India's prowess is not confined to information technology. A new study has ranked India second in the world, next only to the US, in terms of distribution of certified professionals in nine major categories, including computer software, finance and health care.

The 'Global Skills IQ 2003' report, brought out by the American firm Brainbench -a global leader in online skills measurement-says that India with 38,195 professional certifications earned during 2002-03 holds its sway in the rest of the world, barring the US.

The US, however, not only leads the table but is roughly six times ahead of India, with over 239,000 skilled knowledge workers, says Brainbench. The Virginia-based firm is a global leader in online testing with 4.5 million registered users worldwide.

The nine categories in the study's focus are computer software, essential skills (basic literacy, mathematics, interpersonal communications and basic computer skills), finance, health care, industry knowledge, information technology, language and communication, management, and office skills.

Although the IT sector continues to be in a depressed state, IT-related certifications still lead all other categories. The US and India are followed by Russia and Canada and the UK.

The study provides not only a country-by-country ranking in the nine key categories, it also offers an in-depth view of US testing trends.

Courtesy: www.hindustantimes.com, July 31, 2003

LOWELL: Ten young boys, each of whom is in a gang, yet not old enough to shave or drive, fidgeted in their chairs and taunted one other as a yellow-robed monk tried to teach them how to be good students and exemplary Buddhists.

"You need to learn good seating, good talking and good association with your friends," said the monk, the Venerable Monriath Pinn, handing them a list of Buddhist characteristics of good students.

Regardless of whether the students like it, learning self-discipline and introspection are the core of this crime-fighting programme where the sacred meets the streets in this city of shuttered mills, 30 miles from Boston.

Lowell, a city of 105,000, has had a large influx of Southeast Asians in the past five years, most of them Cambodians who have settled in the Highlands neighbourhood.

Previous projects had failed, mainly because of the language barrier, Captain Robert DeMoura of the Lowell police department said, and the department was willing to try anything. So this time, it decided to use religion.

The police enlisted the help of Chanda Soth, a police project assistant who lives in the gang members' neighbourhood and has strong ties to a Buddhist temple in neighbouring town of North Chelmsford.

The seven monks who live at the temple immediately agreed to a program intended to help the troubled youngsters.

The boys spend two nights each week, more if they want, at the temple. The monks teach them how to improve themselves from the inside out and become better citizens, students and Buddhists.

Courtesy: www.timesofindia.com, July 28, 2003

WASHINGTON: When an American school went around looking for a qualified science teacher, its search ended in India.

First Academy in Leesburg, Florida, has hired Bhopal-based Madhu Thomas, who has a master of philosophy in science. She also has bachelor's degrees in science and education.

Thomas, who enjoys theatre and ballet, had been teaching in India for the past 17 years, according to First Academy administrator Greg Frescoln.

The Christian school, which enrols students in kindergarten to ninth grade, is scheduled to add the 10th grade this year. It is expected to add the 11th grade in 2004 and the 12th grade in 2005.

Thomas' paper work and visa are ready and although she is not expected to be in the US by the time school starts in August, she will possibly arrive with her husband and two children shortly afterwards.

She will teach 10th grade biology, ninth grade physical science and seventh grade general science.

Frescoln said that the teacher was found through recruiters - USA Employment, a teacher recruitment agency based in Houston.

The school did not have problems in hiring teachers in the past, but as more grades were added, the need to hire teachers that are very specifically trained in their subject area became a top priority.

Frescoln also wanted teachers who were not only qualified to teach science but also who were Christian. "The number of teachers identifying themselves as Christian and science teachers was not that large," he was quoted as saying in The Daily Commercial, a Florida newspaper.

Frescoln also expected the teacher to speak the English language fluently. "This seemed to have been a very good alternative for us," he said.

The recruitment agency, which does not charge schools anything, gave Frescoln the name of three qualified applicants that met his criteria and he in turn interviewed each of them.

He spent two to three hours on the phone to India and also had the parents and teachers interview Thomas on a videoconference over the Internet. Then he offered her the position.

Frescoln said: "I did not expect that we would have to do this, but as I was looking at the resumes on the Internet, I was impressed at how qualified these people are."

