Vocab-in-News: Military prowess , glimpses of heritage at 67th Republic Day parade

Thousands gathered in New Delhi amid tight security on Tuesday for the 67th Republic Day parade, a pomp-filled spectacle of military might featuring camels and daredevil stunt riders, with French President Francois Hollande the chief guest. (Text/Pic courtesy: HT)

Word Meanings:

Prowess: power; superior skill 

Amid: in the middle of 

Pomp: elegant display

Spectacle: a very impressive show

Daredevil: daring; audacious 

© Language Love 2016

Word Shots: 9/11

Nine eleven, also known as September 11, was one of the blackest days in the history of the US. It refers to the day in 2001 when Arab suicide bombers hijacked United States airliners and used them as bombs. The attack was carried out by the Islamic terrorist group Al Quaida. It killed about 3000 people destroyed the World Trade Center. Other forms of the expression are: 9-11, 9/11 and Sept. 11. 

SLS PLUS 2013

Disclaimer

Dear Sir/ Madam,

I have been blogging since 2007. All the material published in my blogs, if borrowed from the other sources, clearly indicates it. However, the current problem occurred because i blindly signed up a free gift offer by the popular vocabulary website,www.wordsmith.org. The advertorial's message was ambiguous, as apparently the promotional offer claims to offer a FREE BOOK. 

However, the website secretly sent a gift email subscription to all my mobile contacts. because of this, all the content emailed by wordsmith.org started getting published in my blog, without my consent.  I had to physically remove the unsolicited subscription offer from two of my blogs. As, i have 9 websites on my blogger account, it kept going on without my intention.

I  apologize, for inadvertently breaking the law. My idea was not to infringe on anyone's copyrighted material, or make profit out of it. I would be highly grateful if you restore my blog account, as it is not showing up on the blogger dashboard.


Regards,

Vineet Rasaily

Dehradun,

Exercise on the move

GITA KRISHNA RAJ

Many people find it difficult to stick to their fitness regime because of frequent travel. Whether travel is for pleasure or for business, it's time to incorporate a few minutes of fitness into your daily routine to ensure your body is ready for the day's events.

Essential seven

Begin with some light stretches and warm up exercises like bending and touching your toes, marching on the spot or side steps. You can even skip; you don't really need a skipping rope. A good exercise programme must include exercises to cater to the seven basic Primal Pattern movements of the body as devised by Paul Chek, founder C.H.E.K Institute, USA. These are seven primary movements that are the basis from which all other movements are performed in our daily activity. A Neanderthal man in the wild who could not perform these seven movement patterns would have had a limited chance of survival.

Some creative exercises for more advanced and regular exercisers within the comfort of your hotel room are Terra band exercises to remind your body of your strength training sessions. Terra bands are the ultra-portable way to fit a gym in a suitcase. Floor exercises for TA activation, calisthenics that use body weight, abs and core exercises, flexibility and so much more can be done when you are on the move! Squat-thrusts, jumping jacks, chair dips, mountain climbers, walking lunges, superman, one leg squats, and the list is endless...

Explore and experience

There are two types of travellers: those who love to travel, and those who are forced to travel. Now if you are the former, it is easy to incorporate a fitness programme into your travel schedule. All it takes is a little bit of creativity. Just like you explore new places and try new food, you can evolve new fitness strategies based on the place you are visiting. From mountain bikes to canoe rides, the world is yours to explore. To those for whom travel is an unpleasant compulsion, just remember wherever you travel, you still need to eat, sleep and certainly exercise. You might as well be prepared with fitness routines within your room so that you never miss out on exercising. Finally, wherever you may go, exercise! You simply cannot afford not to!

Walk: Ensure that you walk every day! A jog or a sprint will keep your heart healthy.

Push: Perform regular push-ups or modified ones with the knees on the floor. Wall push-ups are another option.

Pull: These normally require some basic equipment. To make up for it, you could hang from a monkey bar in the children's play area or a low branch of the tree.

Bend: Try dead lifts with filled water bottles or your suitcase for a heavier weight.

