My relationship with AON Hewitt has been quite sour. They have been pathetic, their service pathetic, to sum it up, everything of theirs has been pathetic till date. I don’t think they are gonna mend their ways in the near future.

When I read their brochure regarding their student insurance policies, I was quite fascinated with the amount of cover they provide for a reasonably good premium. It was more than a month or so after coming to Netherlands, and I had a problem with my ceramic teeth. It was coming out quite often, and my teeth under it was paining quite a lot, since the enamel has been taken away. I called up the dentist at the university, and instead of fixing an appointment, I was turned down saying that since I was not registered with them yet, I cannot be treated by the dentist. Besides, they didn’t have a slot to fit me in. Couldn’t argue with them anyway, they are not gonna listen in the first place. Next I called up the number for emergency medical assistance. They gave me a contact to a dentist, and I got the appointment with them the very same day, and got treated.

As per AON’s brochure, I am eligible to apply for dental treatments as long as they are not for cosmetic purpose. I filled up the application for claim, sent them the original bill. It was more than two weeks since I had heard from them. I called them up to ask them for the reason why there has been no response from them yet regarding my claim. To my surprise, they said that they haven’t received anything. Anyway, they asked me to send the scanned copy of the claim form and the bill to their email address. As if this problem wasn’t enough, they sent me a letter two weeks later, saying that they cannot reimburse my claim, since it was not emergency! I asked myself, “Are these guys crazy?”! Then I emailed them stating the fact why it was an emergency. I got the reply that they considered the fact and that the amount would be reimbursed.

Three weeks were over, and nothing happened. After calling them, they said that I haven’t payed my first month’s premium, and that’s the reason why I haven’t been reimbursed yet. And the policy is that a person should be reimbursed within three weeks in case of medical expenses, regardless of the pending premium. I wasn’t even told earlier, and now this was the reason. Then they said that they would do the transaction as soon as possible. I paid their premium the very day, and after a week or so later, they paid me. Something which should be done in two weeks took more than two months!

Now, out of no reason, I was charged extra during the month of Jan, for which after repeated questioning and pestering, they paid me back the extra amount taken till then. Again in the month of February, I was charged extra, and I paid them, fearing the same trouble they would cause me when it comes to medical reimbursement. This month, I get a bill from them for an earlier policy which expired last month, again overcharged!

I have written various letters to them, made quite a lot of phone calls, but no avail. Hope things turn out good in the end. All these remind me of the problems which the common man faces quite often in India.

The Engineer

An engineer dies and reports to hell.

Pretty soon, the engineer gets dissatisfied with the level of comfort in hell, and starts designing and building improvements.

After a while, they’ve got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and the engineer is a pretty popular guy.

One day God calls Satan up on the telephone and says with a sneer, “So, how’s it going down there in hell?”

Satan replies, “Hey things are going great. We’ve got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and there’s no telling what this engineer is going to come up with next.”

God replies, “What??? You’ve got an engineer? That’s a mistake — he should never have gotten down there; send him up here.”

Satan says, “No way. I like having an engineer on the staff, and I’m keeping him.”

God says, “Send him back up here or I’ll sue.”

Satan laughs uproariously and answers, “Yeah, right. And just where are you going to get a lawyer?”

Link

I found this on line and thought I could share this among you. This is the original text of what Swami Vivekananda had read during the parliament of religions. It also contains a rare photo.

Please circulate it among your friends!

Vivekananda.pdf

Jayatu Bharatam!

All this seemed pretty normal until the panda pulled out a gun from the depths of his fur, pulled the trigger and BANG! shot at the waiter, but missed.

The barman came over and said “Wha.. wh.. You just tried shooting my friend!!!”

The panda calmly replied “Do you know what I am?”

“Why yes,” the barman answered. “You’re a panda.”

“Good,” the panda nodded “Now go home and look up ‘panda’ in the dictionary.” And with that, the panda walked out of the bar.

The barman was a little unsure, however he was very eager to be enlighted, so he went home to find his dictionary.

