HISTORY OF THE PRESIDENCY

The following article was published in THE TIMES OF INDIA, Hyderabad edition on 23 Jan 2010 Sat

Rajendra Prasad
(1884-1963)
Term of Office | January 26, 1950 to May 13, 1962
First President of independent India. A freedom fighter, Rajendra Prasad was the only president to serve two terms in office

Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan
(1888-1975)
Term of Office | May 13, 1962 to May 13, 1967
A prominent philosopher, writer, a Knight of the Realm who held the position of vicechancellor of Andhra University and Banaras Hindu University. He was also made a Knight of the Golden Army of Angels by Pope Paul VI

Zakir Husain (1897-1969)
Term of Office | May 3, 1967 to May 3, 1969
He was vice-chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University and a recipient of the Padma Vibhushan and Bharat Ratna. Husain died before his term of office ended

Shri Varahagiri Venkata Giri
(1894-1980)
Term of Office | May 3, 1969 to July 20, 1969 and August 24, 1969 to August 24, 1974
The only person to have the distinction of serving as both acting president and President of India. V V Giri was
a recipient of the Bharat Ratna, and his previous positions included minister of labour and high commissioner to Ceylon (Sri Lanka)

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
(1905-1977)
Term of Office | August 24, 1974 to February 11, 1977
A veteran politician, he held various cabinet posts including food & agriculture, education, industrial development, etc. He died in 1977 before his term ended, and was the second president to have died in office

Neelam Sanjiva Reddy (1913-1996)
Term of Office | July 25, 1977 to July 25, 1982
N S Reddy was the first CM of Andhra Pradesh. He was the only MP from Janata Party to get elected from Andhra. He was unanimously elected Speaker of the Lok Sabha on March 26, 1977 and relinquished this office on July 13, 1977 to become the 6th President of India

Giani Zail Singh
(1916-1994)
Term of Office | July 25, 1982 to July 25, 1987
Zail Singh served as Punjab CM and later as Union home minister in the Indira Gandhi government

R Venkataraman
(1910-2009)
Term of Office | July 25, 1987 to July 25, 1992
A former freedom fighter, he first served as minister of finance and industry and later as minister of defence

Shankar Dayal Sharma
(1918-1999)
Term of Office | July 25, 1992 to July 25, 1997
Sharma had been chief minister of MP, and then Union minister for communications. He also served as the governor of Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Maharashtra. As vice-president, broke down in the Rajya Sabha while witnessing an ugly row by the members

K R Narayanan (1920-2005)
Term of Office | July 25, 1997 to July 25, 2002
India’s first Dalit president. Served as India’s ambassador to Thailand, Turkey, China and the US. Regarded as an independent president who set several precedents and enlarged the scope of the highest constitutional office

A P J Abdul Kalam
(born 1931)
Term of Office | July 25, 2002 to July 25, 2007
Eminent scientist and visionary who played a leading role in the development of India’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programmes. Kalam also received the Bharat Ratna and has authored 4 books

Pratibha Patil
(born 1934)
Term of Office | July 25, 2007 -
Patil is the first woman to become the President of India. She was also the first woman Governor of Rajasthan. In 2009, Patil followed Kalam’s prededent and flew in a fighter aircraft

Mind Management Is The Key Swayam Vishvas

The following article was published in THE TIMES OF INDIA, Hyderabad edition on 30th Jan 2010 Sat

When we are afflicted with a disease like malaria, we don’t treat each symptom like fever, pain and shivering, one by one. We just treat the disease and the symptoms automatically vanish. So deal directly with the mind and symptoms like stress and strain will disappear. Vishvas meditation is mind management.

