ALL THE MICROSOFT MANUALS YOU NEED - FOR FREE!!

No, I'm not pulling your leg ! It's REAL, LEGAL & FREE. Visit the site in the window below to download the Microsoft manuals you need.




There's also an option to download all the manuals together, if you so wish. Click here to visit that page. 

DIABETIC? USE STEVIA AS YOUR SWEETNER!

Are you a diabetic? Then, welcome to the party as I am one too (since 2000)! 

In this Post,  I'd like to share my advice about an excellent, zero-calorie, natural sweetner to use which has NO KNOWN SIDE-EFFECTS TOO - STEVIA!

The first sugar substitute I used was Aspartame. It worked well. Later, I tried chocolates sweetened with Maltitol, but that didn't work as I had loose-motions every time I took a Maltitol-sweetened chocolate! So I dropped Maltitol and continued with Aspartame alone till around 2012. Then, one day, a neighbour asked me whether I was aware of  the carcinogenic (cancer causing) effects of Aspartame. I said "No!" but was shocked by the revelation! All the time till then, I was under the impression that Aspartame was safe to take because the WHO (World Health Organization) has approved it, but when I investigated more deeply, I found that what she told me was correct - though not carcinogenic, it is hazardous to those born with phenylketonuria (PKU). You can read more about this in Wikipedia. 

Wikipedia also discusses the pluses and minuses of other  sugar substitutes on the market like Saccharin, Sucralose, Lactitol, Maltitol, Maltodextrin etc. They all have side-effects if used continuously for long periods.

My neighbour then suggested Stevia to me. 

 

Stevia Plant

Stevia is a herb. All of us in India know that Ayurvedic medicines are harmless because they are made from selected herbs. I remember someone telling me as a boy, "They may not heal you ... but they won't harm you!". So it did seem to make sense and I started using Stevia instead of Aspartame from that time.

Simultaneously, I researched into Stevia and was happy when I discovered that worldwide it has been used and proven as a zero calorie, zero glycemic index, natural sweetner with no side-effects at all.

Although Stevia had been known as a safe natural sweetner since 1970,  till recently, only some small-scale industries in India were manufacturing Stevia commercially. Big names like Birla, Reliance, Tata etc. were reluctant to produce Stevia sweetners in India, maybe because they wanted to first collect sufficient evidence about its acceptance by society and by the medical community worldwide. Therefore, it was only around March, 2017 that Tata Chemicals finally came out with Tata Nx, their first Stevia sweetner.

Stevia is extracted from leaves of the stevia plant, Stevia rebaudiana. It is available on the market in the form of dry powder, pellets, tablets,  liquid and dry leaves. It is heat-stable, can withstand high temperatures and does not ferment. It has 150 times the sweetness of sugar and its effect on blood glucose is negligible. Though initially doubted as harmful, the US FDA (Food & Drug Administration) approved its use in 2008. In the EU (European Union), approval for Stevia was given in 2011 and in Japan, it has been used for decades as a sweetner.

In India, Stevia is used as a non-sugar sweetner for beverages, desserts, sweets, bakery products, chocolates etc.

Order Stevia online, now? 

POST DEATH ISSUES: AN OPEN REQUEST TO THE LIKES OF GOOGLE, MICROSOFT & YAHOO

Thank you for providing quality Internet services like email, chat, hangouts, maps and a whole lot more to millions across the globe!

Of late, I have been thinking of what needs to happen to e-mail accounts after the expiry of the respective account owners. Maybe, you already have plans in place and if yes, please ignore this message. If not, I would like to urge you to start thinking about procedures to put in place soon for folks who pass away.

The "Flowchart" below represents what I think should happen. It's far from perfect, but the idea is there and you could use it as a starting point to develop a full-fledged solution.