After a while, he found ‘panda’ and quickly read the definition:

PANDA:1. A black and white bear native to China. Eats shoots and leaves.

Modern historians in India are taking a second look at the way the country’s freedom was achieved, and in that process are demolishing a number of theories, assumptions and myths preached by the “court historians.”

However, in order to grasp the magnitude of the issue, with its many ramifications, it is essential to understand first the concept of freedom as envisaged by Netaji — the ideal which motivated him to wrest it from the hands of the British by the force of arms.

In his entire political career, Subhas Chandra Bose was guided by two cardinal principles in his quest for his country’s emancipation: that there could be no compromise with alien colonialists on the issue, and that on no account would the country be partitioned. The Indian geographical unity was to be maintained at all costs.

As we have already seen, the unfortunate turn of events during World War II prevented Netaji’s dream of his victorious march to Delhi at the head of his Indian National Army from becoming a reality.

In his and his army’s absence in a post-war India, politicians under the leadership of Gandhi and Nehru did exactly what Netaji never wanted: they negotiated and compromised with the British on the issue of freedom, and in their haste to get into power, agreed to a formula of partitioning India presented to them by the British.

The transfer of power was followed by two more developments that were alien to Netaji’s philosophy and his blueprint for a free India: introduction of a parliamentary democratic system by Nehru and his decision to keep India in the British Commonwealth of Nations.

It was a truncated freedom, achieved over the bloodbath of millions who had perished in fratricidal religious rioting during the process of partition, as the erstwhile India emerged on the world map as the two nations of India and Pakistan.

Even so, the fragmented freedom that fell as India’s share after the British had skilfully played their age-old game of divide and rule came not as a result of Gandhi’s civil disobedience and non-violent movement as the court historians would have us believe; nor was it due to persistent negotiations by Nehru and other Indian National Congress leaders on the conference table, which the British found so easy to keep stalling. The British finally quit when they began to feel the foundations of loyalty being shaken among the British Indian soldiers-the mainstay of the colonial power-as a result of the INA exploits that became known to the world after the cessation of hostilities in East Asia.

Ramesh Chandra Majumdar, the eminent Indian historian who passed away recently, and who by virtue of his challenges to several historical myths can rightly be called the Dean of new historians in India, observed in his book Three Phases of India’s Struggle for Freedom:

There is, however, no basis for the claim that the Civil Disobedience Movement directly led to independence. The campaigns of Gandhi … came to an ignoble end about fourteen years before India achieved independence … During the First World War the Indian revolutionaries sought to take advantage of German help in the shape of war materials to free the country by armed revolt. But the attempt did not succeed. During the Second World War Subhas Bose followed the same method and created the INA. In spite of brilliant planning and initial success, the violent campaigns of Subhas Bose failed … The Battles for India’s freedom were also being fought against Britain, though indirectly, by Hitler in Europe and Japan in Asia. None of these scored direct success, but few would deny that it was the cumulative effect of all the three that brought freedom to India…

…In particular, the revelations made by the INA trial, and the reaction it produced in India, made it quite plain to the British, already exhausted by the war, that they could no longer depend upon the loyalty of the seapoys for maintaining their authority in India. This had probably the greatest influence upon their final decision to quit India.[44]

Despite Japan’s defeat and the consequent withering away of the Indian National Army on the India-Burma front, both Subhas Chandra Bose and his INA became household names throughout the country as the returning soldiers were sought to be prosecuted by the British. By then, the Congress leadership under Gandhi and Nehru had pre-empted itself, and the year 1945 seemed relatively calm and uneventful. However, Netaji and his legend worked up a movement all over the country which even a Gandhi could never produce. Echoing this mass upsurge Michael Edwardes wrote in his Last Years of British India:

The Government of India had hoped, by prosecuting members of the INA, to reinforce the morale of the Indian army. It succeeded only in creating unease, in making the soldiers feel slightly ashamed that they themselves had supported the British. If Bose and his men had been on the right side-and all India now confirmed that they were-then Indians in the Indian army must have been on the wrong side. It slowly dawned upon the Government of India that the backbone of the British rule, the Indian army, might now no longer be trustworthy. The ghost of Subhas Bose, like Hamlet’s father, walked the battlements of the Red Fort (where the INA soldiers were being tried), and his suddenly amplified figure overawed the conference that was to lead to independence.