There is no attempt, however, to control the mind; the idea is to go beyond it. The mind is compared to a monkey drunk with the wine of desire, stung by the scorpion of jealousy and possessed with the demon of pride. Lust, greed, jealousy, anger, ego, tensions, reactions, grudges, depression, stress and strain are, however, the symptoms and not the disease.
The common misconception is that meditation is concentration of mind and various techniques are taught to achieve this. Meditation has got no technique. There are techniques for concentration. Concentration is a mental exercise between the mind and the object of attention. But meditation is neither a mental exercise nor a practice. Meditation is a direct and natural process beyond the mind itself. Meditation is not concentration; it is the mother of concentration.
Remember, concentration is where one tries to control thoughts, where thoughts get dissolved naturally, enhancing your powers of concentration, memory, will, right thinking and fitness.
When your thought current is interrupted – which means that all thoughts are fixed on one object – it is concentration. But when the flow is uninterrupted, that is meditation. This is when the thought is not fixed on any oneobject, rather we just remain a non-doer and directly watch thoughts as a neutral energy without any judgement, analyses, participation, visualisation, imagination, contemplation, suppression, repression, condemnation or concentration. Meditation is a non-doing entity where you are simply a seer, witness, you are an observer of the mind’s happenings. To watch is our true nature. It is a natural, nondoing state. No effort is required to watch. We all have full potential to look within directly as we all are blessed with the ‘Third Eye’.
Meditation is mind management. It is not forcing the mind to be quiet. It is to find the quiet that is there already. We are children of bliss. We suffer from stress and strain because we gave all the powers to the mind and made it our master. Not only that, we consider ourselves nothing but the mind.
Mind is matter. It has no power of its own. It is useful in the external world but in the spiritual, internal world, it has to be overcome. Otherwise we will be the victims of mental and physical diseases. Meditation is seeing the mind as a witness, a neutral energy. It is not interfering with the intricacies and doings of mind. Just be a seer, be a witness. We just stay in our own source, in our true nature: All-bliss.
We are happy when the mind is cheerful. We are depressed when the mind is gloomy. We are at the mercy of the mind that waxes and wanes. We consider ourselves nothing but mind. It is blasphemy to consider ourselves as victims of an unforeseen incident when the unending Bliss is flowing within all of us. Meditation is mind management. Meditation is homecoming.
The writer is a member of the Vishvas Foundation. E-mail: vishvas@vishvas.org

Day of destiny: Why 26 Jan became our Republic Day Praveen Dass

The following article was published in THE TIMES OF INDIA, Hyderabad edition on 24th Jan 2010 Sun:

No political campaign in history has ever succeeded without symbolism. India’s freedom movement was no exception. Its careful adoption of many potent symbols helped unite a large, diverse land to fight for freedom in singular fashion. January 26 was one such symbolic choice, a selection made to recall a distinct moment in the long march to Indian independence.

That choice of date was made at the 1930 Lahore session of the Indian National Congress, where the Tricolour as we know it was raised for the first time. It was decided there that January 26 would from then on be marked by all freedom fighters as ‘Purna Swaraj Day’, a call for complete self-rule. This was an Independence Day before the actual event.
August 15 was not a matter of choice given to the Congress, as events hurtled to make the British transfer power to Nehru’s provisional government on that day in 1947. India gained freedom to become a dominion then, still formally owing some allegiance to the British Crown — it’s why coinage and stamps of that period still retain a bust of George VI.
A constituent assembly was formed soon after to rectify that, and a drafting committee was given the responsibility of coming up with a Constitution. It did that job admirably by the middle of 1949, and the assembly approved a new constitution on November 25. It was signed by all members on January 24, 1950 and came into effect two days later, as Rajendra Prasad took office as President of the new ‘Republic of India’. Almost by design, it appeared, January 26 had returned to the national consciousness, always to be celebrated as Republic Day.

FIVE Thing you probably never knew YOUR MOBILE PHONE COULD DO

There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies. Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for survival. Check out the things that you can do with it:

FIRST Emergency The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112.If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile; network and there is a emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialled even if the keypad is locked. Try it out.

SECOND Have you locked your keys in the car? Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their mobile phone from your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have th personat your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end.Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you.Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other 'remote' for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk). Editor's Note: It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a mobile phone!'

