Coimbatore :
Leading pump maker CRI Pumps has opened its sixth foreign subsidiary in China.
CRI Pumps Shanghai Co Ltd would become fully operational from next month, a company release said.
CRI was the first pump manufacturer from India to have its 100 per cent wholly-owned subsidiary company in China intended for manufacturing and marketing specific products, it said.
source: http://www.ptinews.com / Press Trust of India / Home> Business / Coimbatore – November 07th, 2013
Anand’s longevity and perseverance has often been compared with that of Sachin Tendulkar, the world’s batting record-holder who ends a brilliant 24-year career later this month.
Chennai :
In a nation where cricket is a religion and retiring superstar Sachin Tendulkar its resident deity, reigning world chess champion Viswanathan Anand holds his own as one of India’s finest sportsmen.
Anand, 43, who opens the defence of his fifth world crown against Norwegian challenger Magnus Carlsen at home in Chennai on Saturday, has dominated the chess scene in India and abroad for almost two decades.
Anand’s longevity and perseverance has often been compared with that of Tendulkar, the world’s batting record-holder who ends a brilliant 24-year career later this month.
“There’s certainly a case to be made for Anand being the greatest sportsperson India has ever produced,” The Hindu newspaper said. “He is as much a national treasure as Tendulkar.”
Anand showed remarkable promise at an early age but, unlike many others who give up after their first major challenge, he persevered and won until there was no one else left to beat.
The soft-spoken family man, who lives in Spain with wife Aruna and three-year-old son Akhil, is far removed from his temperamental predecessors like Bobby Fischer, Boris Spassky, Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov.
While Kasparov has become a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Anand is more at home musing about subjects such as his pride in India’s space programme and his love of Barcelona football club.
“There is no feeling better than representing your country,” he wrote on his Twitter account last week in the build-up to the match against Carlsen.
“If there is anyone close to perfection in chess, it is him,” said Indian grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly. “He is also one of the nicest human beings to know, a humble man despite his enormous achievements.”
Anand’s game is built on belligerent attack that catches opponents off-guard, but his unflustered approach ensures that he has the right defence in place when the going gets tough.
Born in a small town in the southern tip of India, Anand became an international master at 15, was crowned Indian champion at 16, won the world junior title at 17 and became the country’s first grandmaster at 18.
The Indian government, taking note of the young man’s rapid rise, conferred on him the country’s fourth highest civilian award, the Padma Shri, a few months short of his 19th birthday.
It is significant that when India’s highest sporting honour — the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna — was introduced in 1992, Anand was its first recipient ahead of such cricket luminaries as Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev.
Anand was just 23 then and the honour came almost eight years before he won the first of his five world titles by beating Russian Alexei Shirov in Tehran in 2000.
However, more losses than wins in the past year have seen him slip to number eight, with Carlsen, 22, assuming the top ranking with 2,870 rating points, 95 more than Anand.
source: http://www.sports.ndtv.com / NDTV Sports / Home> Sports Home> Other Sports> Chess / by Agence France-Presse / Thursday – November 07th, 2013
The Gandhi Memorial Museum and Centre for Experiencing Socio-Cultural Interaction (CESCI) organised the Maja Koene Award Function 2013 here on Wednesday.
The Maja Koene Social Journalist Award was given to Himanshu Shekhar Mishra of NDTV-New Delhi and Ruby Sarkar, a freelance journalist from Bhopal. Mr. Mishra was felicitated for his coverage of the Jan Satyagraha non-violent march taken out by 50,000 people from Gwalior to New Delhi in October, 2012.
“While we highlight the problems and deprivation of the poor, their perseverance and determination to fight for their cause often doesn’t get the respect it deserves,” Mr. Mishra said.
Ms. Sarkar wrote about marginalised communities and highlighted the issues of the landless poor. “Their everyday struggle for basic necessities such as water and the way they are exploited and deprived need to be covered with sensitivity,” she said.
Naresh Chander Lal, a filmmaker from Andaman and Nicobar Islands, who was conferred the Maja Koene Social Activist Award, said that through his films he had sought to spread the message of ahimsa. “I believe Gandhiji is alive in all of us and by practising the concept of non-violence, we are keeping him and his ideals alive.”
