The Right Brain vs Left Brain test

Do you see the dancer turning clockwise or anti-clockwise?

If clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa.

Most of us would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it.

Believe It.....
This is a physiological test done by west based in the research of abacus.

Here is the first man to be cured of HIV- AIDS

Timothy Ray Brown is the first man to be 'cured' of HIV AIDS.
Timothy Ray Brown, 45, from San Francisco Bay Area, is in the news - as the first man cured of HIV-AIDS. "I think so," he calmly tells his interviewers who ask if he actually is cured.
Brown has been facing cameras, gun mikes and diagnostic kits ever since the publication of a research paper on his unique case in the journal Blood in December 2010.

The researchers led by Kristina Allers and Gero Hutter at Charite University Medicine Berlin documented what can be dubbed as a miracle.

The successful reconstitution of a set of white blood cells that the HIV eats up in Brown's body is a "very rare" occurrence, they noted.

Brown, who was tested HIV back in 1995 in Germany, was later diagnosed with another disease - leukaemia or blood cancer that involves an abnormal increase in white blood cell.

He was treated with bone marrow stem cell transplant - a cure for blood cancer. The stem cells came from a donor with a rare gene mutation that involves immunity to HIV - again a rare occurrence.

How Brown was cured
The mechanism involved special white blood cells called CD4+ helper T cells. When a dangerous material like a bacterium or a virus is detected in the body, immune cells immediately stimulate these special cells. The helper T cells further activate and direct other immune cells to fight the disease. HIV specifically attacks helper T cells, making the body unable to launch a counter offensive against invaders. Hence, AIDS patients suffer from other lethal infections.
The researchers in Berlin showed that after stem cell therapy Brown's body had reconstitution of CD4+ T cells at a systemic level and specifically in his gut mucosal immune system.

"While the patient remains without any sign of HIV infection," they wrote.

Brown has quit taking his HIV medication. The secret is that if the white cells could be manipulated to a state in which they are no longer infected or infectable by HIV, that would mean a functional cure.

Researchers, however, have warned that though the study offers promise, it is not a surefire cure from the dreaded disease - transplants are risky, and this involved a very rare transplant.

Brown is a rather lucky man. He said in a recent interview that appeared in the San Francisco media about his cure: "It makes me very happy - very, very happy."

High IQ qsn

Good high IQ joke!!!


This story tells us not to be 'too kind' to our bosses. Here it goes:


There's this Jed Smith who was working for a multi-millionare as a house guard. One day, while the millionaire was driving out to catch an early morning flight to conclude a business deal, Jed Smith ran out from the guard house and stopped the millionaire's car just right in front of the gate.

He said 'Sir! Sir! Are you going to board a plane?'

'Yes, why?' asked the millionaire.
'You had better cancel the trip. You see, last night I dreamt about the plane going to crash.'
Curious over the early morning fright that Jed Smith had given, the multimillionaire decided to cancel his trip.

'You better be damn right for this is a million dollar deal.'







The following day, there was a news report that the plane which the millionaire was supposed to take had indeed crash landed.
'Thank God, I cancelled the trip', the rich man said realising that what Jed Smith had said had come true, he summoned Smith to see him. When the guard was called that morning, the millionaire gave him his salary and FIRED him.

WHY did he do that?


Think first.....


Use your brains.....


Use your brains!!!


Still no idea?


Come on..... it is quite easy.....


Still drawing a blank???


Just imagine you are Jed Smith and you have saved your boss's life.....


OK, since you do not want to 'use your brain' like Jed Smith before you talk to your boss.

Just scroll down for the answer.....























ANSWER:

Jed Smith was supposed to guard the house at night. NOT to Sleep and Dream all night!













ADVICE:

So, GO BACK TO WORK, and don't try to save your boss's life. It's not worth it! Always save your own ass first!!!

Rarest items of the world

Rarest Coins
As a general rule the more rare a coin is the more it's worth, so what's the rarest coin ever? It's a debatable subject as not all experts always agree, but if the Double Eagle isn't at the top of that list it's sure near it. Back in 2002 the only Double Eagle coin left to be in private hands (or so everybody thought) sold for $7.9 million dollars.


