The question under consideration today is whether English as a language is so very inevitable today? In most cases the answer would be yes. English language is one of the most important languages as far as global communication is concerned. The rise in the use of internet and globalization has raised its bar to an unprecedented level. But the United Nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (UNESCO) has registered about 6000 languages. English is one of them, what about the rest?

According to UNESCO the world is at the verge of losing more than 3000 languages if the language heritage and its culture are not conserved. About more than half of the languages are now endangered. In the Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing, about 50 European languages are under the threat. France alone has 14 of them. Even Siberia has around 40 languages in danger.

However, the condition is much better in Asia and the pacific. Thanks to our multilingual governments. Papua New Guinea, the country of 800 languages, the most diverse in the world, has only 88 endangered dialects. But the rise of globalization in the region is now becoming a threat to these multilingual states. India tops in chart by 196 endangered languages. Second is US close to 192. In the past 3 generations almost 200+ languages have become extinct and about 178 languages have its speaker count in between 10 to 150. UNESCO has rated 538 languages as critically endangered, 502 severely endangered, 632 definitely endangered and 607 unsafe.

According to experts a language is rated endangered when 30% of its children stop learning it. It then passes on to the next generation and hence reaches on the verge of extinction. There are many factors which result in a language to become endangered. The rise of globalization and the use of internet especially in the developing countries is a major factor. Now days even the educational factor plays a big role in a language to be in danger. To study we all need a common platform of language. The same happens at work. A student going abroad is almost ready to make his mother tongue a secondary language for him.

In India, from the very beginning a child is asked (at times forced!) by his parents to converse in English. I know they have a reason for it that may be valid. The new syllabus of many educational boards, have a choice between Sanskrit and French and an elective.

To learn French is absolutely fine but at the cost of indigenous languages of India like Sanskrit must be prevented. In many disputed regions military and government policies also play a major role in disappearance of a language.

The Enduring Voices Project by national geographic channel and HRELP are some of the initiatives to save these endangered languages. The deputy chief of UNESCO said “we should feel proud to speak our own languages “ and we really must do so.

Data Source: UNESCO Annual reports; Image Credit: Shawn Econo

Photo Credit: John Mueller

The status of women over the world has been an issue for long time and still tries to find its way.

Be it India or the Middle East, the status of women is still very exemplary. A country like Dubai which is blessed by oil fields, sheikhs, world’s greatest construction fields has got its first women judge only on 27^th march 2009. This depicts the respect of women in the world or any other country.

[ad#women1]

In the race of disrespecting women India is also not much behind. States like Delhi and Mumbai where women are presumed to become financially self independent, the recent Mangalore pub incident tells a different story. There are incalculable goddesses in India people worship, but the problem lies in our thought process or what is often termed in this part of the world a “mentality”. Ironically, in a country like India where people devote time and high respect to different goddesses, donate millions in temples, the respect for the women in their day-to-day life remains absent. People still consider a girl as a burden on the family and in some states the act of child infanticide has deep roots. The sex ratio census is a sheer evidence especially for some states like Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan.

Women not only suffer in gaining a status and respect in society, they suffer in all spheres of life.

In the so called “unsafe” cities like Delhi and Mumbai, eve teasing and incestuous behavior have been hitting the dailies. The section 375 of IPC which defines rapes made some amendments in it and introduces sexual assault against any women in any custody (like police custody) or cases of sexual assault in hospital to be considered as rape offence. But they just missed to introduce parents and relative to put away the cases of incest.

Based on my findings, Sweden is the only country in Europe which allows marriage between siblings who share one parent. France and Belgium also don’t treat incest as crime for more than 200 yrs ago. Also in other parts of the world the case is treated accordingly as in Germany has some serious violating penalties in incest cases.

[ad#women2]

This is the actual status of women in our modern societies and so called “developing countries”. Still we fight for their equal rights, we deliver rhetoric speeches in their favor at the time of elections or to show the whole world how much concerned actually we are.

The fight shall still prevail because the women we worship is still different in our eyes than what we see in person. Of course, there are reasons to it which I might talk about sometime again.

This is a guest post by Pranay Kumar, a friend of mine.

Today, I received an interesting email as one of the “forwards”. I generally do not read the forwarded emails, but the title had the word, ‘”Swiss Bank” – making me scroll down the complete window.

What I concluded was either a joke or something that we all should know. Rather than forwarding it to 500 people and annoying them, I thought this would fit in my blog and I can share it with my readers. It appears that the email was initiated by a Yahoo! group.

What follows is the complete email, as it reached me.

Revelation on Swiss Bank Accounts

India has more money in Swiss banks than all the other countries combined !!!!

This is so shocking . . . . . wish black money deposits was an Olympics event . . . .. .

The second best Russia has 4 times lesser deposit. US is not even there in the counting in top five !!

Recently, due to international pressure,

Swiss govt. agreed to disclose the names of the account holders only if the respective govts formally asked for it.

Indian govt. is not asking for the details. No marks for guessing why ????

[ad#swiss1]

We need to start a movement to pressurize the Indian govt. to do so !!

This is perhaps the only way, and a golden opportunity, to expose the high and mighty and weed out corruption !!

