Amritsar:  The groaning, clattering machines never stop, transforming 12 tonnes of whole wheat flour every day into nearly a quarter-million discs of flatbread called roti. These purpose-built contraptions, each 20 feet long, extrude the dough, roll it flat, then send it down a gas-fired conveyor belt, spitting out a never-ending stream of hot, floppy, perfectly round bread.

Soupy lentils, three and a third tonnes of them, bubble away in vast cauldrons, stirred by bearded, barefoot men wielding wooden spoons the size of canoe paddles. The pungent, savory bite wafting through the air comes from 1,700 pounds of onions and 132 pounds of garlic, sprinkled with 330 pounds of fiery red chilies.

It is lunchtime at what may be the world's largest free eatery, the langar, or community kitchen at this city's glimmering Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of the Sikh religion. Everything is ready for the big rush. Thousands of volunteers have scrubbed the floors, chopped onions, shelled peas and peeled garlic. At least 40,000 metal plates, bowls and spoons have been washed, stacked and are ready to go.

Anyone can eat for free here, and many, many people do. On a weekday, about 80,000 come. On weekends, almost twice as many people visit. Each visitor gets a wholesome vegetarian meal, served by volunteers who embody India's religious and ethnic mosaic.

"This is our tradition," said Harpinder Singh, the 45-year-old manager of this huge operation. "Anyone who wants can come and eat."

India is not only the world's largest democracy, it also is one of the most spiritually diverse nations. It was born in a horrific spasm of religious bloodshed when British India was torn in two to create a Muslim homeland in Pakistan. Yet from the moment of its independence, India has been a resolutely secular nation and has managed to accommodate an extraordinary range of views on such fundamental questions as the nature of humanity, the existence of God and the quality of the soul.

Indeed, few places in India demonstrate so clearly the country's genius for diversity and tolerance, the twin reasons that India -- despite its fractures and fissures -- has remained one nation.

Sikhism, which emerged in the Punjab region of India in the 15th century, strongly rejects the notion of caste, which lies at the core of Hinduism.

The Golden Temple, a giant complex of marble and glittering gold that sits at the heart of this sprawling, hectic city near the border with Pakistan, seeks to embody this principle. Nowhere is it more evident than in the community kitchen, where everyone, no matter his religion, wealth or social status, is considered equal.

Guru Amar Das created the community kitchen during his time as the third Sikh guru in the 16th century. Its purpose, he said, was to place all of humanity on the same plane. At the temple's museum, one painting shows the wife of one of the gurus serving common people, "working day and night in the kitchen like an ordinary worker," the caption says.

Volunteerism and community support are other central tenets of Sikhism expressed in the langar. When the Mughal emperor Akbar tried to give Guru Amar Das a platter of gold coins to support the kitchen, he refused to accept them, saying the kitchen "is always run with the blessings of the Almighty."

Ashok Kumar, a Hindu with a scraggly beard, has been coming to the kitchen for the past five years -- all day, almost every day -- to work as a volunteer. "It is my service," he explained, after reluctantly taking a very brief break from his syncopated tray sorting.

A white rag covered his head, and his hands were bound like a boxer's. His job is to man the heavy bucket that receives the dirty plates and bowls. He is the last man on a highly organized line that begins with collecting the spoons, dumping out any leftover food, then loading giant tubs of dirty dishes bound for the washing troughs.

Plates and bowls fly at him, but he never misses a beat, using a metal plate in each hand to deflect the traffic into the tub. Plates go around the rim, while bowls get stacked in the middle.

Mr. Kumar used to be a bookbinder.

"I feel happy here," he said when asked why he had given up his old life.

Indians of all faiths come here to find a measure of peace largely unavailable in the cacophony of the nation's 1.2 billion people. Like the thousands of pairs of shoes left at the temple gates, the chaos and filth of urban life are left behind at the marble entrances.

The temple is a world of cleanliness and order -- where the wail of the harmonium and the shuffling of bare feet are the only sounds, and every square inch is scrubbed many times a day.

It has not always been a peaceful place. A Sikh insurgency, which sought a separate homeland for Sikhs in Punjab, tore at India's heart in the 1970s and '80s. In 1984, Indira Gandhi, then the prime minister, ordered a bloody raid on the temple. Hundreds of militants were hiding there, and many were killed. The temple was also damaged. Sikh bodyguards later assassinated Mrs. Gandhi to avenge the attack on the temple.