Rarest Food
Served in China for over 400 years, the primary ingredient in bird's nest soup or "Caviar of the East" is saliva nests built by cave swifts. Among one of the most expensive animal products consumed by humans it is believed to aid digestion, raise libido, and even alleviate asthma as it is dissolved in water to create a gelatinous soup. In Hong Kong, a bowl costs up to $30. Red version can cost $10K per



Rarest Travel Trips
What is the rarest trip? There's no real consensus on this, but Luxist.com blogger Deidre Woodward says that the trek to summit Mount Everest still remains among the rarest trips in the world. But even this has become something that is accessible to more people. In two months and for around $60,000 you can join a group and make the attempt of a lifetime.



The world's rarest gem is believed to be painite, a gem that most have never heard of. The painite is orangish or reddish brown and was first discovered in Burma in the '50s. Within the last couple of years, the source of the two original painite crystals was discovered and now a few hundred faceted stones exist. A more well-known (but still very rare) gem is the red diamond




Rarest Cats Dogs
Of the rarest cat breeds, the Ashera (pic. left) is the most expensive ($20K+), the Sokoke the most exotic (from the wilds of Africa), and the Egyptian Mau has the coolest history (lived with the Egyptians). As for dog breeds, the one that keeps popping up on all the "rare" lists is the Lundehund, originally bred by the Vikings to hunt Puffins. Other rare breeds include Otterhounds and Stabyhounds.

Indian communication satellite to be launched May 21

CHENNAI: All the preparatory activities connected with the launch of advanced communication satellite GSAT-8 on board an Ariane-V rocket May 21 are progressing satisfactorily at Kourou in French Guiana, India's space agency said Tuesday.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said the launch of GSAT-8 is scheduled May 21 at 0208 a.m.(IST) from the spaceport in South America.

"All the pre-launch activities are progressing satisfactorily," said ISRO.

Originally the Ariane V rocket was scheduled to blast off May 20 but was postponed by a day to May 21.

According to ISRO, the launch postponement was necessitated by certain additional inspections by Arianespace.

The indigenously built 3.1-tonne (3,100kg) GSAT-8 has 24 Ku-band transponders -- automatic receivers and transmitters for communication and broadcast of signals -- for direct-to-home (DTH) services by state-run and private broadcasters.

Within 30 minutes after the launch, Ariane will deploy the heavy satellite in a elliptical geo-synchronous transfer orbit (GTO) and the space agency's master control facility (MCF) at Hasan in Karnataka, about 180 km from Bangalore, will take over its command and control.

The satellite will be gradually put in the 36,000 km geosynchronous orbit over the subsequent days and its antenna and solar panels will be deployed. The MCF will also test and monitor the health parameters of the payloads by June 1. It will be available for DTH services from next month.

Along with GSAT-8, the space agency is sending the global position system ( GPS . aided geo-augmented navigation (Gagan) to improve the accuracy of the United States' GPS.

ISRO will also launch another communication satellite GSAT-12 using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from ISRO's rocket port at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, around 80 km from Chennai.

Weighing 1,425 kg, GSAT-12, with 12 extended C band transponders, is expected to be launched some time in June/July.

The satellite is expected to serve the Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) sector. VSATs are used to transmit data like point of sale transactions or to provide satellite internet access and others.

Some interesting real laws in life

Tell me which of these laws you have come across yet

Law of queue: If you change queues, the one you have left will start to
move faster than the one you are in now.


Law of the Telephone: When you dial a wrong number, you never get
an engaged one.

Law of Mechanical Repair: After your hands become coated with
grease, your nose will begin to itch.

Law of the Workshop: Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the
least accessible corner.


Law of the Alibi: If you tell the boss you were late for work
because you had a flat tire, the next morning you will have a flat tire.


Bath THEOREM: When the body is immersed in water, the telephone
rings.