THIRD Hidden Battery Power Imagine your mobile battery is very low. To activate, press the keys *3370#Your mobile will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when you charge your mobile next time.

FOURTH How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone? To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 # A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. When your phone get stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code.They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless.You probably won't get your phone back, bu at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either.. If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.

FIFTH ATM - PIN Number Reversal - Good to Know If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your PIN # in revese.For example, if your pin number is 1234, then you would put in 4321. The ATM system recognizes that your PIN number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine.The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to the location. This information was recently broadcast on CTV by Crime Stoppers however it is seldom used because people just don't know about it.

Chirstmas - Seminar paper by my student Ramesh (Basic 41 Jan-Apr '10)

Ø Christmas is the most observed and celebrated festival of Christians the world over.
Ø It is the annual festival of Christians celebrated on December 25, commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ.
Ø Christmas symbolizes incarnation of God in the form of human being. Christmas also marks an end to the present year and feast for the coming year.

Christmas Means:-
Ø Literally, Christmas means “Mass of Christ” i.e. celebration of Christ.
Ø The name of the festival is often abbreviated to Xmas where 'X' being the first letter of the Greek word Christos.
Ø Christmas is an important festival for every Christian. Along with celebrating birth of their God

Brief History of Christmas Festival:-
Ø Jesus was born as a baby to Mary. This was not an ordinary birth.
Ø Mary learned from lord’s angel that she is caused to be with a child.
Ø Mary and her husband Joseph went to Bethlehem to give birth to their child. There Mary gave birth to Jesus.
Christmas Story:-
Ø The story of Christmas dates back over 4000 years.
Ø During this era, Rome was a great empire ruled by Caesar Augustus and Israel was governed by King Herod.

The Story of Mary and Joseph:-
Ø In the small village of Galilee in Nazareth.
Ø Lived Mary a young virgin who was engaged to be married to Joesph, a Jewish carpenter.
Ø An angel visited Mary in her dream who told her she had been chosen to bear a Son of God and his name was to be Jesus.
Ø And thus, it happened that when Mary was still engaged to Joseph.
Ø She miraculously became pregnant through the Holy Spirit. When Mary told Joesph.
Ø Naturally he felt betrayed, but an angel visited him in his dream and verified what Mary had told him to be true.
Ø He thus took Mary to be his wife despite a possible public disgrace.

Mary and Joseph leave Nazareth for Bethlehem:-
Ø At that time, Caesar Augustus declared that a census should be taken of every person in the entire Roman Empire.
Ø Everybody had to go to the place to which they belonged to register.
Ø As Joseph, was of the line of David, he and Mary had to go to Bethlehem to register.
Ø Joseph and Mary left Nazareth for Bethlehem.
Ø Mary, who was with child, and close to the birth, rode on a donkey while Joseph walked beside her.
Ø They traveled for many days and only rested at night. When they reached Bethlehem it was night. They looked for a place to rest but there were no empty rooms when they reached the inn. Ø As they were being turned away Joseph mentioned that his wife was with child and close to birth.
Ø The inn keeper took pity on them and told them of some caves in the nearby hills where shepherds would stay with their cows and sheep.

Jesus is Born
Ø So Joseph and Mary went up into the hills and found the caves. In one cave was a stable room.
Ø Joseph cleaned it and made beds of fresh hay.
Ø He found a feeding trough which he cleaned and filled with hay to use as a crib.
Ø The next night Mary gave birth to a son and they named him Jesus, as the angel had said.

Christmas Celebrations

Ø Christians start preparing for Christmas several days before the festival.
Ø With the beginning of December, people begin making plans and look forward for shopping.
Ø It is a time of dual celebration, of Christmas and New Year.
Ø All streets and homes are illuminated with colorful lights, candles, chandeliers, ribbons, halogen lights etc.
Ø These days’ people even embellish their garden trees with lights, paper and other decorative to give them a traditional Christmas tree effect.
Ø Shops stay open till mid-night and streets are abuzz with activities by last minute shoppers.
Ø Sound of festive music pervade all over and make the atmosphere in the market even more lively.
Ø Families and friends exchange Christmas gifts to express their good wishes for each other.
Ø All the family members and friends sit together to have a big Christmas meal.