Despite this history, Sikhs remain resolutely a part of India's mainstream, holding leading positions in the arts, government and business. India's current prime minister, Manmohan Singh, is a Sikh.

Pankaj Ahuja, who owns a medical supply shop in Rajasthan, was visiting the temple for the third time, this time bringing his wife and son, who had never been before. They took the Golden Temple Express train, and were sleeping in the pilgrims' dormitories, which are also free. The family is Hindu, but the temple has a special significance for them nonetheless.

"You have lots of religious places in this country," said Mr. Ahuja's wife, Nikita. "But the kind of peace and cleanliness you find here you won't find anywhere else."

Back home, cleaning floors would be considered degrading for someone of her status -- people of low caste usually do such work. But here, Mrs. Ahuja happily scrubs floors.

"In normal life, I would ask, 'Why should I do this?' It is shameful to clean floors," she said. "But here, it is different."

Indeed, she never gives a moment's thought to who prepared the food in the kitchen, even though in India's highly stratified caste traditions such matters are vital.

"It is more than food," she said of the meals that she had eaten at the community kitchen. "Once you eat it, you forget who is cooking, who is serving it, who is sitting next to you."

Anil Kumar, a 32-year-old Hindu, was up to his elbows in soapy water at one of the washing troughs.

"At home, I would never do this," he said with a laugh. "It is my wife's work."

But he said he tried to come for at least an hour every day to wash dishes. "It is not a question of religion," he added. "It is a question of faith. Here I feel a feeling of peace."  

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/the-golden-temple-where-all-may-eat-and-pitch-in-48188?cp

Emmy is one of the biggest awards you can win for drama's. Its like oscar of Drama's - That all I know :

British actress wins Emmy Award

It was left to Archie Panjabi to fly the flag for British acting talent at this year's Emmy Awards.

The London-born actress picked up best supporting actress for her role in the The Good Wife as the US honoured stars of the small screen at a lavish LA ceremony.

But elsewhere it was disappointment for thespians hailing from this side of the pond.

Michael Sheen, Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Judi Dench were among the high profile nominees who failed to take to the stage and pick up a coveted gong.

Panjabi, who made her name in British hit films East is East and Bend It Like Beckham, won an Emmy for her role as a law firm's in-house private investigator in her hit TV show.

The 38-year-old triumphed over fellow The Good Wife actress Christine Baranski and Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss.

Sheen was nominated for best actor in a miniseries or TV movie for The Special Relationship, a film in which he reprised his role as Tony Blair.

But he lost out to acting great Al Pacino, who won a rare TV gong for You Don't Know Jack. Sir Ian also missed out to Pacino in the category.

Maggie Smith and Dame Judi were both nominated in the female equivalent section. But they lost out as Claire Danes who was given the nod for her performance in Temple Grandin.

Hugh Laurie missed out yet again on an Emmy. The comedian turned actor went home empty handed as Bryan Cranston took the title of outstanding actor in a drama for his performance in Breaking Bad.

World cup basketball will run from 28 August - 12 September 2010 in Turkey



Teams involved:
 Angola          Group A
 Argentina          Group A
 Australia          Group A
 Brazil          Group B
 Canada          Group D
 China             Group C
 Cote d'Ivoire          Group C
 Croatia          Group B
 France          Group D
 Germany          Group A
 Greece          Group C
 Iran             Group B
 Jordan          Group A
 Lebanon          Group D
 Lithuania          Group D
 New Zealand          Group D
 Puerto Rico          Group C
 Russia          Group C
 Serbia          Group A
 Slovenia          Group B
 Spain             Group D
 Tunisia          Group B
 Turkey          Group C
 USA             Group B

Full Schedule: http://turkey2010.fiba.com/pages/eng/fe/10/fwcm/p/schedule.html

Video (Must Watch) - Match-fixing under way

Pakistan Match Fixing Scandal in England test match Cricket

pakistan match fixing scandal latest video

Full News:

The Pakistan team was warned about meeting Mazhar and Azhar Majeed by the team management at the start of their tour to England. One of the brothers, Mazhar, was arrested last night by Scotland Yard on suspicion of a conspiracy to defraud bookmakers, after being caught on video by the News of the World (NOTW) offering to bribe Pakistan's bowlers to bowl no-balls on demand during the Lord's Test.