LAW OF ENCOUNTERS: The probability of meeting someone you know
increases when you are with someone you don't want to be seen with.


LAW of the RESULT: When you try to prove to someone that a machine
won't work, it will!


LAW OF BIOMECHANICS: The severity of the itch is inversely
proportional to the reach.


THEATRE RULE: People with the seats at the furthest from the aisle
arrive last.


LAW OF COFFEE: As soon as you sit down for a cup of hot coffee,
your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee
is cold.

ISRO builds India's fastest supercomputer

BANGALORE: Indian Space Research Organisation has built a supercomputer, which is to be India's fastest in terms of theoretical peak performance of 220 TeraFLOPS (220 Trillion Floating Point Operations per second).

The supercomputer "SAGA-220", built by the Satish Dhawan Supercomputing Facility located at Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram at a cost of about Rs 14 crore was inaugurated by K Radhakrishnan, Chairman ISRO at VSSC today, ISRO said in a statement.

The new Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) based supercomputer, "SAGA-220" (Supercomputer for Aerospace with GPU Architecture-220 TeraFLOPS) is being used by space scientists for solving complex aerospace problems.

"SAGA-220" is fully designed and built by Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre using commercially available hardware, open source software components and in house developments.

The system uses 400 NVIDIA Tesla 2070 GPUs and 400 Intel Quad Core Xeon CPUs supplied by WIPRO with a high speed interconnect.

With each GPU and CPU providing a performance of 500 GigaFLOPS and 50 GigaFLOPS respectively, the theoretical peak performance of the system amounts to 220 TeraFLOPS, the statement said.

The present GPU system offers significant advantage over the conventional CPU based system in terms of cost, power and space requirements, it said.

The system is environmentally green and consumes a power of only 150 KW. This system can also be easily scaled to many PetaFLOPS (1000 TeraFLOPS).

Health Alert for Mcdonald & KFC Lovers

Foie Gras Foie Gras means "Fat Liver"
It's very very luxury menu that originates from France But this dish comes from FORCE FEEDING a goose to make them develope FATTY LIVER DISEASE.

Let's see the source of this wonderful dish


The geese are forced to eat.. even if it does not desire to


The metal pipe pass through the throat to stomach ...even if it does not want to eat anything
To make the liver bigger and fatter


Cages are very small and they force the geese to stay in one position to avoid using energy, thus converting all food into fat.


How sad



their eyes show up Their legs were bloated from long standing everyday. No need to sleep because they will be caught to eat again



Although they try to defend themselves But it is useless






They are forced to eat until they are dead or their bodies cant stand with this
You see.... the food is over its mouth




The left who survive have crapped to be inflamed asses....blood easily come up with the shit

Not only mouth hurt, throat hurt , all time stomach ache from the food , Fat to bloated legs , no sleep , no excercise But also no free movement for life to see the sky or river

This your Healthy Liver like those Chicken


STOP THE DAILY TORTURE AND CRUELTY TO THE POOR ANIMAL. STOP TAKING THIS DISH OR PRODUCT NOW.
STOP THE DEMAND AND THE SUPPLY WILL END.

Weaver birds may hold secret of ageing

In the South African portion of the Kalahari desert, a bird with an unusual social life is helping biologists work out whether a life of leisure slows down the ageing process


Rain clouds gather during the rainy season in the Tswalu Kalahari game reserve, in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. The orange blobs in the acacia tree on the right are the nests of the white-browed sparrow weaver, Plocepasser mahali. Each nest, woven from dry grass, may be home to up to 14 related individuals, but only one pair will breed. The other birds are "helpers" who ensure that the alpha birds' offspring are well fed.

The sparrow weavers' unusual domestic arrangements are not only interesting in their own right, but might help researchers unravel one of the biggest of biological mysteries: how ageing works.


