Facts & Figures-57: Inflation down to 8.98%

The Tamil daily Dinamani, Madurai, reports that the country’s inflation rate has come down to 8.98% as of November 1, 2008.

Grateful thanks to Dinamani.

Facts & Figures-56: "Bimonthly Electricity Bill, Rs.1,02,468!"

I came across this news in a Tamil daily. The Minister for Power of the Govt of Tamil Nadu, Arcot Veeraswamy has informed the Tamilnadu Legislature that the electricity bill for the residence of former Chief Minister, Ms.J.Jayalalitha for two months was Rs.1,02,468 and that of the Chief Minister, Mr.M.Karunanidhi, Rs.15,000.

One wonders how many persons reside with Ms Jayalalitha and what are all the gadgets they have, to consume so much electricity! Especially when you remember her speech about ‘plunging Tamil Nadu in darkness’. Is not conserving power by minimising the consumption the responsibility of all of us, especially our leaders?

Facts & Figures-55: "4.34 lakh cases pending in Madras High Court!"

A Law Ministry report states that 4.34 lakh cases are pending in the Madras High Court.

Courtesy: ‘Ananda Vikatan’, Tamil weekly, November 5, 2008.

Facts & Figures-54: "250,000 Women Die of Cervical Cancer!"

According to New York Times (nytimes.com), an estimated 250,000 women die of cervical cancer, mostly in poor countries!

Detailed Wikipedia article on “CERVICAL CANCER”:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cervical_Cancer

Grateful thanks to the New York Times and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Facts & Figures-53: "Computer Penetration in Schools"

The number of schools in India with computers are 1,67,000-plus as of September 2006.

Courtesy: Report on ‘Strengthening Education Management Information System in India’ published by the union ministry for human resources development and the National University of Educational Planning and Administration(NUEPA)

Facts & Figures-54:

The latest estimates say more than 75% of U.S.households have at least one PC.

Courtesy: “All Things Digital” (www.allthingsd.com)

Facts & Figures-53: "Food Crisis will Deepen"

Even as the United Nations warned further escalation of food prices, the Food and Agricultural Organisation in its newly-released report has asked governments to go slow on a biofuel policy as it might have a negative impact on food security.

On the occasion of World Food Day on October 16, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon issued a statement which said 800 million people across the globe were going to sleep hungry every night even before the price rise.

Expressing concerns about surging food crisis, he described it as a  “colossal human tragedy”.

Courtesy: Deccan Chronicle, Chennai, Oct.16, 2008 (“UN Chief says Food Crisis will deepen”)


Detailed Wikipedia article on  ”FOOD  CRISIS/SECURITY”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_Crisis

Grateful thanks to the Correspondent who authored the above; Deccan Chronicle, Chennai and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Facts & Figures-52: "33 Nations Face Grave Food Crisis"

Thirtythree countries, chiefly in Africa and Asia, are experiencing “very serious” to “grave” food supply problems, two food assistance groups have said.

Presenting the annual Global Hunger Index (GHI) for 2008, the German food relief group Welthungerhilfe and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) warned against neglecting the fate of starving people amidst the current financial crisis. “Nearly one billion starving people are a scandal for humanity,” Welthungerhilfe head Mr.Ingeborg Schaeuble said. “In contrast to the banks, they are not to blame for their misery.” In order to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals, an annual additional spending of up to $13.6 billion is necessary, he added – DPA.

Courtesy: Deccan Chronicle, Chennai, Oct.16, 2008.

Grateful thanks to DPA and Deccan Chronicle.

Facts & Figures-51: "World Standards Day"

World Standards Day is celebrated today. It aims to create an awareness about the importance of standardization. For more details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Standards_day

Grateful thanks to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Facts & Figures-34: "GMT"

Greenwich was established as universal time meridian of longitude on October 13, 1884 .

Wikipedia article on “GMT”: (In Britain, during winter only GMT is followed; during winter, it is “British Summer Time; and many more interesting facts):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMT

Grateful thanks to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Facts & Figures-50: "Stalin Vs. Hitler"

In my limited knowledge of Russian history, I understand that Stalin was responsible for the death of around 15 million people during his 31-year dictatorship rule. Stalin easily surpassed Hitler in the scale of genocide. (Hitler’s score was only a paltry 6 million). The Russian strongman also destroyed thousands of churches and sent tens of thousands of clerics to gulags and their death.