Apart from revisionist historians, it was none other than Lord Clement Atlee himself, the British Prime Minster responsible for conceding independence to India, who gave a shattering blow to the myth sought to be perpetuated by court historians, that Gandhi and his movement had led the country to freedom. Chief justice P.B. Chakrabarty of Calcutta High Court, who had also served as the acting Governor of West Bengal in India, disclosed the following in a letter addressed to the publisher of Dr. R.C. Majumdar’s book A History of Bengal. The Chief Justice wrote:

You have fulfilled a noble task by persuading Dr. Majumdar to write this history of Bengal and publishing it … In the preface of the book Dr. Majumdar has written that he could not accept the thesis that Indian independence was brought about solely, or predominantly by the non-violent civil disobedience movement of Gandhi. When I was the acting Governor, Lord Atlee, who had given us independence by withdrawing the British rule from India, spent two days in the Governor’s palace at Calcutta during his tour of India. At that time I had a prolonged discussion with him regarding the real factors that had led the British to quit India. My direct question to him was that since Gandhi’s “Quit India” movement had tapered off quite some time ago and in 1947 no such new compelling situation had arisen that would necessitate a hasty British departure, why did they have to leave? In his reply Atlee cited several reasons, the principal among them being the erosion of loyalty to the British Crown among the Indian army and navy personnel as a result of the military activities of Netaji. Toward the end of our discussion I asked Atlee what was the extent of Gandhi’s influence upon the British decision to quit India. Hearing this question, Atlee’s lips became twisted in a sarcastic smile as he slowly chewed out the word, “m-i-n-i-m-a-l!”

When the new version of the history of the Twentieth Century India, and especially the episode of the country’s unique struggle for independence comes to be written, it will no doubt single out but one person who made the most significant and outstanding contribution among all his compatriots toward the emancipation of his motherland from the shackles of an alien bondage. During World War II this man strode across two continents like a colossus, and the footsteps of his army of liberation reverberated through the forests and plains of Europe and the jungles and mountains of Asia. His armed assaults shook the very foundations of the British Empire. His name was Subhas Chandra Bose.

This article is from a site named Tamilnation.org. But this site is currently unavailable bcoz of its support for LTTE. Prabhakaran, late LTTE chief was an admirer of Netaji. But I found this article of high quality as it had a good bibliography and was written on an essay style

I thank Rajendran for this article at the Indian History community in orkut.

A little boy wanted Rs.50 very badly and prayed for weeks, but nothing happened.

Finally he decided to write God a letter requesting the Rs.50.

When the postal authorities received the letter addressed to God, INDIA, they decided to forward
it to the President of the India as a joke.

The President was so amused, that he instructed his secretary to send the little boy Rs.20.

The President thought this would appear to be a lot of money (Rs.50) to a little boy,
and he did not want to spoil the kid.

The little boy was delighted with Rs…20, and decided to write a thank you note to God,
which read:

“Dear God: Thank you very much for sending the money.
However, I noticed that you sent it through the Rashtrapati Bhavan(President House) in New Delhi , and those donkeys deducted Rs.30 as tax ……. “

Good rest and sound sleep is very important… if u don’t sleep well,
The toxins in your body will accumulate… Affecting your health and your mood…

The main causes of liver damage are:
1. Sleeping too late and waking up too late are the main cause..
2. Not urinating in the morning.
3. Too much eating.
4. Skipping breakfast.
5. Consuming too much medication.
6. Consuming too much preservatives, additives, food coloring, and artificial sweetener.
7. Consuming unhealthy cooking oil. As much as possible reduce cooking oil use when frying, which includes even the best
Cooking oils like olive oil. Do not consume fried foods when you are tired, except if the body is very fit.
8. Consuming overly done foods also add to the burden of liver. Veggies should be eaten raw or cooked 3-5 parts. Fried
Veggies should be finished in one sitting, do not store.