Here a group of sparrow weavers perch in front of their nest at evening.
Andy Young at the University of Exeter, UK, has been studying cooperation and conflict in 30 Kalahari sparrow weaver families for the past four years. His team monitors the little birds closely throughout their lives, gathering detailed information on each individual as an egg, nestling, fledgling, helper and (if it achieves dominance) breeder.
A typical field day includes long hours spent driving to the weavers' communal nests to make behavioural observations and monitor the progress of eggs and chicks. Each bird is fitted with a unique combination of coloured plastic rings that allows researchers to identify it.


The Kalahari is a tough place to survive. A single pair of sparrow weavers might struggle to find enough food for their offspring. That's probably why the birds live communally: a large group is more likely to successfully rear young. The helper birds miss out on young of their own, but at least the genes they share with the alpha birds' offspring will survive to the next generation.
Jenny York of the University of Bristol, UK, is recording the sparrow weavers' social songs. The birds use these songs to communicate about threats, helping them to defend their territory and maintain their access to foraging grounds. This cooperative approach helps them eke out a living in the unforgiving environment.



At just under three weeks old, this nestling is almost ready to fledge. Sparrow weavers' chicks hatch with their eyes closed, unable to fly or to feed themselves. But whereas most birds are fed by one or both parents until they're fledged, the sparrow weavers are fed crickets and caterpillars by the helper birds.

If the helper birds are banking on their shared genes being passed on to the next generation, you would expect them to work harder to feed closely related young. Young and his team are checking this by monitoring breeding very closely, setting up video cameras to record how many visits each bird makes to the nestlings. But gathering food is hard work: does the structure of sparrow weaver society mean that some have an easier life than others


The researchers want to know how the physical price paid by each of the birds relates to their role in their community.

To evaluate this, they measure the birds' condition, which takes account of both slow-changing features like skeletal and plumage measures, and those like body mass, which can vary significantly over a matter of minutes.

Here a researcher is using callipers to take anatomical measurements of a sparrow weaver caught while sleeping in its roost chamber.

The length of the tarsus bone in the leg and the length of the longest primary wing feather are combined to give a measure of body size.

This measure and the bird's weight gives a proxy for its condition. Small blood samples are also taken. The whole process takes a few minutes; then the birds are returned to their roosts to resume their night's sleep.


The blood samples are used to create a genetic family tree, and also to check for the effects of free radicals – highly reactive molecules that have been implicated in the ageing process. This read-out, from a high-performance liquid chromatography machine at the University of Exeter, shows the levels of a chemical called malondialdehyde (MDA) in blood.

MDA is generated when free radicals damage cell membranes, so its level indicates the "wear and tear" the bird has experienced. PhD student Dominic Cram is studying the long-term effects of free radical damage on the birds' reproductive success and survival, and the strategies the birds may use to avoid this damage.





The end of the field season does not mean the end of the work: for the researchers, there's still a long road ahead. After the season is over, they will analyse the data they have gathered, combining their behavioural observations, anatomical measurements and genetic analysis to unravel the costs and benefits of sparrow weavers' cooperative breeding system.
We might expect the alpha pair to work less hard when they have more helpers. But if this is the case, will it correlate with a decline in the amount of damaging free radicals in their blood? Or will it turn out that a life of (relative) leisure makes no difference? The results of the analysis will no doubt throw up further questions, which will have researchers itching to get back to the Kalahari for the next field season.

World's Most Dangerous Power Plant?

Steam rises from the cooling towers of Metsamor nuclear power station in Armenia in September 2010. One of the last old operating Soviet reactors built without containment vessels, its location in a seismic zone has drawn renewed attention since Japan's earthquake-and-tsunami-triggered crisis.

In the shadow of Mount Ararat, the beloved and sorrowful national symbol of Armenia, stands a 31-year-old nuclear plant that is no less an emblem of the country's resolve and its woe.

(Related: Armenia Guide)

The Metsamor power station is one of a mere handful of remaining nuclear reactors of its kind that were built without primary containment structures. All five of these first-generation water-moderated Soviet units are past or near their original retirement ages, but one salient fact sets Armenia's reactor apart from the four in Russia.

Metsamor lies on some of Earth's most earthquake-prone terrain.