The brothers are agents who represent a number of Pakistan's players in the UK, helping them secure sponsorships for cricket equipment among other things.


"When we started this tour, I told the players they should not be entertaining these two in their hotel rooms," Yawar Saeed, the team manager, told Cricinfo. "These boys are their agents and, anywhere we tour in the world, we tell our players that they are not allowed to have agents in their hotel rooms. It is the policy on the tour."

The team management had warned players as soon as they landed in London against meeting these two brothers because of suspicions about some of their activities, Pakistan's leading Urdu paper Jang had reported on July 27. The reporter, Abdul Majid Bhatti, said he received calls from men claiming to represent the brothers soon after the story appeared, threatening legal action.

NOTW claimed that seven Pakistan players were involved, though only four have been named so far. Saeed confirmed to Cricinfo that "one or two were questioned by Scotland Yard," last night soon after the story broke. He dismissed reports that the passports of several players had been taken away, saying that all passports were in the possession of the team management.

"Scotland Yard are now investigating and we will assist them in whatever way they may need," Saeed said. "I cannot say anything more right now."

A firm owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has filed a lawsuit against Google, Apple, Facebook, and other companies alleging that they have violated patents related to search, multimedia, screen pop-ups and database management.

Interval Licensing filed the patent lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court of the Western District of Washington. The companies named in the lawsuit are Aol, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and YouTube.

The four patents cover several technologies related to search, multimedia, databases and screen activity, said David Postman, a spokesman for Allen. Details about how the 11 defendants are allegedly infringing Interval's patents will come out as the lawsuit progresses, he said.

Interval Licensing holds patents of Interval Research, the now-defunct company founded by Allen and David Liddle in 1992 to research information systems, communications and computer science. The patents in the lawsuit cover fundamental Web technologies first developed at Interval Research in the 1990s, Interval said in a press release.

The patents covered by the lawsuit are:

-- U.S. Patent No. 6,263,507, for "Browser for Use in Navigating a Body of Information, With Particular Application to Browsing Information Represented By Audiovisual Data."

-- U.S. Patent No. 6,034,652, for "Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device."

-- U.S. Patent No. 6,788,314, for "Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device."

-- U.S. Patent No. 6,757,682, for "Alerting Users to Items of Current Interest."

Postman called Interval Research a "groundbreaking contributor" to the development of the commercial Internet. The patents are fundamental to the ways leading e-commerce and search companies continue to operate, he said.

Some of the named companies slammed the lawsuit.


"This lawsuit against some of America's most innovative companies reflects an unfortunate trend of people trying to compete in the courtroom instead of the marketplace. Innovation -- not litigation -- is the way to bring to market the kinds of products and services that benefit millions of people around the world," a Google representative said.


"We believe this suit is completely without merit, and we will fight it vigorously," said Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes. EBay said it was reviewing the suit and intended to defend itself vigorously.


Representatives of Yahoo and Aol declined to comment. Apple representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comments.

Get your Toyota checked folks

Toyota has recalled 1.13 million Corolla sedans and Matrix hatchbacks — including about 200,000 in Canada — because their engines may stall.

It's the latest in a string of quality problems at the Japanese automaker.

Toyota is recalling 1.13 million Corolla sedans and Matrix hatchbacks in North America, including more than 200,000 vehicles in Canada, due to an engine stalling problem. (Ben Margot/Associated Press)
The recall issued Thursday covers vehicles from the 2005-2008 model years sold in North America, including 136,000 Corollas and 64,300 Matrixes in Canada.

Three accidents and one minor injury have been reported, though Toyota said a link to the engine issue has not been confirmed.

The automaker said vehicles with 1ZZ-FE engines may contain a defective engine control module, the computer that regulates the performance of the engine. In some cases, a crack may develop on the module's circuit board, which could prevent the engine from starting, harsh shifting or an engine stall.

Toyota said it will replace the engine-control modules on the recalled vehicles at no charge. It will begin mailing notifications to customers with affected Corollas and Matrixes starting in mid-September.

Toyota has recalled more than 10 million vehicles worldwide over the past year for a range of problems, including faulty gas pedals, floor mats that can trap accelerators and braking problems in its Prius hybrid.

U.S. federal regulators have been investigating the possibility of engine stalls in the Corolla and Matrix models since December and intensified their probe earlier this week.

Toyota shares fell 28 cents to $68.78 US.

