80 children fall sick after midday meal in Pune

Around 80 children fell sick on Friday after consumption of unhygienic midday meal at a government school in Pune.

According to authorities insects and rmidday meal,foodusted iron participles were found in the meal.

"Insects, flies, broken iron particles and other unhygienic and poisonous things were found from the khichdi that was served. Children felt stomach pain and they vomited after consumption of the food," said Sangita Tiwari, President of Pune Municipal Corporation's School Board.

A case has been registered in this connection.

The midday meal scheme involves provision of lunch free of cost to schoolchildren on all working days. (ANI)

Airtel to launch iPhone 4 in Oct

Country's largest telecom service provider Bharti Airtel has revealed its plans to launch iPhone 4, the latest product from Apple Computers's stable, by October.

"We are working with Apple. Hopefully, we will launch it in the September-October timeframe," Bharti Airtel CEO Sanjay Kapoor told reporters on the sidelines of a CII industry conference.

Earlier in June, Vodafone Essar had spoken of its plans to launch the iPhone 4 in India, without specifying a timeframe for the same. However, according to sources, the company is launching iPhone 4 in India in September.

Bharti Airtel already sells iPhone 3GS in India priced at Rs 35,500 for the 16GB model and Rs 41,500 for the 32GB model.

With the launch of third generation mobile services in the country by the end of this year, the sale of such high end devices are likely to get a boost.

US-based Apple Inc, the inventor of iPods, iPhones and iPads, had last month announced the launch of the iPhone 4 with a sharper screen and video-chat features in an attempt to ward-off competition from devices running Google's Android software.

The iPhone has emerged as Apple's top product, overtaking its Macintosh computer and iPod.

How safe is your water purifier?

As more households in metro cities switch to water purifiers due to scarcity of potable drinking water, experts are worried about the lack of stringent standards for the equipment.

"In India, unlike producers of natural mineral water and packaged drinking water who are required to meet BIS standards, there is no such mechanism for ensuring safety of potable water purification devices."

Most developed countries like the US (Environment Protection Agency), European countries (European Chemicals Agency) and Australia have their own regulatory bodies for monitoring safety of all types of drinking water.

"Generally chemical-based purifiers cannot remove dissolved solids from water and thus not recommended in areas with high hardness or other dissolved solids."

"There is a great risk of formation of disinfection by-products, even in the most commonly used disinfectant – Chlorine. It can lead to adverse health effects in the long run, ranging from metabolic disorders to renal failure and cancer."

The branded players fall short of adequate disclosure requirements like the type of chemicals used, life of filters and other components. "There should be a comprehensive mandatory labelling based on international best practices."

Even the major brands agree to the need for setting standards and adequate labelling. "We support the views that there should be comprehensive testing

done to verify the claims made by different water purifier manufacturers and that appropriate standards need to be developed by the government and industry bodies for water purifiers in general," Vikram Surendran, General Manager (Water), Hindustan Unilever Ltd.

"We hope the Indian government will bring in policy changes to set standards and monitor portable water purification devices,"

Tablet Wars: OlivePad vs iPad

OlivePad vs iPad:

Apple has been compared with many other tablets and has fared better than most of them so far. But it is time to see how it does against India's first 3G Tablet, the OlivePad VT100. The main difference between the two is that you can make calls on the OlivePad VT100 and you can't do that on the Apple iPad.


The iPad now runs on Apple's iOS 3.2.1, while OlivePad VT100 runs on Android 2.1 (Eclair) operating system. Plus, for all you Flash lovers, OlivePad VT100 runs Adobe Flash. The other major difference between these two tablets is that OlivePad VT100 has a 3-megapixel camera with 4x zoom and a front facing camera, while iPad does not have any.

The display of Apple's iPad is 9.7-inch and supports multitouch. It supports 1024-by-768-pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch (ppi). OlivePad VT100 is meant for making phone calls and hence the size is between iPhone and iPad. It has the screen size of 7-inch and has the screen resolution of 800 x 480 pixels.

One other area where OlivePad VT100 has an upper edge over iPad is the option to plug in to mini USB port. In terms of internet connectivity, both the tablets support Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The Apple iPad supports 3G HSDPA, while OlivePad VT100 supports 3.5G HSUPA. In terms of other functions, both tablets have the usual functions that a tablet can do like internet browsing, access to social networking features, GPS for maps and can act as a ebook reader as well.

