Mohammed Yunus-2006 Nobel Peace prize winner

In an era where Globalisation has increased the disparity among rich and poor, we have Prof.Mohammed Yunus who devoted his life for the upliftment of poor through a unique scheme called Microcredit for poor...His idea has been replicated with good degree of success across the globe...Our very own Self help groups are based on his idea...Here's the profile of the man himself.....

Professor Dr. Muhammad Yunus (born June 28, 1940), is a Bangladeshi banker and economist. He is the developer and founder of the concept of microcredit, the extension of small loans to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. Yunus is also the founder of Grameen Bank. In 2006, Yunus and the bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for their efforts to create economic and social development from below. Yunus himself has received several other international honors, including the World Food Prize. He is the author of Banker to the Poor.

In 1976, Yunus founded the Grameen Bank (Grameen means "of rural area", "of village") to make loans to poor Bangladeshis. Since then the Grameen Bank has issued more than US$ 5.1 billion to 5.3 million borrowers. To ensure repayment, the bank uses a system of "solidarity groups". These small informal groups apply together for loans and its members act as co-guarantors of repayment and support one another's efforts at economic self-advancement. As it has grown, the Grameen Bank has also developed other systems of alternate credit that serve the poor. In addition to microcredit, it offers housing loans as well as financing for fisheries and irrigation projects, venture capital, textiles, and other activities, along with other banking services such as savings.

Mohammed Yunus, the man truly deserves Nobel Peace Prize 2006...

World of Nukes(Nuclear bombs)????

North korea joined the list of countries with Nukes last week....It joins Permanent members
of Security council P5, India, Pakistan, Israel...

Interestingly India deplored the Nuke test saying it could trigger tension in South East asia...India tested it in 1998 and made Pakistan to follow suit....Now they are condeming
North korea...What an Irony..

NPT- Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty has been put to silent death....India Pak North korea have not signed this treaty...The treaty itself is highly flawed...It allows P5 to continue
testing Nuclear weapons where as other member countries are not supposed to...This is the
precise reason why we didnt sign it...Iran will definitely go for nukes...

North korea's test will certainly trigger arms race in south East Asia...Russia and China support North Korea...where as US supports Japan...More than 50000 US troops are stationed in Japan...Japan will feel threatened by its neighbours namely China and North Korea who have nukes...They might go for one as well....

Rather than imposing sanctions on North Korea the world leaders mainly P5...US Russia China UK and France need to make introspection...Nuke does no good to anyone...Its just triggering arms race...They should lead the way in disbanding their nukes and other countries will certainly follow them...

A comphresenhive treaty for a nuke free worls is the need of the hour and not sacntions...

"That's what joining The 99 Club is all about"

This is an internet forward..A beautiful sarcastic narration about the way we lead our life...

Once upon a time, there lived a King who, despite his luxurious lifestyle, was neither happy nor content.

One day, the King came upon a servant who was singing happily while he worked. This fascinated the King; why was he, the Supreme Ruler of the Land, unhappy and gloomy, while

A lowly servant had so much joy. The King asked the servant, "Why are you so happy?"

The man replied, "Your Majesty, I am nothing but a servant, but my family and I don't need too much - just a roof over our heads and warm food to fill our tummies."

The king was not satisfied with that reply. Later in the day, he sought the advice of his most trusted advisor. After hearing the King's woes and the servant's story, the advisor said, "Your Majesty, I believe that the servant has not been made part of The 99 Club."

"The 99 Club? And what exactly is that?" the King inquired.

The advisor replied, "Your Majesty, to truly know what The 99 Club is, place 99 Gold coins in a bag and leave it at this servant's doorstep."

When the servant saw the bag, he took it into his house. When he opened the bag, he let out a great shout of joy... So many gold coins!

He began to count them. After several counts, he was at last convinced that there were 99 coins. He wondered, "What could've happened to that last gold coin? Surely, no one would leave 99 coins!"