Courtesy: www.timesofindia.com, July 24, 2003

Sardar Patel University in Gujarat has become India's varsity to have a radio station of its own.

"We have permission to set up a community radio station on the campus. Ours is the first university in the country to have its own radio," its vice chancellor P.J. Patel said.

The university has received permission from Prasar Bharati, the broadcasting authority in the country, and the Gujarat government. The radio will not broadcast news bulletins or commercial advertisements. It will focus on science and technology programmes. A panel of faculty representatives will develop the programme content - IANS.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, July 21, 2003

The tombstone and finished monuments industry in Germany has virtually come to a grinding halt because of a handful of enterprising entrepreneurs from India. Most tombstone and monument manufacturers in Germany have closed down because of their inability to compete with their Indian counterparts.

"Indians have been quick to see the opportunity there", Mr. Pradeep Chopra, the promoter of Bremen-based A.P. Handels Und Vatriebs GmbH told the ET. Chopra had set base in Germany almost a decade ago in the port city of Bremen only because the authorities there were offering businessmen rent-free office accommodation for a period of three years. "We Indians have the ability to survive under all circumstances and for me this was a God-sent opportunity", Chopra said.

Till then a real estate developer in Kolkata, Chopra was in any case sourcing granite slabs for the housing and commercial properties that his partnership company, PS Construction, was building in the city and its outer limits. In the opportunity to set base in Germany he found that he could make tombstones and monuments which had a fairly large market there. And what was significant, he could do so at far cheaper prices than those that were either being imported or made within Germany. "A cutter or a polisher there was easily worth DM 5,000-6,000 a month which is a lakh and half to nearly Rs 2 lakh when converted into Indian currency. Here, in India we could get away paying, may be ten grands a months", Chopra said.

Currently there are some two dozen such tombstone and monument exporters out of India, which has basically replaced export of rough blocks of granite. Chopra said that the primary demand is for stones such as Paradiso sourced from Karnataka, Himalayan Blue from Karnataka, Vizag Blue from Andhra Pradesh and Jet black, etc. These were being exported in the form of rough blocks, which has come down considerably.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, July 21, 2003

Mumbai: Like millions of people on the Indian subcontinent, Debasis loves dahi. He is crazy especially about the mishti variety, which comes from Bengal in a hard earthen pot and has an all white, squelchy centre.

Sometimes, when it's pouring elephants and rhinos at night, when Debasis is home safe and dry and well-fed on jhol and bhat and the light is shining kindly on his well-kept home, the 40-ish copywriter will narrate a legend about dahi he heard as a child from his Pishima (aunt).

Of all organisms that are born, Pishima said, a vast majority die before they come of age. Of the fraction that survive and breed, an even smaller silver would have a descendent alive after 1,000 generations. Now dahi ranks among these rarest creatures, which represent the unbroken line that goes back to the first sparks of life that appeared on earth, she continued. For one ferments today's daughter milk by adding some dahi made from yesterday's mother milk which in turn was curdled with the whey from day-before-yesterday's dahi from the grandmother milk.

In this manner, the pious lady from Krishnapur traced the long line of dahi-handis all the way back to Brindaban, where she said the primordial dahi was born when that blue child who hides the entire cosmos in his mouth once churned some milk in a childish prank.

Less sublime genealogies date the origin of dahi or yogurt to 2000 BC in mid-Eastern civilisations. The word yogurt itself is Turkish in origin and the ancient Assyrian word for yogurt, 'lebeny', meant life. The modern word 'probiotic' can literally be translated into 'for life'. There has indeed been a longstanding belief that eating yogurt or the consumption of some type of cultured milk product is associated with longevity due to the friendly bacteria that are present in the dahi and their ability to fight disease.

A Russian-born biologists, Elie Metchnikoff, wrote about the life-extending benefits of eating cultured foods, especially yogurt. Dr Metchnikoff received the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for his research on phagocytosis, an important function of the immune system in 1908. What was nearer to his heart was his study of bacteria that produce lactic acid. The biologist believed that consumption of such bacteria was responsible for the longer lifespan of so many Bulgarians.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, July 19, 2003