In the wake of Japan's quake-and-tsunami-triggered ***ushima Daiichi crisis, Armenia's government faces renewed questions from those who say the fateful combination of design and location make Metsamor among the most dangerous nuclear plants in the world.

Seven years ago, the European Union's envoy was quoted as calling the facility "a danger to the entire region," but Armenia later turned down the EU's offer of a 200 million euro ($289 million) loan to finance Metsamor's shutdown. The United States government, which has called the plant "aging and dangerous," underwrote a study that urged construction of a new one.

Plans to replace Metsamor after 2016—with a new nuclear plant at the same location—are under way. But until then, Armenia has little choice but to keep Metsamor's turbines turning. As Armenians learned in the bone-chilling cold and dark days when the plant was closed down for several years, Metsamor provides more than 40 percent of power for a nation that is isolated from its neighbors and closed off from other sources of energy.

"People compare the potential risk with the potential shortage of electricity that might arise if the plant were closed," says Ara Tadevosyan, director of Mediamax, a major Armenian news agency. "Having had this negative experience, people prefer to live with it, and believe that it will not be damaged in an earthquake."

A Need for Nuclear

The 3 million people of landlocked Armenia are unique in their energy dependence on one aging nuclear power reactor. Regional conflicts that broke out in the dissolution of the Soviet Union left the smallest of its former republics at odds with its neighbors.

Azerbaijan to the east and Turkey to the west closed their borders with Armenia, cutting off most routes for oil and natural gas. The blockade, which remains in place to this day, heaped a new economic wound onto an old scar. After the massacre of more than one million Armenians during World War I and subsequent conflict with Turkey, the Soviets ceded the western part of the historic Armenian homeland to Turkey. The snow-capped peak of Mount Ararat, still revered in Armenia as the resting place of Noah's Ark, emblazoned on trinkets and storefronts throughout the land, is now in Turkey.

The Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant is just 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the Turkish border—in an area that includes the fertile agricultural region of the Aras River valley. It's only 20 miles (36 kilometers) from the capital of Yerevan, home to one-third of the nation's population. And it is in the midst of a strong seismic zone that stretches in a broad swath from Turkey to the Arabian Sea near India.

On December 10, 1988, a 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck, killing 25,000 people and leaving 500,000 homeless. Some 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the epicenter, Metsamor, then with two operating reactors, survived the temblor without damage, according to Armenian officials and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Because the devastating earthquake heightened concerns about the seismic hazard to the facility, the Soviet government shut the nuclear plant down.

Tadevosyan said that public attitudes toward Metsamor have been strongly shaped by the nation's experience living without it during the six-and-a-half years that followed.

"There were severe power shortages during the winter months," he recalled in a telephone interview from Yerevan. "We had a situation where you had one hour of power a day, and sometimes no power at all for a week. You can imagine—it was as cold in the apartment as it was in the street."

A pipeline to import Russian natural gas through neighboring Georgia in the north was built in 1993, but it was regularly interrupted by "sabotage and separatist strife in that country," as the World Bank noted in a 2006 report.

In 1995, the government of then-independent Armenia decided to restart the younger of the two reactors. Richard Wilson, nuclear physics professor emeritus at Harvard University, was part of a delegation of outside experts in Armenia at the time. He recalls that the Russians who came from the airport to help reopen the reactor were cheered from the side of the road upon their arrival.

When the unit restarted, "It became a source of energy and a source of hope for Armenia," explained Tadevosyan. "It was a symbol that dark times are over: 'We have electricity.' And it is still seen as such today."

Fortifying an Old War Horse

Armenian officials say modifications made to the reactor over the past 15 years have made it safer. Before Metsamor was reopened, Armenia airlifted more than 500 tons of equipment to the site (most of it from Russia), for upgrades, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group in the United States.

In the years since the restart, the IAEA says close to 1,400 safety improvements have been made. Those included "seismic-resistant" storage batteries, reinforcement of the reactor building, electrical cabinets and cooling towers. The United States provided equipment for a seismic-resistant, spray-pond cooling system. Fire safety was viewed as a critical deficiency at the plant, so extensive upgrades were made, including 140 new fire doors.

