Information – Knowledge +
An opportunity to learn Indian Languages – Technology Development for Indian Languages (TDIL) Programme
An opportunity to learn Indian Languages – Technology Development for Indian Languages (TDIL) Programme
Here is an opportunity for you to learn Indian Languages. On behalf of the Technology Development for Indian Languages Programme, Department of Information Technology (DIT), Govt. India is distributing free language learning CDs to your home address.
It is very easy for you to obtain them.
– Log on to http://www.ildc.in/
– Click on to any language listed on the left side.
– On right side you will find a button for registering your details. Register with a user id and password.
– Once registered, log on and then request for any number of languages, that you may wish to learn.
Why hesitate, give it a try and learn one (or many) new language in 2011.
This is what the introduction on the site have described about this programme:
India is a multilingual country with as many as 22 scheduled languages and computer technology breaks the language barrier and bridges the gap between the various sections of the society through easier access to information using their respective languages and hence language computing becomes central to the exchange of information across speakers of various languages.
Technology Development for Indian Languages (TDIL) Programme initiated by the Department of Information Technology (DIT), Govt. India has the objective to develop information processing tools to facilitate human machine interaction in Indian languages and to develop technologies to access multilingual knowledge resources. Department of Information Technology launched another major initiative called National Rollout Plan to aggregate these software tools and to make these available through a web based Indian Language Data Centre (ILDC). This activity is being executed in close coordination with CDAC,GIST,Pune. Under this user friendly software tools and fonts are being made available free for public through language CDs and web downloads for the benefit of masses.
The availability of these software tools, fonts and resources in local languages at no cost is intended to motivate general public to use ICT tools and technology in their day to day work like Word Processing, Presentation preparation, Spread Sheets preparation, Web Page Surfing & Designing, Messaging etc. in local languages. Further, the consolidated availability of linguistic resources and tools at one place will help researchers to carry out their research in a smooth and efficient manner.
7 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers
7 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers
Blogging is IN!
And it’s here to stay!
Blogs are easy to set up and use.
And you can create a good blog by writing out the thoughts that roam in your mind and presto – and you’ll be blogging like a pro before you even know it!
Here are 7 essential habits you should develop if you want to be a highly effective blogger:
Blogging Habit #1 – Determine Your Purpose
Highly effective bloggers blog with a clear purpose in mind.
So decide on a purpose for your blog.
Blogs exist to filter information, organize business information, share news and profitable content, establish professional identities and bonds, discuss social issues, or muse about life in general.
Beginning in a focused manner is one of the best ways to start a blog.
And knowing your ‘mission’ will help you accomplish more with your blog.
Blogging Habit #2 – Define Your Audience
Highly effective bloggers understand their target audience.
Their wants, needs, likes and dislikes, and possible reactions and responses.
So always reflect on your anticipated audience.
You conduct yourself differently with friends than you will with professional associates, strangers, customers, or family members.
Knowing who you’re writing to beforehand, allows you to adopt acceptable and appropriate tones in your blog journals.
Blogging Habit #3 – Blog With Passion
Blog with passion!
And the best way to achieve this is to write on a topic you are most passionate about.
And the more you’re passionate about a topic, the more it’ll show in your writing.
Remember, a blog is the place for voicing opinions – Your Opinions!
So, engage your readers with a passion and make your writing interesting.
Blogging Habit #4 – Blog Frequently
Highly effective bloggers understand the importance of blogging frequently.
Your aim, as a blogger, is to get interested readers to return to your site to see the latest scoop, what’s new and what’s not, the ‘ins’ and ‘outs’.
To this end, aim to post several times a week.
If not, at least once a week.
Frequent posting creates dialogue that invites your readers to return to your blog.
It will increase the ‘stickiness’ of your blog i.e. the ability to attract returning visitors.
And they’ll keep coming back if they like what you write about.
Blogging Habit #5 – Blog Honestly
Credibility counts, so be honest.
Respect your audience and all bloggers.
Words can live forever on the net so be courteous too.
Manners never go out of style.
Ethics and integrity are necessary and keep your own standards high.
So stick to them!
Blogging Habit #6 – Encourage Interactivity
Blogs should not be a ‘one-way’ communication tool.
As far as possible, always encourage feedback by encouraging your readers to comment on your blog postings.
Allow your readers to air their own views.
Whether or not they agree with you.
Turn your blog into a virtual community and platform for exchanging of ideas, views and opinions.
Blogging Habit #7 – Link to Other Blogs
Highly effective bloggers understand the importance and value of linking.