Christmas Morning:-

Ø Christmas mornings are the most spirited time of the year after spending a great Christmas Eve.
Ø All christians attend Christmas services held on the Christmas day.
Ø It is a prayerful service and people pray on Christmas mornings celebrating the birthday of Jesus Christ.
Ø The prayer is usually followed by carol songs.

Christmas Evening:-

Ø At several places Christian devotees attend midnight mass on a Christmas Eve.
Ø They offer prayers, light votive candles and pray for the well-being of their near and dear ones.
Ø Christmas Mass is concluded by hugging and wishing each other merry Christmas and a prosperous new year.
Ø Christmas Eve is a very special moment for every child. It is believed that when children go off to sleep, mythical Santa Claus comes on his sleigh pulled by reindeers and fills their stockings with sweets, small gifts and treats for the pets.
Ø This makes Santa Claus favorite of every child.

As per KCR, Tollywood should now be seperated into Andhrawood and Telanaganawood. We all know that 99.99% of the movies made till date are in proper telugu and KCR only speaks his special telugu with 'SLANG'. So we assume he can watch and understand only if they are dubbed in telangana. These will be titles of some of the Telugu movies when dubbed in Telangana.

1. Narasimha Naidu - Narsing Yadav

2. Parugu - Uruku

3. Akkada Ammayi Ikkada Abbayi - Aada Pori Eeda Poragaadu

4. Siddu from Srikakulam - Mallesh from Malkajgiri

5. Chaala baavundi - Zabardastundi

6. Avunanna Kadanna - Au Malla Lee Malla

7. Sankranti - Bonalu

8. Ammayilu Abbayilu - Porlu Poragaallu

9. Palnati Brahmanaidu - Karimnagar KCR

10. Naari Naari Naduma Murari - Pori Pori Madhyana Tiwari

11. Chantabbai - Chinna poragadu

12. Kaumaram Puli - Kaumaram Sher

13. 47 rojulu - 47 dinalu

14. Seema Sastry - Telangana Sastry

15. Sorry naaku pellayyindi - sorry naaku laggamayyindi
16. Idiot – Dhed Dimak gaadu
17. Varudu – Laggam Poradu

Where have all our maps gone ?