He looked everywhere he could, but that final coin was elusive. Finally, exhausted, he decided that he was going to have to work harder than ever to earn that gold coin and complete his collection.

From that day, the servant's life was changed. He was overworked, horribly grumpy, and castigated his family for not helping him make that 100th gold coin. He stopped singing while he worked.

Witnessing this drastic transformation, the King was puzzled. When he sought his advisor's help, the advisor said, "Your Majesty, the servant has now officially joined The 99 Club."

He continued, "The 99 Club is a name given to those people who have enough to be happy but are never contented, because they're always yearning and striving for that extra 1 telling to themselves: "Let me get that one final thing and then I will be happy for life."

We can be happy, even with very little in our lives, but the minute we're given something bigger and better, we want even more! We lose our sleep, our happiness, we hurt the people around us; all these as a price for our growing needs and desires. That's what joining The 99 Club is all about."

State of Indian Cricket Team

Shastri has opined that Dravid needs to assert himself and has to come out of the shadow of Chappel....

I dont entirely agree with him..Lets give some more time to Dravid...We cant judge him just after a couple of failures...Public memory is very short....One great victory can change the fortune of indian team on its head and peole will forgive the failures..

There is an accusation that Frequent changing of the batting order has led to the downfall of our team in recent matches...I hope that they settle their top order in a few months time...Atleast by south african tour this november we should have a settled line up and each player should know the role assigned to him...If we keep on trying out various combinations for too long it will prove to be disastrous...I would prefer Sachin opening with Sehwag, followed by Dravid, Yuvraj, Kaif or Mongia, Dhoni followed by Pathan, Agarkar, Harbhajan, Munaf patel, Sreeshanth or Kumble.

Ganguly's comeback??? How he performs in the domestic circuit will be key to this.....With Dinesh mongia playing a good knock at Malaysia, ganguly's chances have certainly taken a beating...

Kumble definitely should be part of world cup....With pitches favoring spinners in West Indies he has a major role to play..

ALL THE BEST TO TEAM INDIA FOR THE UPCOMING CHAMPIONS TROPHY...

GLOBALISATION ?? WTO ?? Impact on INDIA

We have pretty much reached a stage where globalisation has become part and parcel of our life...It now boils down to the question of its impact on developing countries like India and under developed african nations.....

WTO which replaced GATT is struggling to find a breakthrough in realising its goal..US, European union on one side and developing countries led by India, Brazil on the other with their own agendas are fighting it out to garner maximum benefits of globalisation..

US and Europe accuse developing countries of not opening their markets especially in the sector of agriculture whereas developing countries point fingers at major powers of huge subsidies they dole out to their farmers their by shielding them from the negative effects of Globalisation...

Mutually acceptable solution is pretty difficult to come by....

The poorest nations of Africa are left in the lurch...With the fight between developed and developing hotting up, under developed nations are bearing almost all the negative aspects of globalisaion..They are finding it difficult to voice their opinion...

The positives definitely outweigh negatives when it comes to a country like India...We have reaped huge benefits in services (IT , Banking) and manufacturing sector because of Globalisation....But when it comes to Agriculture its altogether a different proposition...

Agricultire has shown a negative growth for most part of this decade..Every day 4 to 5 farmers are commiting suicides in various part of India...Lets take Vidarbha region where suicide rates are unimaginable...Cotton is their main crop...and are finding it difficult to sutain in the wake of Globalisation... Very low import duty on cotton has caused huge damage to the local farmers...add to this is the genetically modified(GM) cotton commonly referred as Bt Cotton...American MNCs tying up with local companies are promoting Bt cotton in a grand manner...The results from Andra pradesh shows that GM Bt cotton has been a failure...in some cases the use of pesticides has increased considerably contradicting Bt cotton manufacturers views that pesticide usage will come down drastically if Bt cotton is used..

We need to have some sort of protection mechanism for the farming sector so that our farmers are protected adequately from the ill effects of globalisation....

Globalisation will serve the purpose only when it reaches the poor....