A lot of entities stand to benefit viz. the Govt can stop pensions to a pensioner who has expired or (in the case of an employee) his/ her employer will be informed. Govt cards like Aadhaar, PAN, Voter ID etc. may be cancelled. The deceased's  bank accounts can be closed & nomination executed, insurance terminated and a whole lot more. Another important benefit is that fraudsters are pre-empted from misusing the identity of a dead person to perpetrate serious crime, issues affecting national security, terrorism etc. Yet another benefit is that mismatches between the nation's death registry and people whom you identify as "possibly dead" can be used by police to identify those who died abnormally e.g. those killed in accidents, those murdered, those who went missing at sea and so on. 

I believe, the above are very important to all of us and someone needs to do the identification/ purging activity continuously. As those who manage public electronic communication interchanges, it is you who will be able to do it best, in in my opinion, and hence this request.

I would also like to suggest the creation of a "Digital Death Mandate" (DDM) which would form part of "Account Settings". The DDM would affect all of one's digital assets that can be identified through one's e-mail id. The email A/c holder must fill up & ratify it while alive. After his/ her death, it would be executed by Yourselves.

The DDM must specify one's next-of-kin & close contacts (names, email addresses, mobile phone nos. etc.), Aadhaar No. or equivalent, particulars of will (optional), messages to convey on death, future course of action regarding treatment of the deceased's email account and so on.

WELCOME TO YOUR L.E.D. LIGHTED HOUSE!

LED (Light-emitting diode) lights have been in the International and Indian news for quite sometime now and without doubt, they are EXTREMELY useful - to you, the nation and the environment.  You & India are benefited by lower electricity consumption.  And the environment is benefited by lesser Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, which means putting the brakes on global warming.

World over, energy is becoming a highly scarce resource and its cost is rising steeply. Between January 2014 and January 2017, average unit cost of electricity has nearly doubled in some parts of India.

Why? Energy production facilities are facing serious limitations in increasing their output due to the harsh damage they inflict on the environment as well as due to depletion in major world energy sources such as coal, petroleum and natural gas. Alternate energy sources such as solar, wind, tidal etc. are yet to turn commercially viable/ plentiful to plug the gap between demand and supply.

In this context, lighting of homes and public places by LED lights is a great energy saver. According to Govt. of India's UJALA website, as on 12-Jul-17 (around 6 pm), since the beginning of the programme, our country has saved 32,497 Million KWh (32,497,000,000 units) of electricity by using  LED light bulbs alone. In terms of money this translates to ₹13,000 crores. Greenhouse gases equivalent to 2,63,25,298  tonnes of Carbon-di-oxide (CO₂) did not enter the atmosphere - stopping global warming by that extent! Had they entered, the devastating effects of global warming would have been closer to us than it is now. (Note: UJALA is an abbreviation for Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for all).

You  too need to do your bit for India in this critical time of energy scarcity by installing LED lights in your house IMMEDIATELY. Of course, that means that you will have to spend a small sum of money in the beginning (about ₹500/= for 5 UJALA LED bulbs). But it will soon be paid back to you in the form of the savings you make from your electricity bills e.g. a 9-watt UJALA LED bulb costing between ₹75 & ₹95 will payback its cost in less than 1 year. For the rest of its long life (up to 15 years), it will serve you as a FREE gadget, giving you the same energy savings throughout its life! And that's not all. UJALA bulbs come with a 3-year guarantee. So if it fails during the first 3 years, you can simply return it and get a new bulb at no extra cost. Further, it means that 3 years of life being guaranteed and the payback period being close to 1 year, it will serve you as a free gadget for at least 2 years. LED lights start instantly and produce clear, white light that is superior to incandescent bulbs, CFLs and fluorescent lights. 

Assumptions made in calculating the savings are as under:

To make the investment even easier on your purse, an EMI (equated monthly instalment) option is available(*). So hurry, you really have no excuse to postpone switching to LED !

India's UJALA programme isn't running at full steam on the date of this Post. It is operational only in some states like Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh etc.

If you do not have an UJALA centre near your house from where you can buy LED bulbs, you may want to consider buying from online sites such as Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal etc. Yes, prices are a little higher (a WIPRO 9-watt LED bulb on Flipkart costs around ₹250/=, a Philips 9 watt bulb costs ₹180/= on Snapdeal & Amazon offers you a Crompton bulb of the same power for just around ₹144/=), but you will get your bulbs in a few days' time and can start immediately.