Twist: A standing or lying twist or more dynamic jumping twists will energise you.

Lunge: Perform with the support of the bed if you are a beginner.

Squat: Either do free squats or try sitting on a low chair if you have never done this before.

Courtesy: The Hindu

How serial entrepreneur Naveen Jain turned into a billionaire

Serial entrepreneur Naveen Jain asked for the moon, literally, and got it. His is a typical rags-to-riches story. Brought up in poverty where even getting a basic education was difficult, today Jain is amongst the most successful Indian-born Americans.
He shared some thoughts on his latest venture, Moon Express, a lunar transportation and data services company, with Peerzada Abrar and of its relevance at a time when the human race is heading to be a multi-planetary society.

Poverty teaches a lot

I grew up in India and we never had a place we could call home. We never got to live in one city for more than six months to a year. We were very poor - sometimes we had food to eat, sometimes we didn't. This was because my father worked in the public works department and refused to take bribes.

His unwillingness to accept bribes did not go well with his bosses who used to transfer him. This happened at very frequent intervals - sometimes twice a year - and to remote places. My early education was mostly in schools that rarely had any tables or chairs.

Despite this, I joined IIT, did MBA, my sister was able to do her post doctoral studies in mathematics and my brother did his Phd in statistics and computer science. I was hired by Burroughs and went to US for a year for training with just $5 in my pocket.

Trust your instinct

I was able to foresee breakthroughs in technology and build companies around it. I kept thinking about why people carry mobile phones and palm pilots. I dreamt of the day when we could merge them all. You will be able to get your emails, content, calendar on the same device.

I started InfoSpace in 1996, which provided instant information on cellular phones and other mobile devices. People thought it to be a crazy idea at first.

I made the idea public in 1998 and by the end of 1999, the company was worth close to $35 billion. This taught me the crucial lesson that if you believe in something, although there may not be a visible market for it, the effort is worth pursuing.

Entrepreneurs don't retire

After 2002, I wanted to retire - a phase that lasted for seven days. Boredom struck and I wanted to do something creative. I called a couple of my friends and started a company in January 2003 called Intelius, which provides information services. Everybody thought that information on the internet was free.

But we knew that people were willing to pay if we help them solve their problems. We have now over 20 million customers at Intelius and are doing $150 million in revenues. Through Intelius, we opened the doors for millions of Americans in background and criminal records search.

Be futuristic

Thinking must not be limited to the present. A futuristic approach always pays. I believe the human race will become a multi-planetary society. People will live on the moon, Mars and Earth.

At Moon Express we are now actually sending a moon lander in the next two years. It will send stuff such as scientific instruments, your DNA or your pet's DNA, souvenirs, photos and even be able to write wedding proposals on the moon. We also aim to bring stuff such as platinum to Helium-3 back to earth, which can solve our energy problems.
 
Source: Economic Times

'Separate' is most commonly misspelt word

'Separate' is the most commonly misspelt word in the English language, according to a new study.

 

The eight-letter word came top due to the regular placing of an 'E' where the first 'A' sits.

Second in the list was 'definitely', which often falls victim to a string of mistakes including mixing up the second 'I' with an 'A'. Another common error is dropping the final 'E'.

'Manoeuvre', which is problematic due to the unusual combination of OE and U, came third and 'embarrass', in which an R or an S often falls by the wayside, was fourth.

'Occurrence' emerged as the fifth most commonly misspelt word due to confusion over the double C and double R.

A spokesman for market research company www.OnePoll.com, which carried out the study of 3,500 Britons, said: ''There seem to be some words which we always struggle to get down onto paper, and 'separate' is one of those which eludes us.

''A common mistake many make is writing a word the way it sounds which leaves us muddling up one letter with another and getting it wrong.

''Fortunately, computers' spell-check corrects wrongly spelt words for us, but that means we become lazy and never learn the correct spelling.

''There's no excuse not to learn how words are formed - it's drilled into us from such a young age and if the words are frequently used we should make a conscious effort to get it right next time.