Excerpt from “Non-Sense File: Saint Joseph Stalin” by The Colonel in THE WEEK, August 24, 2008.

Grateful thanks to ‘The Colonel’ and ‘The Week’.

Facts & Figures-49: "World Heart Day 2008"

Statistics released on the occasion of the World Heart Day 2008 (September 28th) are frightening. One should take it as a warning signal and take due care of oneself.

* 1.5 billion people or nearly one in three adults over the age of 25, will have high blood pressure, one of the biggest single risk factors for Carrdio Vascular Disease(CVD), the world’s number one killer.

* High blood pressure and CVD are increasing in prevalence, including among the young, and need immediate action and attention.

* World Heart Day, a major heart health awareness campaign now in its ninth year, is run by the World Heart Federation’s member organizations in over 100 countries.

* World Heart Day activities include health checks, organised walks, runs and fitness sessions, public talks, stage shows, scientific forums, exhibitions, concerts, carnivals and sports tournaments.

* Cardio vascular diseases have been projected to cause 4.6 million deaths annually in India by the year 2020.

* High blood pressure (Hypertension: >140/90 mmHg) is directly responsible for 57% of all stroke deaths and 24% of all coronary disease deaths in India at an underestimate, there are 31.5 million hypertensives in rural and 34 million in urban populations.

* In the treatment of heart disease alone, non-compliance with drug regimens and inability to change lifestyle is believed to cause as many as 1,25,000 avoidable deaths.

Excerpts from “Know Your Risk of CVD” by Dr.R.Sivakumar, Senior Consultant, Interventional Cardiologist, Meenakshi Mission Hospital & Research Centre, Madurai in The Hindu, Madurai of September 28, 2008.

Wikipedia article on “CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiovascular_disease

Grateful thanks to Dr.Sivakumar,The Hindu and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Facts & Figures-48: "The Chip is 50 years old!"

A grateful world celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Integrated Chip or simply IC as it is known to everybody.

To quote Dan Nystedt of IDG News Service, “chips are the brains and nervous system of every electronics device around, from computers to iPhones and are finding their way into more devices all the time, including cars and refrigerators, to make them more energy efficient”.

The inventor of the IC, Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments, went on to win the Nobel Prize for 2000. Unfortunately the co-inventor, Robert Noyce, passed ten years before that.

The annual revenue of the IC industry today is $ 300 billion.

Based on “Celebrating the IC’s 50th Anniversary” by Dan Nystedt, IDG News Service, September 12, 2008, which appeared on Network World.(

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/091208-celebrating-the-ics-50th.html)

Wikipedia article on “Integrated Circuit:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit

Grateful thanks to Dan Nystedt, IDG News Service, Network World and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Facts & Figures-47: "Mental Depression in the USA"

With all their riches and modern gadgets, one in five persons between the age group of 12 and 20 suffer from mental depression in the USA.

A study says that 27% people in the USA find it difficult to concewntrate on anything they do.

It has been estimated that in the year 2000 alone, due to mental depression, a loss of $ 300 crore has been incurred.

39% males and 22% females hafve been severely affected by mental depression in the USA.

Based on news item in Dina Malar, Tamil daily, Madurai, September 9, 2008.

Wikipedia article on “Major Depressive Disorder”:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_(clinical)

Grateful thanks to Dina Malar and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Facts & Figures-46: "Nauseating Figures"

1. About 65% of Indians defecate in places such as fields, railway tracks and abandoned or unfinished constructions.

2. Globally 1.2 billion people defecate in the open, and more than half of them are Indians.

3. About 2 lakh tonnes of faeces is discharged per day in the open in India.

4. On an average, a gram of excreta can contain about a crore viruses, 10 lakh bacteria, 1000 parasites cysts and 100 worm eggs.

5. 1000 children die daily of diarrhoea or other gastro-intestinal diseases.