The impressive life of LED lighting (i.e. of the order of 15 years) is one of its most highly valued properties. Now, one of the most important factors responsible for life is the quality of LED chips used. Only established manufacturers can be trusted to use quality chips. Therefore, insist on buying brands like Philips, WIPRO, Moser Baer, Crompton and so on even if they cost more, to be assured of long life.

Buy an LED bulb now? Choose brand & proceed

    

     Buy WIPRO 9W LED bulb
   Buy Philips 9W LED bulb
   Buy Moser Baer 9W LED bulb

     Buy Eveready 9W LED bulb
     Buy Bajaj 9W LED bulb
     Buy Crompton 9W LED bulb

     Buy LED bulb (all brands& power ratings will be shown)

                                           Buy an LED Tube light now?

    Buy WIPRO 18 W LED Tube light
   Buy Philips 18 W LED Tube light
   Buy Moser Baer 18 W LED Tube light
    Buy Eveready 18 W LED Tube light
    Buy Bajaj 18 W LED Tube light
    Buy Crompton 18 W LED Tube light

    Buy LED Tube light(all brands& power ratings will be shown)


(*) - Documents required
1) For EMI – Copy of latest electricity bill and copy of Government authorized ID proof

2) For down payment - Copy of Government authorized ID proof.

JRD TATA: TRIBUTE TO A LEGENDARY, UNFORGETTABLE INDIAN

Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata (JRD Tata or  "Jeh") was born in France in July, 1904. Due to his monumental contributions to India, I believe he can never be forgotten by us Indians; particularly by those of us who lived in his times. An industrialist and visionary par excellence, it his he who laid the foundation of modern India, in part and nurtured its growth particularly through its difficult fledgling days after independence in 1947. (Note: Tata Sons Ltd is also popularly known as the "Tata Group" or simply, "Tatas").

There is a lot of information available on the Internet and  other sources about this great person, particularly the book "Beyond The Last Blue Mountain: the Authorised Biography of J.R.D. Tata" by R M Lala (ISBN-10: 0670844306; ISBN-13: 978-0670844302). So, I won't spend time repeating them here except at the level of an outline.

As of the 07-Jul-2017 (date of this Post), the Tata Group is a US $ 103.5 billion corporation. It has operations in more than 100 countries that are spread out over six continents. It employs over 660, 000 people world-wide. Jeh was Chairman of Tata Sons Ltd., from 1938 - 1991, an over half century period that was crucial to a young India that turned independent in 1947. There was no Indian leader who could envision a strong, self-reliant future India, what its future needs would be, prioritize resources and make & mastermind a plan to get there. It was largely Jeh and Tata Sons that took up this great responsibility, very quietly. Working close with the Government, he did this work eminently well. In 1938, when Jeh took over as Chairman, the Tata Group was a  US $100 million business with about 15 group companies. When he stepped down in 1991, he had turned it round in to US $ 5 billion enterprise with nearly 100 companies in its fold, many of them of the "core" or essential kind that supply the very lifeblood that sustains a growing India even today!

Why I decided to write this article is because I strongly feel that Jeh's biographers & analysts have left out a big void in their accounts of him. In their analyses, they touch upon almost every other quality and aspect about him - except the most important one, in my opinion i.e. his deeply rooted spiritual character. As one of Jeh's admirers, I've felt pained by this notable omission. This Post, is therefore a sincere attempt to fill up that void. It is an attempt to draw a portrait of the man from a spiritual perspective and then to emphatically claim that he was inwardly a saint and that that spiritual quality was the most important part of him.

He appears as a gently glittering memory in the mind, when I begin to think of him. He always had the  pleasant, smiling countenance of a man who is in very good control of himself. Level-headed and calm, he was not likely to get excited or show emotion excessively. Nor get angry often. Firm but gentle. Visionary. Thinker. Philosophical. Brave taker of challenges. And if you say that two good qualities in men are being logical and practical in mind, Jeh would be one of the best examples of such a class of men.