The result, officials say, is a reactor that is much safer than the original unit that went into service at the site on January 10, 1980. When construction began in 1969, Metsamor was a VVER 440, Model 230, an example of one of the earliest pressurized-water nuclear plant designs, developed by the Soviets between 1956 and 1970. It was not the same design as Chernobyl, which used solid graphite instead of water to moderate—or slow down—the fission reaction. (The graphite fire contributed to the world's worst nuclear disaster, and 11 of these early graphite-moderated reactors continue to operate in Russia.)

The VVER 440, in contrast, used water both to moderate and to cool the fuel, as in Western designs. (Its initials, in Russian, stand for "water-water-power-reactor.")

In fact, the VVER system, with multiple cooling loops, was seen as "more forgiving" than Western plants, according to archived documents from the International Nuclear Safety Program, a former U.S. Department of Energy program aimed at aiding in safety improvements at Soviet plants. VVER 440 units would be able to stand a power loss for a longer period of time than Western plants because of the large coolant volume.

After Japan's nuclear crisis erupted, the head of the Armenian State Committee on Nuclear Safety Regulation, Ashot Martirosian, pointed to Metsamor's cooling system as one reason Armenians should rest assured. "Such an emergency situation cannot arise here," he told Radio Free Europe.

Nuclear engineering expert Robert Kalantari, whose Framingham, Massachusetts, firm, Engineering Planning and Management, consults for U.S. and Canadian regulatory authorities, says Metsamor is like any other nuclear plant in operation worldwide. Although its safety features are different, all have to be able to be shut down safely during a so-called "design basis accident," the kind of accident anticipated in its design. He said he is confident that Metsamor could operate safely in such an accident, and that it could cope even with accidents beyond its design basis.

"Metsamor is no less safe than any other reactor in operation throughout the world," Kalantari said. "Armenia as an independent country cannot survive without [Metsamor], which is a functioning, safe, and reliable source of energy for the country."

Bloody Entertainment in China

In China a live cow was fed to tigers to entertain tourists. A witness says that a tourist can order a cow for tigers for $200.

republic of scam ?

2010 was The Year of Scams: The 2G spectrum scam, the CWG scandal, the Adarsh Housing Society debacle, all contributed to shatter India's image on the global stage. Yet, scams are not new to this part of the world. In fact, since Independence, India has seen so many cases of high-profile fraud, it's a wonder why we haven't already been renamed the Republic of Scams.

Jeep purchase (1948)



The history of corruption in post-Independence India starts with the Jeep scandal in 1948. VK Krishna Menon, the then High Commissioner for India in London signed a deal with a foreign firm worth Rs 80 lakh for jeeps for the Indian Army in Kashmir without observing normal procedure.

The then Government announced on September 30, 1955 that the Jeep scandal case was closed, despite the demand of the opposition for judicial inquiry as suggested by the Inquiry Committee led by Ananthsayanam Ayyangar.

Union Minister GB Pant said "that as far as Government was concerned it has made up its mind to close the matter. If the opposition is not satisfied they can make it an election issue."
Soon after, on February 3, 1956 VK Krishna Menon was inducted into the Nehru cabinet as minister without portfolio.


Mundhra Scandal (1957)


It was the media that first hinted there might be a scam involving the sale of shares to LIC.

Feroz Gandhi sourced the confidential correspondence between the then Finance Minister T.T. Krishnamachari and his principal finance secretary, and raised a question in Parliament on the sale of 'fraudulent' shares to LIC by a Calcutta-based Marwari businessman named Haridas Mundhra.

The then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, set up a one-man commission headed by Justice MC Chagla to investigate the matter when it became evident that there was a prima facie case. Chagla concluded that Mundhra had sold fictitious shares to LIC, thereby defrauding the insurance behemoth to the tune of Rs. 1.25 crore.
Mundhra was sentenced to 22 years in prison. The scam also forced the resignation of T.T.Krishnamachari.