Mr. Lal emphasised the potential and reach of the film medium.
The Kadam Cultural Centre in Jabalpur won the Social Activist Award for work on environmental issues and poverty.
Given to activists who practise non-violent methods of resistance while fighting for a cause, the Maja Koene Peace Award went to Orquidea Perez and Maria Liga, women who had shown exemplary leadership while working for the development of their communities in Columbia.
Accepting the award on their behalf, Natalia Rodriguez, a social worker from an organisation which worked with them, said the women had been fighting for rights over land in a place ravaged by violence, and in the absence of a government. “These women are fighting for their rights while battling political and economic instabilities, showing exemplary determination and courage to better their community,” she said.
Reva Joshee from the Mahatma Gandhi Canadian foundation for World Peace, Margrit Hugentobler, president of CESCI-Switzerland. and P.V. Rajagopal, secretary of CESCI, Madurai, were present.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Madurai / by Staff Reporter / Madurai – November 07th, 2013
Visually challenged teachers, under the aegis of the Vellore-Tiruvannamalai District Blind Teachers Association, gathered here on Saturday to celebrate Teacher’s Day and representatives of the Blind Teachers Association from the districts of Madurai, Cuddalore, Salem, Dharmapuri and Villupuram participated.
The teachers participated in the celebrations along with their spouses, some of whom were also visually impaired, and children. They made an appeal to the State government to hold special grievance camps on a periodical basis in all the districts to redress the problems faced by the differently abled persons. They also wanted the State government to provide training in computer application to all the blind teachers under the ongoing Rashtriya Madhyamik Siksha Abhiyan (RMSA) scheme.
Officials from the Education Department, led by DEO D Manoharan, assured all support to the visually impaired teachers. The occasion was also used to felicitate one of the senior colleagues, B Ravichandran, who was promoted as HM of a government higher secondary school in Krishnagiri district. Shankar, secretary of the association, said, of the 600 teachers who were shortlisted for promotion, Ravichandran was the only visually impaired teacher on the list. He said was a great honour for visually impaired teachers as well as for the district. He is the second blind teacher to get this honour. The first was Manoharan, who retired this year.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / by V. Narayana Murthi – ENS, Vellore / November 10th, 2013
Ten months after Chief Minister Jayalalithaa announced a memorial for Chola King Karikalan, who built the Grand Anicut (kallanai), the 14-ft statue of the king on his elephant is ready for installation.
The bronze statue weighs between two and three tonnes. The image for the memorial was provided by the State government, and created by Chennai-based sculptor Kishore Nagappa.
In January this year, Ms. Jayalalithaa, while inaugurating a memorial for Colonel John Pennycuick, the British engineer who built the century-old Mullaperiyar Dam, said a similar memorial would be created for the ancient Tamil king near the Grand Anicut.
“The bronze statue depicts the king astride an elephant and pointing to the kallanai. The height of the elephant is 8 ft and the king sitting on it adds another 6 ft,” said Mr. Nagappa, whose father Jayaram Nagappa created the statues of Veerama Munivar and former Chief Minister Kamaraj on the Marina, and Swami Vivekananda at Vivekananda Illam. Mr. Nagappa used ‘sandwich moulding,’ a process that is normally employed to create larger-than-life statues. “First, we create a clay model and this is transferred to a plaster of Paris mould. Then, we create a sandwich model by laying wax in between the two layers of moulds. After allowing the mould to dry, we heat it to melt the wax and draw it out. This process leaves a cavity inside the mould,” he said.
Finally, the important process of pouring the molten bronze into the cavity begins. After allowing it to cool, the statue is chiselled to perfection. Mr. Nagappa said normally big statues are made in segments and welded together.
“While bronze images of Gods are solid pieces, statues are made with hollow insides. Handling and putting up a solid 14-ft statue will be a Himalayan task,” he said.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National> Tamil Nadu / by B. Kolappan / Chennai – November 10th, 2013
A standing ovation, thunderous applause and loud cheers welcomed him every time he walked into a packed hall. The former Indian president A P J Abdul Kalam ignited the imagination of thousands of his young fans in the UAE, urging them to read more, plant trees and sharing his mantra of world peace: making your mother happy.