Hundreds Of Priceless Antique Prints Have Mysteriously Disappeared Over The Years From The Asiatic Society
Hemali Chhapia TNN
The country has lost a slice of its history, from an institution no less than the Asiatic Society of Mumbai, founded in 1804 to preserve India’s rich antiquity. From the deep recesses of this establishment where even roaches can’t enter, maps circa 18th Century—priceless, irreplaceable, handdrawn and colourful original prints— have been disappearing from its vaults. Almost nothing remains of the entire set of maps that date back to 1803-04: they depict the expanse of Mumbai (then Bombay) in great detail when the first revenue survey was carried out. Called the Dickinson survey, close to 350 rolls had every part of the city painstakingly drawn—its street plan, forts, old tanks, buildings. The 200-year-old guardian of these maps has no clue how they slipped through its fingers. And in what doesn’t seem to be an admirable reflection of the Asiatic Society’s efforts to preserve these precious records of a bygone era, another set of antique rolls last catalogued in 1975 is short of 150 maps. These included admiralty charts of various parts of the world, some drawn by the Portuguese who were considered prolific cartographers. “It appears to be a systematic theft. Of another set of 1,330 maps that were catalogued by an internal committee of the Asiatic, only 1,135 remain now. I have written a letter to the Society regarding these missing maps. Maps have been va n i s h i n g over a period of time,’’ said eminent geographer B Arunachalam. The architect of the University of Mumbai’s geography department, Arunachalam’s expertise is mathematical cartography, and he has worked with professional bodies like the Society of Indian Ocean Studies, the Indian National Cartographic Association as well as the National Geographic, India. The octogenarian has been involved with the Asiatic Society since the ‘50s when the first internal survey of maps was carried out. His theory that an insider is involved in the thefts may not be far from the truth. Every time a survey of the maps was ordered, it was called off before completion. “And in every survey, I noticed that a few maps had disappeared from the time when the previous stocktaking exercise was carried out,’’ said Arunachalam, who is now conducting a fourth survey. Though the on-going fourth survey is so termed, it may actually be the first extensive one, and could well mark the start of map preservation. Arunachalam agreed to chair the job only after an assurance from Asiatic Society president and historian Aroon Tikekar that his work will go on uninterrupted. Tikekar acknowledged that he’d been informed that the maps had gone missing, but he is determined to preserve what’s left with the society. “Most of the maps that went missing were lost years ago. We have not lost anything in the last 15 years. In fact, now we have also received a special grant from the cultural department of the Central government for preserving our maps,’’ said Tikekar. This stock-taking has already led to some surprising discoveries — after some “digging’’, maps belonging to the Asiatic were found in the central library of the state in Fort, South Mumbai. A priceless Peking map dating back to the First Opium War (1839-1842) between China and the British Empire, was found inside a bundle of India's taluka maps. The high point of the Asiatic Society was in 1869 when the Bombay Geographical Society (BGS) was merged with it. Apart from 3,900 rare old maps, the BGS handed over globes, fossils and books dating back to the 17th Century. Through the merger, the Asiatic Society inherited 1,869 maps of the admiralty service of the marine charts, 200-300 strategic maps of the US geological survey and the US topographical survey, maps of the Punjab Revenue Survey, Madras Presidency Revenue Survey and Gujarat Revenue Survey, apart from the village survey maps stretching across the length and breadth of the country. There were also maps of the old Bombay Presidency. While the Asiatic Society never made public all that it inherited, the BGS released the entire list of antiques in the last of its 16 volumes — Transactions of the BGS. There is no clarity on how many maps remain and which ones are beyond repair. “Some rolls lay there, never opened for over 100 years. Many were so brittle that they crumbled even as we tried to flatten them,’’ said a pained Arunachalam. At the heart of the problem was the fact that these prints were not stored correctly. Others were reduced to dust by termites, explained Tikekar. “Lack of finances’’ has always been the Society defence. Now, the Navy has expressed an interest in restoring these maps. A part of the Asiatic Society’s basement presents a grim picture of the many perforated chapters of man’s understanding of the world. Two globes — a celestial and a terrestrial one— made of papier mache received from the BGS were senselessly allowed to go to ruin for years. The terrestrial globe dating to 1835-36 depicted only those pieces of the world that man had discovered. There was no Antarctica in that world. Those irreplaceable globes will now be discarded. And many prized maps beyond repair will meet a similar end. Along with the maps that have vanished from the Asiatic shelves, all the tales associated with them have also been lost. ANCIENT CARTOGRAPHY

India had three distinct mapping flavours Early mediaeval Rajasthani maps focused on holy places and pilgrim routes. Most maps were entirely pictorial with no lettering. Later, native maps from Rajasthan depicted forts, battles and canal lay-outs. Rajasthani maps have a rich tradition of bright colours and miniature figures of humans and animals

Mughal Islamic maps range from simple line drawings and pictorial panoramas to area depiction, with detailed scribework in Persian or Urdu. A coloured Persian paper map scroll of Shahjehanabad at the Indian Post Office library shows the fort on the banks of the Yamuna with a town laid out to its west, centred around Chandni Chowk

Maratha maps come closest to currentday modern cartography. While earlier maps were almost pictorial, later ones are distinctively topographical. A wide range of fort maps from the Maratha tradition have been traced. A colour map of the siege of Panhala, for instance, has details of the fort, gates arsenals, camp positions, etc