Bofors Scandal (1987)


Then the Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and several others were accused of receiving kickbacks from Bofors AB for winning a bid to supply India's 155 mm field howitzer. The scale of the corruption was far worse than any that India had seen before, and directly led to the defeat of Gandhi's ruling Indian National Congress party in the November 1989 general elections.
It has been speculated that the scale of the scandal was to the tune of Rs. 40 crore.
On February 5, 2004, the Delhi High Court quashed the charges of bribery against Rajiv Gandhi and others. On May 31, 2005, the court dismissed the Bofors case allegations against the British business brothers, Shrichand, Gopichand and Prakash Hinduja.
On March 4, 2011, Ottavio Quattrocchi, acccused as the middleman in the scandal because of his intimacy with Rajiv and his Italian-born wife Sonia Gandhi, was from the case by a Delhi court as there was no credible evidence against him.

Telecom Scam (1996)

In 2009, former telecom minister Sukh Ram was convicted by a Delhi court of accepting bribes to grant licences and purchase equipment from companies during his 1993-96 tenure at the Centre. In 1996, raids at Sukh Ram's properties in Delhi and Himachal had unearthed 3.6 crore cash and jewellery stuffed in bags and suitcases.
Sukh Ram, now 84, is still doing the rounds of the courts, 14 years after the CBI first charged him with corruption.

The case in which he was convicted of amassing over Rs 4 crore disproportionate assets during his tenure in the Narasimha Rao government is still pending in the Delhi High Court, after an appeal was filed in 2009.

In the second case, in which he is accused of causing a loss of Rs 1.68 crore by favouring ARM Pvt Ltd in a contract for purchase of telecom equipment, Sukh Ram was convicted and handed a jail term on July 5, 2002, by a sessions court.

But in this case, too, the wheels moved slowly after the appeal was filed.

Defence expose and Tehelka (2001)

It was India's Watergate. Tehelka launched its Operation West End, a sting operation aimed to expose the corruption underlying India's large defence contracts. The original investigative piece by Tehelka in 2001 targeted several members of the then ruling coalition, the NDA, headed by BJP's Atal Behari Vajpayee.
It showed several political figures, as well as army top brass, colluding to take bribes that approached 4% of orders totalling hundreds of crores in order to approve defence contracts. Tehelka also accused the MoD officials of accepting alcohol and services of the prostitutes, although the journal itself was criticised for the procurement of protitutes.
Indeed, in September 2001, Tehelka's editor-in-chief, Tarun Tejpal, was charged with "immoral trafficking" for offering prostitutes to the MoD officials during the sting operation.
Initially the government, instead of acting on the evidence, accused Tehelka of fabricating allegations. However, five years later, in October 2006, the CBI filed charges against George Fernandes, former Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Sushil Kumar, and others in the Barak missile case, claiming that there was reasonable basis to suspect corruption and criminal conspiracy. In March 2008, the Nandas were arrested. Fernandes was interrogated in May 2008.

Stamp Paper Scam (2003)

Abdul Karim Telgi began printing fake stamp paper in 2003. He appointed 300 people as agents who sold the fakes to bulk purchasers, including banks, FIs, insurance companies, and share-broking firms.
His monthly profits have been estimated as being in the neighbourhood of Rs 202 crore. The size of the scam was estimated to be more than Rs 43,000 crore.
The Telgi case brought corruption in the Karnataka police force to light, causing a national scandal in India. A videotape emerged in September 2006 of Abdul Karim Telgi taking a Narco Analysis test. Under the influence of the supposed truth serum, Telgi is said to have blurted out the names of NCP leaders Sharad Pawar and Chaggan Bhujbal.
Pawar has never been publicly linked to the case, but was forced to go public with a denial.
On June 28, 2007 Telgi was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 13 years and fined a whopping Rs 202 crore on various counts in one of the main cases of the scandal.