6. Proper sanitation can reduce risk of diarrhoea by 40%; malnutrition and retardation growth by 60%; cholera by 72%; schistosomiasis (caused by blood flukes) by 77% and blindness by 25%.

Courtesy: The Week, August 31, 2008.

Grateful thanks to The Week.

Facts & Figures-45: "400 TV Channels in India!"

The Govt of India has given permission for 400 TV channels.

Courtesy: Ananda Vikatan, Tamil Weekly, September 10, 2008.

Grateful thanks to Ananda Vikatan.

Facts & Figures-44: "Breastfeeding Champ!"

Four-month-old Raul Montoya won the King of Breastfeeding contest held in Lima, Peru, to mar the Breastfeeding Wekk that ended on August 29.

Excerpt from The Hindu, Chennai, August 29, 2008.

Wikipedia article on “BREASTFEEDING”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breastfeeding

Grateful thanks to The Hindu and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Facts & Figures-43: "Rarest Disease in the World"

The rarest disease in the world, called Kuru or Laughing Sickness, affects only the cannibals of New Guinea and is believed to be caused by eating human brains.

Courtesy: ’501 Fascinating Facts’

Pushtak Mahal, Delhi

Grateful thanks to Pushtak Mahal.

Facts & Figures-42: "Inflation surges to 12.63%"

Rising prices of food items such as fruits, vegetables and milk pushed up inflation to 12.63% for the week ended August 9 from 12.44% a week ago. Inflation was 4.24% during the corresponding week last year.

Courtesy: The Hindu, Madurai, August 22, 2008 (“Briefly”)

Grateful thanks to The Hindu.

Facts & Figures-41: ‘Tsunami 2004”

The Tsunami which hit India and seven other nations in December 2004 killed a total of 157,577 people and an additional 26,763 were missing.

According to Wikipedia, the death-toll is more than 225,000 people in eleven countries.

Sandra Petersen has written an interesting article, “Causes of the December 2004 Tsunami” in Helium.com. If you want to read the article:
http://www.helium.com/items/1126400-tsunami-of-christmas-2004

Article on “2004 Indian Ocean earthquake” from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsunami_2004

“Tsunami Pictures” from Tsunami.com (Some awesome photos):
http://www.tsunamis.com/tsunami-pictures.html

BBC News In-depth report on the Tsunami disaster of 2004:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/2004/asia_quake_disaster/default.stm

“Article on Indian Ocean Tsunami 2004” from The Guardian, UK:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/tsunami2004

“Monday, December 27, 2004, 311 front pages of different newspapers from 39 countries – covering Tsunami Disaster” from Newseum, World’s Most Interactive Museum: (an interesting website to be studied in detail later): http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/default_archive.asp?fpArchive=122704

Grateful thanks to Helium.com; BBC News; Guardian, UK; Tsunamis.com; Newseum.org; and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Facts & Figures-40: “A Dime Costs Rs.5.7 crores!”

$13,22,500 (Rs.5.7 crore) was the price at which a dime struck in 1894 at the San Francisco mint was auctioned at Baltimore, USA.

Courtesy: The Week, March 20, 2005.

Wikipedia article on “Numismatics (Coin Collection)::
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numismatics

Grateful thanks to The Week and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Facts & Figures-39: 16 million descendents of Genghis Khan!

16 million is the number of male descendents of the Mongol Emperor, Genghis Khan, result of his 40-year policy of systematic rape of female prisoners, according to Professor Bryan Sykes, Dept of Human Genetics, Oxford University.

Courtesy: The Week, June 27, 2004.

Detailed Wikipedia article on Genghis Khan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan#Descendants

Grateful thanks to The Week and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Facts & Figures-38: “Coca-Cola’s Profit”

The world’s biggest soft drink company, Coca-Cola earned a profit of Rs.4500 crores in just three months! (i.e. in the first quarter of 2005 alone).

Courtesy: ‘Dinamani’, Tamil daily, April 21, 2005

Wikipedia articles on:

“Coca-Cola”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-cola

“Soft drink”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_drink

Grateful thanks to ‘Dinamani’ and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Facts & Figures-37: "Costliest Street in the UK!"

Steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal resides in Britain’s most expensive street – Kensington Palace Gardens – with an average house price £ 41.4 million.

Courtesy: The Hindu, Madurai, July 31, 2008.

Article on “Lakshmi Mittal” from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakshmi_Mittal

Grateful thanks to The Hindu and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Facts & Figures-36 : "Space Junk"

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There are about 6000 satellites in orbit and some 5000 of them are dead, said former NASA Director Ivan Kekey.

There are an estimated 1,50,000 pieces of space debris of the size of basket balls and tiny bulletfast pieces….. – New York Times News Service

Excerpt from The Hindu, Madurai, July 20, 2008.

Article on “Space Debris” from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_junk

Grateful thanks to the New York Times New Services, The Hindu and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Facts & Figures-35: "English Language Nears Milestone"

According to Global Language Monitor, a Texas-based company, English language will reach the milestone of one million words on April 29, 2009.

According to its publication on June 14, 2008, the number was 995,892 words.

As Rupert Cornwell writes in The Independent(UK), no one argues about the huge richness of the English language – fed by Germanic, Scandinavian and Latin streams, unrivalled in its readiness to borrow from every language. If there is such a thing as a world language, it is English, spread by the British Empire, then by the economic, cultural and military juggernaut of the US, and now by the Internet.. And, at every step on the way, new words are coined, or scooped up from other languages. English is evolving faster than other languages.

The native speakers of English have been estimated to be around 500 million.

Link to Global Language Monitor’s article, “English will hit its Millionth Word on April 29, 2009”:
http://www.languagemonitor.com/

Link to Rupert Cornwell’s article, “English Language nears the one million-word milestone” in the Independent(UK):
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/english-language-nears-the-one-millionword-milestone-473935.html

Links to “Global Language Monitor” and “English Language” in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Language_Monitor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language

Grateful thanks to ‘Global Language Monitor’, ‘Rupert Cornwell’, ‘The Independent(UK)’ and Wikipedia.

Facts & Figures-34: Rs.200 crores for 70,000 eVoting Machines!

The Election Commissioner of Tamil Nadu, Mr.Chandrasekaran, has stated that for total implementation electronic voting in the elections to the Local Bodies of Tamilnadu, 70,000 electronic voting machines would be required. The cost for this would work out to Rs.200 crores.

Based on news item in ‘Dinamalar’ (Tamil daily), Madurai, June 23, 2008.

Grateful thanks to Dinamalar.

Facts & Figures-33: "Four Lakh People Quit Smoking!"

More than 4,00,000 people in England have given up smoking as a result of the ban on lighting up in public places introduced in July 2007, according to a study.

Researchers say 40,000 deaths will be prevented over the next decade as a result of the ban.

Smoking was made an offence in all enclosed public spaces in England, including pubs and restaurants, on July 1, 2007.

Another study to be published by the Department of Health will show that a total of 2,34,060 people have stopped smoking with the help of a special service offered by the National Health Service since the ban came in.

Dr.Robert West, Director of Tobacco Studies, UK, said: “I never expected such a dramatic impact …. If the Department of Health can keep up the momentum this has created, there is a realistic prospect of achieving a target of less than 15% of the population smoking within the next ten years” – AFP

Excerpt from ‘4 lakh people quit smoking since ban: Despite some opposition to the law in England, compliance has been almost total’ (AFP), The Hindu, Madurai, July 1, 2008.

Article on “Smoking Ban” from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_ban

Grateful thanks to AFP, The Hindu and Wikipedia.

Facts & Figures-32: "Galaxies and Stars"

Our galaxy has approximately 250 billion stars and it is estimated by astronomers that there are 100 billion other galaxies in the universe.

Courtesy: Chennai Times, June 5, 2008

Grateful thanks to Chennai Times.

Facts & Figures-31: "Next to Wood, Coal is the OIldest Fuel"

Next to wood, coal is the oldest of fuels. The Chinese mined it as long ago as 1000 BC and used it to smelt iron and copper.

Courtesy: Chennai Times, June 5, 2008 (Toons & Trivia).

Grateful thanks to Chennai Times.