government registration is still not mandatory for Muslim couples, the legal services double up as matrimony facilitators for mixed couples where one of the partners wishes to convert to Islam. Muslim weddings are conducted and approved by Qazis.
1. Marriage with certificate: up to Rs 10,000
2. Marriage with certificate and conversion of one partner to Islam: Rs 30,000
3. Marriage with certificate, conversion and police protection: Rs 35,000-Rs 70,000, depending on the availability of documents.
Marriages between Muslims, Hindus and Christians under the Special Marriage Act
1. Application submission with attestations and affidavits: Rs 6,000-Rs10,000
2. Application with attestations, affidavits and supporting identity documents: Rs 25,000
3. All-in-one, including three witnesses and complete documents: Rs 25,000-Rs 35,000

4. All-in-one with police protection: Rs 40,000-Rs 70,000

https://in.news.yahoo.com/my-runaway-wedding--or--how-to-do-national-integration-in-30-days-072554247.html

India's attempt to classify its documents : Classified vs Declassified

According to the Departmental Security Instructions laid down by the Office Manual for functioning of governmental department, there are four types of security classifications: Top Secret, Secret, Confidential and Personal (not for publication).

1. The ‘Top Secret’ grading is reserved for papers that include references to current or future military operations, intending movements or disposition of armed forces, shaping of secret methods of wars, matters of high international and internal political policy or reports derived from secret sources of intelligence.
2. The ‘Secret’ grade is given to documents that can potentially cause administrative embarrassment or injure the interest and prestige of the government, or prove to be an advantage to a foreign country or an enemy.
3. Documents are marked as ‘Confidential’ when they contain information that may not be harmful to national security but their disclosure may be deemed as prejudicial to the interests of the nation.
4. ‘Personal’ documents are those that are meant for public information but not publication.

Classified documents are supposed to be kept in files or in a bound book with security markings as per the designated grade. For example, all the pages of a Top Secret document are marked with a ‘TOP SECRET’ sign on the top and bottom of each sheet.

The rulebook known as the Manual of Departmental Security Instructions – notified by the Union ministry of Home Affairs in 1966 and followed by government departments for these decisions – is a confidential document that remains mysteriously inaccessible to the public.

https://in.news.yahoo.com/for-your-eyes-only--and-yours--a. nd-yours--and-yours-061853080.html

Arun Jaitley : Maintaining ties across ideologies

This is Arun Jaitley, who maintains friendships from the days of his childhood and youth, when he was a student leader at Delhi University, through the dark nights of the Emergency, and later at the Bar in Delhi. And he carefully nurtures relationship from across the ideological divide, since he became a card-carrying member of the Jana Sangh and, its later incarnation, BJP.

Jaitley represented Scindia in the Jain hawala case in 1996.

Congress leaders admit that when they were in power, Jaitley reached out to them, his political rivals, exchanging civilities and reaffirming personal equations and, indeed, helping the government pass several bills in the Upper House.
https://in.finance.yahoo.com/news/the-money-is-on-him-062209170.html

Smiles : Genuine and Fake

Genuine Smile involves both voluntary and involuntary contraction from two muscles: the zygomatic major (raising the corners of the mouth) and the orbicularis oculi (raising the cheeks and producing crow's feet around the eyes).

Fake Smile or ‘Say Cheese’ smile involves the contraction of just the zygomatic major since we cannot voluntarily contract the orbicularis oculi muscle.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/235565

Indian engineer prepares solar tuk-tuk for London odyssey

Since quitting his job with Reva, a unit of Indian car maker Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd that makes electric vehicles, Rabelli has spent two years tinkering with his second-hand tuk-tuk. The project has already cost Rabelli his life savings of about $6,000.

Equipped with a new motor, battery and gearbox, the bright red vehicle - named Tejas, a Sanskrit word meaning splendour or brilliance - now bears little resemblance to the sputtering, diesel-fuelled three-wheelers ubiquitous on India's roads.
https://in.news.yahoo.com/indian-engineer-prepares-solar-tuk-tuk-london-odyssey-050829013--finance.html

Why Is India Called Hindustan?

http://yralindia.tumblr.com/post/91423317710/why-is-india-called-hindustan

17 Websites That Will Make You Smarter

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/234981

Budget 2014 : Simple Graphics Guide

https://in.finance.yahoo.com/photos/budget-2014-in-graphics-slideshow/kbk-graphics-photo-1405058240421.html

Manjushree Packaging Heritage Museum in Bangalore

The Packaging Heritage Museum will get you thinking differently about junk. And it’s surprising that you haven’t heard of it already, because Vimal Kedia established it in 2003 and it has entered the Limca Book of Records for being one of its kind in India.

https://in.lifestyle.yahoo.com/at-this-museum--it-s-all-in-the-packaging-061407786.html 

The Man Who Saved 669 Children

Nicholas Winton organised mass evacuations of children to help them avoid being sent to their deaths in Nazi concentration camps is having a world premiere in Prague, the Czech capital.

http://yralindia.tumblr.com/post/91341258033/meet-the-man-who-saved-669-children

From rickshaw puller to guest at Rashtrapati Bhavan – Inspiring story

The 51-year-old Kamboj's innovation - the multi-purpose food processing machine - can extract juices or essence from herbs quickly.
https://in.news.yahoo.com/from-rickshaw-puller-to-guest-at-rashtrapati-bhavan-%E2%80%93-inspiring-story-044917488.html

A Different Path to Fighting Addiction

The center, known as the C.M.C., operates out of two floors of a 19th-century building on 30th Street and Fifth Avenue. It is part of a growing wing of addiction treatment that rejects the A.A. model of strict abstinence as the sole form of recovery for alcohol and drug users.

Instead, it uses a suite of techniques that provide a hands-on, practical approach to solving emotional and behavioral problems, rather than having abusers forever swear off the substance — a particularly difficult step for young people to take.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/nyregion/a-different-path-to-fighting-addiction.html?action=click&contentCollection=Technology&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article&_r=2&utm_content=buffer32aff&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer

A lesson on what following 'Indian culture' would really be like

https://twitter.com/NigelBritto/status/484907204420460545/photo/1

An Icebox, a Live Heart and the Man Who Drove and Drove : Journey of a Heart Transplant

From hospital to hospital, a 45-minute ride completed in 13 crazy minutes. A few weeks ago, Chennai traffic came to a standstill to allow a donor heart to reach a dying young woman for an urgent transplant. As families, doctors and cops waited with bated breath, this is what went down inside that wailing ambulance.

When the ambulance left the government hospital police had activated a Green Corridor – an open route without blocks or slow-moving traffic and where all traffic signals are green. This is done exclusively for medical emergencies. 

https://in.news.yahoo.com/an-icebox--a-live-heart-and-the-man-who-drove-and-drove-052442499.html