He was travelling on a journey in life. Going where? I can't tell but there was an unseen, inspiring force charting his life's course continuously. Like all things that we call "spiritual", it is something invisible and genuinely works but cannot be logically defined! It is reckoned by its qualities, what it does, the influence it exerts on others and what it produces.

To be spiritual, one must possess one or more of the above invisibles. So I've written a list (below) of the spiritual attributes of Jeh, as I best know them.

◊ Deeply people loving. Those who knew him personally tell us that he was kind and helpful. He was friendly and approachable. Human suffering caused pain to him. And whatever caused India to suffer was of deep concern to him.

◊ A highly "inclusive" thinker. Jeh once said "we all believe that we are trustees, and not owners, of very important national assets and we work for social objectives" when talking about the large number of Tata owned organizations spread all over India in diverse fields such as engineering, manufacturing, chemicals, education, health care, research and so on. His thinking welcomed Indians to work with Tata organizations, as honoured guests - a generous gesture that won the hearts of umpteen Indians and drew leaders in various fields of enterprise to the Tata fold. Those who joined were so well cared for that many chose to remain dedicated Tata employees all through their working lives.

Inclusive thinking also reveals an unselfish and large-hearted personality. And quite rightly, it was in recognition of his selfless service to the nation that the Government of India awarded him the nation's highest honour, the "Bharat Ratna" in 1992.

◊ Uncompromising integrity. Jeh has the personal reputation of never cheating, evading taxes, or failing to keep promises made. Though not the most important, surely, this is one of the reasons that at his death, breaking custom, the Indian Parliament was adjourned as a mark of respect to him - a rare honor, never-before bestowed on any civilian in India

◊ Apart from Parsi scriptures (that I suppose were close to him) love for the great Christian hymn "Abide With Me", and works of  literature that have strong spiritual content

◊ Choosing to live a frugal life, despite being fabulously rich !

◊ Being part of the Tata family which has a reputation for integrity and adherence to values over generations

◊ Being a stickler for integrity in business, work quality and adherence to healthy human values

◊ The final proof I have to present, and also the one that I believe is irrefutable, is the first stanza from Jeh's favorite poem, "The Golden Journey to Samarkand" by James Elroy Flecker:

"We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go
  Always a little further: it may be
  Beyond the last blue mountain barred with snow,
  Across that angry or that glimmering sea."

Note: You need to believe in poetry to accept this proof. So if you don't, please skip this bullet point completely!

Study this stanza quietly for a few moments. Then see, how well "pilgrim" in the poem describes Jeh. First, his lifelong integrity makes him worthy of being treated as a pilgrim. Then, qualities like being brave to explore uncharted terrains, going a "little further ..." in pursuit of quality & perfection in business, crossing "angry ... glimmering seas" of adversity (and continuing his pursuit even when he had to go it alone).

How do you feel? I believe that it is the pursuit of something that he saw "beyond the last blue mountain barred with snow" that gave him the lifelong inspiration, vision, energy, endurance, patience and courage to pursue his goals to the very end of his life.

With the above, I hope I have been able to accomplish what I set out to prove:  that JRD Tata was a indeed a saint in the business world. Despite his leadership of Tata Sons that was engaged in enormous, nation building/ sustaining tasks, his personal life was surprisingly simple and sweet. From where he now peacefully rests "beyond the last blue mountain barred with snow" his life will continue to be a beautiful inspiration to many.

---

NOTE: My first job was with The Tata Engineering & Locomotive Company, TELCO (now Tata Motors Ltd), Pune starting in 1981. JRD Tata who was Chairman of Tata Sons at that time, would visit TELCO often and on some visits would spend the entire day at work on the campus. I never met or worked one-on-one with him. I was too immature and insensitive at that time - it is much later and after working with a couple of other employers that I've learned to appreciate the values practised by this great businessman, and the powerful example it has set in the Indian business world.