A noted scientist and prolific author, the 82-year-old Kalam addressed three separate sessions at the Sharjah International Book Fair on Thursday, liberally citing ancient Indian texts, Syrian poets and Nelson Mandela. He started the morning with a keynote address at a seminar titled Birth of an Author in You, where he said “we all have authors inside” that are yet to be discovered.
An author of several inspirational books including Wings of Fire, Ignited Minds and Turning Points, Kalam revealed how he had visited a few book stalls earlier with the Ruler of Sharjah, Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, whom he hailed as a cultural scholar who knew the importance of knowledge dissemination.
Titled Great Books are Born out of Great Minds, Kalam’s talk focused on how human beings are wired for stories, as the worlds we imagine in books let us experience what we haven’t experienced in the real world.
Saying that the first step to enrich oneself was reading, Kalam administered an oath to students and parents, which they repeated after him: “Today onwards I will start a home library with at least 10 quality books, of which five will be children’s books. My son/daughter will enrich this library and my grandchildren will have a great library with 1,000 books. I consider our library as a lifelong treasure. We will spend at least one hour every day reading books.”
Kalam also urged parents to watch less television and read more instead to inspire their children who emulate them.
He firmly believed that storytelling is a central component of leadership and cited two people who inspired him: India’s own Mahatma Gandhi and South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, who used the power of the written word to reach out to masses when there was no electronic media.
He recited a verse from the ancient Tamil classic Thirukkural, dating back more than 2,000 years: “For those who do evil, the best punishment is to do good to them”, a principle followed by both Gandhi and Mandela.
Popularly known as India’s Missile Man for playing a key role in developing India’s missile system, Kalam’s life mission now is to meet as many young people as possible, instil in them values of cultural excellence and encourage them to dream big. “I have interacted with 16 million youth in 15 years,” he said with a big smile, addressing nearly 2,000 students at the Sharjah Expo Centre.
Time and again he pointed out that the starting point of a great individual was righteousness: “Where there is righteousness, there is beauty in the character.” But above all, the key to your success is making your mother happy, urging children to repeat after him: “Today onwards, I will make my mother happy. If my mother is happy, then my home is happy, if my home is happy, then society is happy.”
Asked a question on India’s mission to Mars, Kalam said: “India’s Mars orbiter Mangalyaan hopes to reach Mars orbit by September 2014 to know more about its atmosphere. It gives a lot of hope. My dream is that maybe 50 years later Earth, Moon and Mars will become a single economic entity.”
The children couldn’t stop asking him questions and finally Kalam said: “Email me your questions on apj@abdulkalam.com and I will reply in 24 hours.”
source: http://www.thenational.ae / The National / Home> Arts & Culture> Books / by Malavika Vettah / November 09th, 2013
New Delhi :
Ravichandran Ashwin’s second Test hundred in Kolkata helped him rise to the No. 1 position in the ICC rankings for Test all-rounders on Saturday.
Rankings: Batting / Bowling / All-rounder
Ashwin scored 124 and recorded match figures of 40-11-98-5 to help India register an emphatic innings and 51-run victory over West Indies.
The Kolkata show not only improved Ashwin’s batting and bowling rankings, but also helped him leapfrog Shakib Al Hasan and Jacques Kallis into the top in the all-rounders’ list.
Ashwin now has 81 ratings points and leads second-placed Shakib from Bangladesh by 43 points.
In the ICC rankings for Test batsmen, Ashwin has moved up 18 places to the 45th position, while in the bowlers ranking, the 27-year-old off-spinner has gained two places and is now sitting in the sixth position.
Rohit Sharma and paceman Mohammed Shami, who made impressive debuts in the Kolkata Test, have also entered the ICC Player Rankings. The Mumbai batsman, who became the 14th Indian batsman to score a century on debut when he struck 177, lies in the 63rd spot while Shami’s figures of nine for 118, – the best by an Indian fast bowler on debut, helped him enter in the 53rd place in Test bowlers chart.
West Indies off-spinner Shane Shillingford and Bhuvneshwar Kumar are the other bowlers to improve their rankings. Shillingford’s figures of six for 167 has put him inside the top 20 in the 17th position for the first time in his career (up by four), while Kumar’s two wickets have helped him move into 87th place (up by 13).