Nine Day Long Traffic Jam

BEIJING—A 62-mile traffic jam near the Chinese capital that officials say could last until mid-September has become a symbol of the dark side of China's love affair with the automobile.

Officials say traffic has been snarled along the outskirts of Beijing and is stretching toward the border of Inner Mongolia ever since roadwork on the Beijing-Tibet Highway started Aug. 13. The following week, parts of a major road circling Beijing were closed, further tightening overburdened roadways.

As the jam on the highway, also known as National Highway 110, passed the 10-day mark Tuesday, local authorities dispatched hundreds of police to keep order and to reroute cars and trucks carrying essential supplies, such as food or flammables, around the main bottleneck. There, vehicles were inching along little more than a third of a mile a day. Zhang Minghai, director of Zhangjiakou city's Traffic Management Bureau general office, said in a telephone interview he didn't expect the situation to return to normal until around Sept. 17 when road construction is scheduled to be finished and traffic lanes will open up.

Villagers along Highway 110 took advantage of the jam, selling drivers packets of instant noodles from roadside stands and, when traffic was at a standstill, moving between trucks and cars to hawk their wares.

Truck drivers, when they weren't complaining about the vendors overcharging for the food, kept busy playing card games. Their trucks, for the most part, are basic, blue-colored vehicles with no features added to help pamper drivers through long hauls.

Truck driver Long Jie said his usual trip from the coal boomtown of Baotou in Inner Mongolia to Beijing, which normally takes three days, was now taking him a week or more. The delay, he said, meant he would have to raise his rates above the usual 12,000 yuan, about $1,765, for a 30-ton truck full of cargo.

Sounding frazzled and tired, Mr. Long, a driver for Baotou Zengcai Shipping Co., said in a telephone interview that the traffic got a little better once he finally made it off the highway.

Though triggered by construction, the root cause for the congestion is chronic overcrowding on key national arteries. Automobile sales in China whizzed past the U.S. for the first time last year, as Chinese bought 13.6 million vehicles.

China is racing to build new roads to ease the congestion, but that very construction is making traffic problems worse—at least temporarily.

In addition, China's roads suffer from extra wear and tear from illegally overloaded trucks, especially along key coal routes. Supplies move from Mongolia through the outskirts of the capital on their way to humming factories. There are few rail lines to handle the extra load.

Though the current massive gridlock is unusual, thousands of trucks line up along the main thoroughfares into Beijing even on the best days.

Beijing is particularly prone to traffic jams because it is a bottleneck point. Drivers from the northwest must navigate its rings of concentric circular highways to get to coastal ports or to head south. The sixth-ring road is the biggest, and until a new beltway is finished in the next few years, there is no alternative route around the capital.

Also entering the mix is the swell of passenger cars into the city from residents who have had to move further from the capital to find affordable homes.

Other cities around the world face similar congestion headaches. The worst are in developing countries where the sudden rise of a car-buying middle class outpaces highway construction—unlike in the U.S., which had decades to develop transportation infrastructure to keep up with auto buyers.

A recent study by IBM suggested some of the worst commutes are in Moscow, where drivers reported 2½-hour delays, on average, when asked about the worst traffic jam they faced in three years.

Still, Beijing beat out Mexico City, Johannesburg, Moscow and New Delhi to take top spot in the International Business Machines Corp. survey, which is based on a measure of the economic and emotional toll of commuting.

The mega-jam on the city outskirts comes as officials warn that downtown traffic in Beijing is steadily worsening.

State media on Tuesday reported that average driving speeds in the capital could drop below nine miles an hour if residents keep buying at current rates of 2,000 new cars a day.

At that pace, Beijing will have seven million vehicles by 2015, according to the head of the Beijing Transportation Research Center, and transportation will slow to what it was decades ago when China was known as the Bicycle Kingdom.

Beijing's roads now have enough capacity to handle 6.7 million vehicles—and that is assuming current restrictions stay in place, such as the one requiring private cars to keep off the road for one day a week.

Beijing's top ranking in the world for "commuter pain" comes even though it has half the number of cars of a comparably sized city, such as Tokyo.

The capital greatly expanded its bus lines and subway in preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics, and work continues to open even more stations.

Still, public transport remains crowded and many who can afford it prefer to drive cars.

Longer term, city planners pin their hopes on expanded mass transit, adding subway, light rail and mode dedicated bus lanes.