2G Spectrum Scam (2008)

The 2G spectrum scam involved allegations of underpricing of 2G spectrum by the Telecom Ministry of India, resulting in loss to the exchequer and illegal manipulation of the spectrum allocation process to favour a few select companies.

According to a report submitted by the Comptroller and Auditor General based on money collected from 3G licenses,

the loss to the exchequer due to underpricing of 2G spectrum was Rs 1,76,379 crore.
The CAG report holds A Raja, the Union Telecom Minister in 2008, when the 2G licenses were doled out, as personally responsible for the loss to the exchequer.
On February 2, 2011, the CBI arrested Raja, RK Chandolia, Raja's personal aide, and Siddharth Behura, the former Telecom Secretary.
On February 8, 2011, the CBI arrested Mumbai based Dynamix Balwas (DB) group managing director Shahid Usman Balwa in connection with the 2G spectrum allocation scam. The CBI has evidence from the Income Tax department that Shahid Usman Balwa, considered close to A. Raja, was instrumental in channelling the kickbacks allegedly received by the former telecom minister.
On March 29, 2011, in Delhi, the CBI arrested Asif Balwa, Shahid Balwa's brother, and Rajeev Agarwal for their alleged involvement in money transfer to DMK's Kalaignar TV channel.
On April 02, 2011, the CBI filed its first 80,000 page chargesheet in the 2G spectrum scam before a Special Court in Delhi naming nine individuals and three companies. It said the wrongful acts of the accused deprived the government exchequer of possible revenues amounting to Rs 30,985 crore. It named the following people and companies:
1) A Raja, arrested former Telecom minister
2) Siddharth Behura, arrested former Telecom Secretary
3) RK Chandolia, A. Raja's arrested former personal secretary
4) Shahid Usman Balwa, arrested former Director of Swan Telecom (now Etisalat DB)
5) Sanjay Chandra, Managing Director of Unitech Ltd and Unitech Wireless
6) Gautam Doshi, Group MD, Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group
7) Hari Nair, Senior Vice-President, Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group
8) Surendra Pipara, Senior Vice-President, Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group and Reliance Telecom Ltd
9) Vinod Goenka, Director, Swan Telecom and Managing Director of DB Realty
The three companies named are:
1) Swan Telecom
2) Unitech Wireless
3) Reliance Telecom
In the first chargesheet, the CBI had named lobbyist Niira Radia and 124 others as witnesses.
On 25th April, 2011, in its second chargesheet in the scam, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) named five more accused
individuals:
1) Kanimozhi, Rajya Sabha MP (DMK) and daughter of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi
2) Sharad Kumar of Kalaignar TV
3) Karim Morani of Cineyug Films
4) Asif Balwa of Kusegaon Realty
5) Rajiv B Agarwal of Kusegaon Realty

Marina Bay Sands Resorts, Singapore

Don't go off the VERY deep end... Infinity pool 55 STORIES above ground opens in Singapore in dazzling new £4bn resort

He'll definitely want to make sure he doesn't swim too close to the edge. This man is the first lap swimmer in the world to enjoy such a view - 55 stories over the city of Singapore. The £4billion Marina Bay Sands tourism development opened in the city yesterday, and the 150-metre long pool - three times the length of an Olympic swimming pool - was a highlight.


To infinity... And beyond! The pool stretches 150 metres, three times the length of an Olympic swimming pool



The view over the side: An artist's impression shows the Skypark that tops the Marina Bay Sands hotel towers, including the infinity pool.

Infinity pools are designed to make it seem as though the water extends to the horizon. In reality, the edge of the pool is usually about an inch below the water level. The water therefore spills over the edge into a catchment below, and is then pumped back into the pool.

The concept is said to have been inspired by the terraced rice paddies in Bali, Indonesia.
They are often seen in luxury resorts such as the Marina Bay Sands.
'In Singapore, Marina Bay Sands will be the pivot point in which tourism here is going to explode,' gaming tycoon Sheldon Adelson, chairman of Las Vegas Sands Corp, the parent company of the resort, said at its opening celebration yesterday.