We have to adopt a good daily lifestyle and eating habits. Maintaining good eating habits is very important for our body to absorb and get rid of unnecessary chemicals.

Because….

Evening 9 – 11pm: is the time for eliminating unnecessary/ toxic chemicals (de- toxification) from the antibody system (lymph nodes). This time duration should be spent by relaxing or listening to music. If during this time a housewife is still in a un relaxed state such as washing the dishes or monitoring children doing their homework, this will have a negative impact on her health. 

Night at 11pm – 1am: The de-toxification process in the liver, and ideally should be done in a deep sleep state.

Early morning 1 – 3am: de-toxification process in the gall, also ideally done in a deep sleep state. 

Early morning 3 – 5am: de-toxification in the lungs. Therefore there will sometimes be a severe cough for cough sufferers during this time. Since the de-toxification process had reached the respiratory tract, there is no need to take cough medicine so as not to interfere with toxin removal process. 

Morning 5 – 7am: de-toxification in the colon, you should empty your bowel. 

Morning 7 – 9am: Absorption of nutrients in the small intestine, you should be having breakfast at this time. Breakfast should be earlier, before 6:30am, for those who are sick. Breakfast before 7:30am is very beneficial to those wanting to stay fit. Those who always skip breakfast, they should change their habits, and it is still better to eat breakfast late until 9 -10am rather than no meal at all. Sleeping so late and waking up too late will disrupt the process of removing unnecessary chemicals.

Midnight to 4am is the time when the bone marrow produces blood. 

Therefore, have a good sleep and don’t sleep late.

March 10th, 2010

By Cho Ramaswamy

Now that M.F. Husain has settled in Qatar where there is total freedom, he is free of the shackles imposed by the Indian system on freedom of expression. All those who appreciate his art would now eagerly await his imaginative paintings of the leaders of Qatari society, hopefully not artistically clothed.

His fans would not expect him to confine nudity to Hindu deities alone; it would extend to all the religions. Having already painted his mother, daughter and Muslim kings fully robed, Mr Husain, being the freed citizen that he is now in Qatar, should be prepared to remove those clothes. How can the artist in him be satisfied with seeing Saraswati and Parvati alone in the nude?

Fortunately for art in the nude, the courts here cannot do anything to Mr Husain now that he has run away from the Indian judicial system. All the cases could be now buried amidst the pictures drawn by him. Both would mercifully go to the dustbin.

I am very anxious not to get branded as communal in my thinking. I want to be hailed as a secularist and so I would say with all the force I can command that Mr Husain has the inalienable right to depict the Hindu deities in the most obscene manner while taking care to paint even non-religious Muslims fully clothed.

He can claim that because he hates Hitler he painted him in the nude so he could humiliate him and in the same breath justify his nude pictures of Hindu goddesses as depiction of purity.

And because I am secular, I would also assert that his not returning to India is only to gain freedom from the Indian fascism and not to avoid being apprehended by the law enforcers in this country. Being a liberal-minded artist, he naturally is not able to put up with the protests which do not harm him in any way.

Shunning the Indian system and preferring the Qatar environment is not an act of hypocrisy but one of liberal, secular and free thought. And now that Mr Husain has established himself as such a stout campaigner for free expression, I must believe firmly that he will forcefully plead with his new protectors in Qatar to roll out of a bit of that red carpet to Taslima Nasreen, another hounded victim from the literary world.

- Cho S. Ramaswamy is a well-known political
analyst, actor, dramatist and editor of
Tamil magazine Tughlak

In delivering the ruling, the judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous. The Judge stated, nevertheless, that the lawyer held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure them against fire, without defining what is considered to be unacceptable fire, and was obligated to pay the claim. Rather than endure lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15,000 to the lawyer for his loss of the rare cigars lost in the “fires.”

NOW FOR THE BEST PART… After the lawyer cashed the check, the insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of ARSON!!!! With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and was sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000 fine. This is a true story and was the 1st place winner in the recent Criminal Lawyers Award Contest.