Sat Sri Akal ji Sariya nu

Saree janne kirpa karke 'je ayyan nu' kahho sadde navve member suleman shahbaz.

Mere we hunne ehna nal waqfiat hoye aa.. Teh eh nojawa panjab wicho gujrat to aa ji par es waqt barcelona wich hun.

So Saree janne please sadde navve member da sawagat karoo.

Dhanwad  :happy:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 2010 – It is unlikely the U.S. military will resume a combat mission in Iraq after Sept. 1, the top U.S. military commander there said today, citing progress in Iraq’s government and security forces.

Army Gen. Ray Odierno appeared on Sunday news talk shows today to discuss the U.S. mission in Iraq, as its combat role officially ends there Sept. 1. It would take a “complete failure” of Iraqi forces, he said, for that mission to change.

“We don’t see that happening,” Odierno said on CNN’s State of the Union. “[Iraqi forces] have been doing so well for so long now that we really believe we’re beyond that point.

“They continue to grow,” he added. “We continue to see development in their planning, their ability to conduct operations. We continue to see political development, economic development, and all of these combined together will start to develop an atmosphere that means better security.”

The final U.S. combat brigade crossed the border into Kuwait last week after more than seven years of fighting. About 50,000 U.S. troops are scheduled to remain there until the end of 2011 to serve in an “advise and assist” role, training Iraqi security forces. U.S. forces peaked at more than 170,000 boots on the ground there during the 2007 troop surge.

Odierno said that President Barack Obama’s Iraq strategy is well underway, and that the remaining 50,000 troops will pull out on time.

But U.S. involvement in Iraq beyond 2011 is possible, the general said. Such support would be at the request of the Iraqi government and would likely involve “technical” assistance. It would be similar to agreements the United States has with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, he explained.

“It’s about [Iraq] technically developing … protecting their air space, their sea and their land borders,” Odierno said on CBS’s Face the Nation. “If the government of Iraq requests that from us, we would certainly consider that.”

The U.S. military would consider providing combat troops, too, Odierno added, explaining that the United States wants a long-term relationship with Iraq. Obama and his national security advisors would determine the policy if such a request was made, the general said.

“If [Iraq’s government] ask us, that they might want us to stay longer, we would certainly consider that,” he said. “That’s part of our developing a long-term strategic partnership with them. That includes the security aspect.”

Terrorism continues to be a threat in Iraq, the general said, but extremist actions involve attempts to disrupt government and political processes. And despite last week’s bombing of an Iraqi army recruiting station in Baghdad, security forces are proven and more than capable of protecting their people, he said.

“We’ve been slowing turning [security] over to [Iraqi forces] for over a year,” Odierno said. “For the past four or five months, they’ve had the lead, and they have been conducting security operations, and they’ve been able to sustain that at a level that I think is acceptable.”

While optimistic about the shift in the U.S. mission in Iraq, Odierno said it could be five years before a U.S. victory there can be assured.

“We’ve made lots of progress here,” he said. “To say whether we’ve won the war or not, we can see that in three to five years, as we see how Iraq turns out. I think we can call operations a success, but in terms of winning the war, we’ve certainly seen some great bravery from our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who’ve served here.”

Man Physically Paralyzed By All Forms of Affection

Disease of the Mind

Matt Frerking, 39, from Portland, Oregon, is left immobile if he even has a romantic thought or sees others showing displays of affection.

The affliction has been diagnosed as a combination of the chronic sleeping disorder narcolepsy with cataplexy, a sudden weakening of the muscles which renders the person temporarily immobile but still aware of their surroundings and able to hear.

For Mr Frerking the feeling that sparks an attack is love and being around his family can send him into a state of physical paralysis.

He is unable to put his arm around Trish, his wife of 13 years, and suffers attacks on anniversaries. He can suffer attacks several times a day

“Holding hands in public is something that we can do for a few seconds at most, and that’s about it,” Mr Frerking said.

“Putting my arm around her is something that I don’t do unless we’re sitting down and I know that it won’t matter that much if I just flop over. I have to limit those things very carefully.” During an interview with ABC News, he described having to avoid “warm and fuzzy” feelings before passing out after looking at photos in his wedding album.

Attacks are also triggered by trailers for romantic films and Mr Frerking said he tries to stave them off by thinking about scientific research.

Carol Ash, a sleep specialist at the Sleep for Life Center in New Jersey, said: “In someone like Matt strong emotions are flipping a switch.”