The batting chart continues to be headed by AB de Villiers of South Africa while his teammate Dale Steyn is the number-one ranked bowler.
source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> Sports> Cricket> Top Stories> West Indies / TNN / November 10th, 2013
A second year student at the VOC College here has topped the State Teachers Eligibility Test (TET), the results of which were published on Wednesday.
R Vinusha, daughter of Ramachandiran, scored 126 marks out of a possible 150 and topped the State in the second paper of the TET.
Vinusha is the fifth daughter in her family of which four members, including her father and three elder sisters, are also teachers. She secured the top position in her second attempt of the test. She scored 88 marks in her first attempt.
This year, Vinusha outsmarted around seven lakh candidates who had appeared for the exam. Out of the total candidates, 27,000 have had made it through to the final list.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Education> Student / by Express News Service – Thoothukudi / November 08th, 2013
Joyous students brought the house down with their enthusiastic cheering and applause during the valediction of Jamfest’13, the annual inter-school talent competition organized at St. James Matriculation Higher Secondary School in the city on Monday.
Members of the school alumni association, were co-ordinating the event.
The two-day event included competitions on drawing, painting, oration, poetry, creative writing, quiz, stage play, dance, singing and other co-curricular activities. The annual event aims to nurture the extra-curricular skills of students. Different schools in the city participated in the event and prizes were awarded in junior and senior categories.
J. Mohaned Aslan of SBIOA school was crowned Mr. Jamfest, while S. Afreen Akhthar of St.James Matriculation school was Ms. Jamfest. The overall trophy for first prize was awarded to students of St. James Matriculation School due to their outstanding performance in all the events. The second overall prize was given to Alpha Matriculation School.
J. Veerapandian, president, Tiruchi Advocates Bar Council said “The best days of a person’s life are definitely the school days, and told students to reach great heights by studying with dedication.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Tiruchirapalli / by Staff Reporter / Tiruchi – November 12th, 2013
Madurai :
A 16-member team from Singapore is in the city to participate in a two-week programme to hone their Tamil teaching skills. Apart from attending several sessions in the American College here, 14 high school teachers and two officials will visit seven educational institutions to learn about Tamil teaching methods and also share teaching methods in their country.
“English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil are official languages of Singapore. Our government promotes learning of mother tongue as it ensures that students are aware of their culture and tradition. Equal opportunities are given to all languages in the country,” said N Subramaniam, chief instructor of Tamil teachers under the Singapore education ministry. He was addressing the inaugural session of the event on Monday.
The objective of our visit is to brush up grammar and literature of Tamil. We will be imparting what we learn here to fellow teachers once we are back in Singapore, Subramaniam said.V Iraianbu, commissioner in the economics and statistics department of Tamil Nadu government, pointed out that mother tongue comes from heart, while languages that we learn are used at the mind level. Iraianbu apprised the visiting delegation about the importance of Tamil.
“It is important to learn the nuances of Tamil which has a rich literary history and culture. Ancient Tamil literature reflects society’s affinity to nature as early Tamils lived in harmony with nature,” he noted, while advising the Singaporean teachers to read more of Tamil literature as proficiency comes with practice. Tamil teachers from Singapore will visit Lakshmi School, Veerapanchan; OCPM Girls HSS, Capron Hall School, Madura College HSS; and TVS Lakshmi school in the city. The delegation will also visit St Peter’s School in Kodaikanal. Thiagarajar School of Preceptors, a BEd college in Madurai, is also on their itinerary.
Interacting with media persons at the sidelines of the meeting, Subramaniam said they will concentrate on learning as well as co-teaching in the schools so that they learn the teaching methods of Tamil. “It will be mutual where we learn and share our teaching pedagogy with the local teachers here,” he said.
The overseas delegation will focus on contemporary Tamil teaching. “Now, teaching is more student- and technology-oriented. Short films made in Tamil is one such example, he pointed out.
Eminent personalities from the field of Tamil art and literature will take technical sessions for the visiting teachers.
M Davamani Christober, principal of American College, presided over the inaugural session.
source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Madurai> Teachers / TNN / November 12th, 2013