Please read on . . and forward to all the honest Indians to . … like somebody is forwarding to you . . . . . and build a ground-swell of support for action !!

[ad#swiss2]

Is India poor, who says? Ask Swiss banks With personal account deposit bank of $1500 billion in foreign reserve which have been misappropriated, an amount 13 times larger than the country’s foreign debt, one needs to rethink if India is a poor country?.

DISHONEST INDUSTRIALISTS, scandalous politicians and corrupt IAS, IRS, IPS officers have deposited in foreign banks in their illegal personal accounts a sum of about $ 1500 billion, which have been misappropriated by them. This amount is about 13 times larger than the country’s foreign debt. With this amount 45 crore poor people can get Rs 1,00,000 each.

This huge amount has been appropriated from the people of India by exploiting and betraying them.

Once this huge amount of black money property comes back to India , the entire foreign debt can be repaid in 24 hours. After paying the entire foreign debt, we will have surplus amount, almost 12 times larger than the foreign debt. If this surplus amount is invested in earning interest, the amount of interest will be more than the annual budget of the Central government. So even if all the taxes are abolished, then also the Central government will be able to maintain the country very comfortably. .

Some 80,000 people travel to Switzerland every year, of whom 25,000 travel very frequently.. ‘Obviously, these people won’t be tourists.. They must be travelling there for some other reason,’ believes an official involved in tracking illegal money. And, clearly, he isn’t referring to the commerce ministry bureaucrats who’ve been flitting in and out of Geneva ever since the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations went into a tailspin!

Just read the following details and note how these dishonest industrialists, scandalous politicians, corrupt officers, cricketers, film actors, illegal sex trade and protected wildlife operators, to name just a few, sucked this country’s wealth and prosperity. This may be the picture of deposits in Swiss banks only. What about other international banks?

Black money in Swiss banks — Swiss Banking Association report, 2006 details bank deposits in the territory of Switzerland by nationals of following countries :

Top Five countries:

1. India —- $1,456 billion
2. Russia —$ 470 billion
3. UK ——-$390 billion
4. Ukraine – $100 billion
5. China —–$ 96 billion

Now do the maths – India with $1456 billion or $1.4 trillion has more money in Swiss banks than rest of the world combined.

Public loot since 1947: Can we bring back our money? It is one of the biggest loots witnessed by mankind — the loot of the Aam Aadmi (common man) since 1947, by his brethren occupying public office.

It has been orchestrated by politicians, bureaucrats and some businessmen. . The list is almost all-encompassing. . No wonder, everyone in India loots with impunity and without any fear. What is even more depressing in that this ill-gotten wealth of ours has been stashed away abroad into secret bank accounts located in some of the world’s best known tax havens. And to that extent the Indian economy has been stripped of its wealth.

Ordinary Indians may not be exactly aware of how such secret accounts operate and what are the rules and regulations that go on to govern such tax havens. However, one may well be aware of ‘Swiss bank accounts,’ the shorthand for murky dealings, secrecy and of course pilferage from developing countries into rich developed ones.

In fact, some finance experts and economists believe taxhavens to be a conspiracy of the western world against the poor countries. By allowing the proliferation of tax havens in the twentieth century, the western world explicitly encourages the movement of scarce capital from the developing countries to the rich.

In March 2005, the Tax Justice Network (TJN) published a research finding demonstrating that $11…5 trillion of personal wealth was held offshore by rich individuals across the globe. The findings estimated that a large proportion of this wealth was managed from some 70 tax havens. Further,augmenting these studies of TJN, Raymond Baker — in his widely celebrated book titled ‘Capitalism’ s Achilles Heel : Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free Market System’ — estimates that at least $5 trillion have been shifted out of poorer countries to the West since the mid-1970..

It is further estimated by experts that 1 % of the world’s population holds more than 57 % of total global wealth, routing it invariably through these tax havens. How much of this is from India is anybody’s guess. What is to be noted here is that most of the wealth of Indians parked in these tax havens is illegitimate money acquired through corrupt means.

Naturally, the secrecy associated with the bank accounts in such places is central to the issue, not their low tax rates as the term ‘tax havens’ suggests. Remember Bofors and how India could not trace the ultimate beneficiary of those transactions because of the secrecy associated with these bank accounts?

LETS PUT OUR HEADS TOGETHER AND FIND A WAY TO BRING BACK THIS MONEY !!!

THIS IS TO SAVE INDIA FOR EVERY INDIAN ?

FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO ALL INDIANS.

I have no words to say. However, I would love to have the genuineness of this to be a matter of an open discussion. Feel free to drop in your comments.

The weather is again helping the mercury rise. Last week saw rains and thunderstorms, almost everyday. I received a mail, followed by a phone call, the next day from my recruiter. They have organized a seminar-cum-discussion session on 29th of this month in my vicinity. All the recruited engineers of 2009 batch from north India shall be a part of the same. I’ve heard people flying in from places as far as 100 miles! More importantly, we shall be receiving our offer letters on this very gracious occasion! The first one of my life.

Days after the last thoery exams have passed in a jiffy. I haven’t done much since the day I had my last theory exam, except waiting for the announcement of practical examination dates.