Apple claims that iPad has 10 hours of battery life. OlivePad VT100 battery performance is not know as of now. OlivePad VT100 has 600MHz Qualcomm M7227 chipset, while iPad has 1GHz Apple A4 processor. Apple has not mentioned in its detail spec sheet how much RAM the Apple iPad has. Our assumption is 512MB, which would be similar to what OlivePad has. Both the tablets support GSM and EDGE along with 3G, but OlivePad VT100 also supports WCDMA. In terms of storage, OlivePad VT100 has 512 MB of internal memory which can be extended up to 32GB, while iPad is available in the capacity of 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB.

OlivePad VT100 beats iPad in:

Camera: OlivePad: Yes, iPad: No

Flash Support: OlivePad: Yes, iPad: No

Phone Call: OlivePad: Yes, iPad: No

Mini USB: OlivePad: Yes, iPad: No

Apple iPad is still not available in India yet. iPad which supports Wi-Fi and 3G is priced at $629 (approx Rs. 29,500). OlivePad VT100 will be available in store in August and is priced at Rs. 25,000 (Wi-Fi + 3G). It is also possible that when Apple prices the iPad for India, the price might decrease or increase by 2K margin.

Glorious 800-wicket Test finish for Murali

The cricket world will remember this day as the one on which its greatest offspinner rolled his arm over for the last time in Tests. It was a day rich in emotion and scripted perfectly, as Muttiah Muralitharan ended his career by picking up his 800th Test wicket with the last ball he bowled.

But, in rather typical fashion, the affable Sri Lankan turned it into a day in which he honoured those who taught him the game, and showed that he is not short of gratitude.

Among his special invitees were Sunil Fernando, who coached him in school, and Daryl Foster, who worked with him first at Kent and then in western Australia’s biomechanics lab when accusations of chucking were being hurled at him.

Murali’s family was there too: parents Sinnasamy Muttiah and Lakshmi, Chennai-born wife Madhimalar and son Naren, along with his brothers Shashi, Prabhu and Shree. The significance of the day was lost on young Naren but the others were delirious with delight.

“It was very, very important to him that the whole family be present to watch him today,” Madhimalar told the Hindustan Times as the presentation ceremony unfolded after the game. “It’s his milestone and you can imagine how much we wanted to be here for him.”

But Murali’s loyalty goes beyond family. “He never ever forgets people who have helped in his most difficult times,” explained Madhimalar. “He wanted all the people who went out of the way to help him when he was in trouble to be here and celebrate with him.”

WHAT IS "DREAM"....!!!!

DREAM:-

A dream is a succession of images, sounds or emotions which the mind experiences during sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not fully understood, though they have been a topic of speculation and interest throughout recorded history. The scientific study of dreams is known as oneirology. Technology for studying dreams has been around for a few decades.


Throughout history, people have sought meaning in dreams or divination through dreams. Dreams have been described physiologically as a response to neural processes during sleep, physiologically as reflections of the subconcious, and spiritually as messages from god, the deceased, predictions of the future or from the Soul, for symbology is the language of the Soul. Many cultures practice dream incubation, with the intention of cultivating dreams that were prophetic or contained messages from the divine

The cultural meaning of dreaming:-

Dreams have been described physiologically as a response to neural processes during sleep, psychologically as reflections of the subconscious, and spiritually as messages from gods, the deceased, predictions of the future or from the Soul, for symbology is the language of the Soul. Many cultures practice dream incubation, with the intention of cultivating dreams that were prophetic or contained messages from the divine.

Dreaming and the "real world":-

During the night there may be many external stimuli bombarding the senses, but the brain often interprets the stimulus and makes it a part of a dream in order to ensure continued sleep. Dream incorporation is a phenomenon whereby an actual sensation, such as environmental sounds are incorporated into dreams such as hearing a phone ringing in a dream while it is ringing in reality, or dreaming of urination while wetting the bed. The mind can, however, awaken an individual if they are in danger or if trained to respond to certain sounds, such as a baby crying. Except in the case of lucid dreaming, people dream without being aware that they are doing so. Some philosophers have concluded that what we think as the "real world" could be or is an illusion. There is a famous painting by Salvador Dalí that depicts this concept, titled "Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening" (1944). The first recorded mention of the idea was by Zhuangzi, and was also discussed in Hinduism; Buddhism makes extensive use of the argument in its writings.It was formally introduced to Western philosophy by Descartes in the 17th century in his Meditations on First Philosophy. Stimulus, usually an auditory one, becomes a part of a dream, eventually then awakening the dreamer. The term "dream incorporation" is also used in research examining the degree to which preceding daytime events become elements of dreams. Recent studies suggest that events in the day immediately preceding, and those about a week before, have the most influence..