''The fact we judge other people's intelligence by their written word, yet don't like to be judged ourselves, means we should all pick up a dictionary once in a while.''

The study also found 'consensus' and 'unnecessary' cause problems for many, coming sixth and seventh.

'Acceptable', which causes issues partly because of the two Cs, was eighth, while 'broccoli' came ninth.

The top ten was completed by the word 'referred'.

Other difficult words to feature include 'bureaucracy' at 11, 'connoisseur' at 14 and 'particularly' at 17.

Confusion over the number of Ns in 'questionnaire' meant it came 13th, with 'entrepreneur' 16th and 'parallel' at 20.

Words which just failed to make the top 20 include 'calendar', 'pigeon' and 'changeable'.

It also emerged one in six people often spell words so incorrectly while typing their PC doesn't recognise the word they are attempting.

Two out of three admitted using spell-check on computers had made them lazy when writing letters or notes by hand.

One in five blamed predictive text messaging for their bad spelling.

But despite the frequency of errors, most of us (77 per cent) believe our spelling is either 'good' or 'very good'.

The study also found 46 per cent judge other people on their spelling, with 27 per cent admitting they believe people who cannot spell are 'thick'.

Three out of ten said they were embarrassed by their poor spelling skills and one in ten corrected others when they spell something incorrectly.

One in five said it was their belief the art of spelling was something 'you just learn in school'.

Top 20 misspelt words:

1. Separate

2. Definitely

3. Manoeuvre

4. Embarrass

5. Occurrence

6. Consensus

7. Unnecessary

8. Acceptable

9. Broccoli

10. Referred

11. Bureaucracy

12. Supersede

13. Questionnaire

14. Connoisseur

15. A lot

16. Entrepreneur

17. Particularly

18. Liquify

19. Conscience

20. Parallel

 

Courtesy: The Telegraph, UK

Towards Quality Education TOI Edit 180112

Emphasis on universal schooling is fine,but the discourse must now shift to quality

Three reports in three months paint a grim picture of school education in India.First,a leading corporate published the Quality Education Survey on high-end schools in metropolitan cities,which found them lacking on quality parameters and indicted them for excessive reliance on rote learning.Second,the OECDs Programme for International Student Assessment ranked Indian higher secondary students only better than those from Kyrgyzstan among 74 participating countries.And third,Prathams Annual Status of Education Report (ASER),2011,assessing schools in rural India,found declining attendance,over-reliance on private tuitions and declining reading and mathematical abilities of children in the six to 14 years age category.
Taken together,the three reports make it amply clear that despite a welcome high enrolment rate around 96.7% at the primary and upper primary levels,the quality of school learning is simply not up to the mark.Most government schools lack basic infrastructure such as blackboards and textbooks.Teaching standards are poor,with high teacher absenteeism.It is little wonder then that only 48.2% of class V students surveyed under ASER were able to read class IIlevel texts,among other depressing statistics.
Unless school education is rescued from this quagmire of mediocrity,all talk about developing a skilled human resource pool and realising the countrys demographic dividend will be without substance.In this regard,the Right To Education (RTE) Act,with its objective of providing free and compulsory education to all primary schoolchildren,misses the quality issue.Two years after the RTEs introduction,government schools have continued to wallow in pathetic conditions.Meanwhile,by imposing strict parameters on private schools,the RTE has squeezed the few entrepreneurs engaged in this field,disincentivising further investment.
There is no denying that in the quest for universal education the public sector must take the lead.Private schools can only play a supporting role,and that too needs to be incentivised.Issues of quality can only be addressed by raising the standards of public schools.This can be done by ensuring they have enough resources and introducing better pedagogy as well as oversight of teaching staff,so that pay and promotions are linked to performance.Its an administrative rather than legislative issue.The human resources ministry as well as education departments of states cant duck their responsibility.

http://www1.lite.epaper.timesofindia.com/mobile.aspx?article=yes&pageid=20&edlabel=CAP&mydateHid=18-01-2012&pubname=&edname=&articleid=Ar02004&format=&publabel=TOI&max=true