I met a beautiful friend of mine from Hyderabad along with her little sister, earlier this week. There is a factor which helps me communicate with her. I still do not know! It was sweet, silent evening moving down the haunted roads of Greater Noida and looking out for a place to have dinner. A good weather added some more aroma to it!

Thereafter, I was occupied with a sweet friend in an attempt to stay aloof, giving birth to some unforgettable days!

I am currently busy to find out ways that shall keep me busy ahead! Though I still need to look at that to-do list of mine

Comments are solicited…..

Morever with this SINUS,life has come to a stand still phase.I personally feel that its better to suffer typhoid than withstand the headache during sinus.I have been suffering from it since a week now.The acute pain on the forehead and back leaves you helpless and restless.I just can’t concentrate on anything I do.Be it read,write,think,eat or even sleep ! Yeah,even while sleeping the thoughts which come into my mind appear to be influenced by this sinus thing !

The news is that tommorow is a party day ! All college folks.Batchmates and juniors.It might be fun tommorrow !

More on life…soon…. chao !

Why is the media here so negative?
Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our
achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success
stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why?
We are the first in milk production.
We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.
We are the second largest producer of wheat.
We are the second largest producer of rice.
Look at Dr. Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit. There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters. I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news.

In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime. Why are we so NEGATIVE? Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things? We want foreign T. Vs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology.

Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance? I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is. She replied: I want to live in a developed India. For her, you and I will have to build this developed India. You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation. Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance.

Got 10 minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, choice is
yours.
YOU say that our government is inefficient.
YOU say that our laws are too old.
YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.
YOU say that the phones don’t work, the railways are a joke,
The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination.
YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.

YOU say, say and say. What do YOU do about it?
Take a person on his way to Singapore. Give him a name – YOURS. Give him a face – YOURS. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best. In Singapore you don’t throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores. YOU are as proud of their Underground links as they are. You pay $5 (approx. Rs. 60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOU come back to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity… In Singapore you don’t say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn’t dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai. YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah. YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds (Rs.650) a month to, ‘see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else.’YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, ‘Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so’s son. Take your two bucks and get lost.’ YOU wouldn’t chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand.
Why don’t YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo? Why don’t YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston??? We are still talking of the same YOU. YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers
and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India?

Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay, Mr.Tinaikar, had a point to make. ‘Rich people’s dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place,’ he said. ‘And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels? In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan. Wil l the Indian citizen do that here?’ He’s right. We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility. We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms. We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity. This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public. When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child! and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse? ‘It’s the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons’ rights to a dowry.’ So who’s going to change the system? What does a system consist of ? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and the
government. But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with
our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr.Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away. Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. Whe n New York becomes insecure we run to England. When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.

Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for a great deal of introspection and pricks one’s conscience too…. I am echoing J.F. Kennedy’s words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians…..

‘ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA
AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA
WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY’

Lets do what India needs from us.

Forward this mail to each Indian for a change instead of sending Jokes or
junk mails.

Thank you,

Dr. Abdul Kalaam
(PRESIDENT OF INDIA)

It was just a perception that freedom of speech will not last long in the nation until it was recently proved by the government !
Yes the Indian Government has asked all the ISPs nation wide to block the web-addresses ending with “blogspot.com” which is world’s 2nd best blog site after ofcoz’ wordpress.com !!

Bloggers, its a time to unite !!!

It was since 3 days that I was trying to write something about the beautiful weather these days but in vain. I just hesitated as the blog was not opening ! Tried I.E too, which perhaps I hate after falling in love with Firefox and its plugins ! Therefore I loggen on to the google groups for blogger ! I discovered the above fact there itself and gave the issue a prolong reading !
Anyways thanx to few people who are always on the verge to help others can log on to www.inblogs.net which is similar to www.pkblogs.com except that it has an added feature of opening images too !

pkblogs.com was launched when blogspot was blocked in Pakistan !

Now we Indians too have been debarred from the right to speak or rather blog !

A friendly tweak !
Use http://www.inblogs.net/blogname to get to your blog page and plz pass this link to one and all…
I have also created an image down left so all of you to get a direct link. Its a kind of a proxy server.

I have no problems as such though ! I used praval.uni.cc to redirect to my blog address praval-revealed.blogspot.com and now I use the same praval.uni.cc to redirect to www.inblogs.net/praval-revealed which inturn redirects to the blogspot.com page of mine !

Confused ?? Leave it ! just log onto www.praval.uni.cc !! hah ! leave the tech-tricks behind !

There has been a whole lot of discoveries and confirmations made about the Indian Telecom Ministry.
Important contact nos. and the country wide survey for the above problem is here. For the current list of ISPs which have blocked blogspot.com addresses, click here.

I hope and pray blogger to resume its state as there is much more to blog after france lost in the FIFA world cup finale !!

Meanwhile.. its raining heavily in the city as the monsoon has finally arrived. Some pics to post, but I haven’t transferred them to the PC from the cam !

But a promise, I’ll be back with monsoon images, very soon !

ciao !