Linking to other blogs allow your readers to expand their realm of knowledge and experience beyond what you can offer.
Because you want your readers to have more than a ‘single’ opinion of the topic in question.
And readers will appreciate your openness and reward you through return visits to your blog.
Bloggers actually amplify each other’s voices when they cross-link with each other, forming a grassroots network of information sharing that can form social alliances.
Most blog audiences start with small numbers, but with frequent and regularly scheduled updates, your audience should grow.
Put into practice these 7 blogging habits and transform yourself into a highly effective blogger starting today!
About the Author
Fabian Lim is a Web Analytics & Internet Marketing Consultant.He helps organizations and individuals succeed online. Visit his website at http://www.BizSuccessOnline.com and blog at http://www.fabianlim.name
Venus, Moon conjunction on New Year’s Eve
Venus, Moon conjunction on New Year’s Eve
New Delhi, Dec 30 : As the sun goes down Wednesday evening, two of the brightest objects in the winter sky – Venus and Moon – will get together to bid farewell to 2008.
A beautiful conjunction of Venus and the slender crescent Moon will be visible in the southwestern sky for hours after sunset on New Year’s Eve.
“The winter sky is very clear and you can have a spectacular vision of the celestial activity even with naked eyes,” Nehru Planetarium director N. Rathnasree told IANS.
“Venus blazes high and alone in the western sky at dusk. It will remain a beacon in sky throughout January, shining brighter than any other dot of light in the sky,” Rathnashree added.
Venus and Jupiter spent all of December 2008 blazing away in the western sunset sky. At the start of December, the two planets were side by side. Then, day by day, throughout December, they drifted apart.
“Watching Venus and Moon in conjunction is a wonderful way to end the new year,” said amateur astronaut Avinash Gupta.
Smart soldiers first to die in action?
Smart soldiers first to die in action?
20 Dec 2008, AGENCIES (from TIMES OF INDIA)
A team of researchers studied Scottish soldiers who survived World War II and found that they were less intelligent than men who gave their lives defeating the Third Reich, a new study of British government records concludes.
The 491 Scots who died and had taken IQ tests at age 11 achieved an average IQ score of 100.8. Several thousand survivors who had taken the same test — which was administered to all Scottish children born in 1921 — averaged 97.4.
The unprecedented demands of the second world war — fought more with brains than with brawn compared with previous wars —might account for the skew, says Ian Deary, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh, who led the study.
His team’s study melded records from Scottish army units with results of national tests performed by all 11-year-olds in 1932. The tests assessed verbal reasoning, mathematics and spatial skills.
“No other country has ever done such a whole-population test of the mental ability of its population,” Deary says. Other studies have found that childhood IQs accurately predict intelligence later in life.
Deary’s team had previously theorised that less intelligent men were more likely to be rejected for military service. The new study appears to refute that suggestion. Men who didn’t serve were more intelligent than surviving veterans, and of equal intelligence to those who died.
Dr. R V G Menon ന്റെ പ്രഭാഷണം ഇന്നു അബുദാബി കെ എസ് സി യില്
Dr. R V G Menon ന്റെ പ്രഭാഷണം ഇന്നു അബുദാബി കെ എസ് സി യില്
ഇന്നു രാത്രി 9 മണിക്ക് Dr. R. V. G. Menon, Abu Dhabi കെ എസ് സി യില് പ്രസംഗിക്കുന്നു.
Abu Dhabi 16 Nov 2008: At 9.00pm today, Dr. R.V.G. Menon, Scientist, and former president of Kerala Sashtra Shahithya Parithad speaks on ‘CIVIL NUCLEAR AGREEMENT WITH USA – Political and Economic Impact including slowing World economy.
അബുദാബിയില് മഴ വന്നു 16 Nov 2008
അബുദാബിയില് മഴ വന്നു 16 Nov 2008
KMCC അബു ദാബി മലപ്പുറം ജില്ല കമ്മിറ്റിയുടെ സമൂഹ വിവാഹ സംഗമങ്ങള്
KMCC അബു ദാബി മലപ്പുറം ജില്ല കമ്മിറ്റിയുടെ സമൂഹ വിവാഹ സംഗമങ്ങള്
English Matters – Helping your child speak English
English Matters – Helping your child speak English
Monday June 30 2008 22:51 IST Albert P’Rayan for EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
Recently I attended a parents-teachers meeting at a school where my 6-year old son studies. The meeting lasted for an hour. The interaction between the class teacher and parents was lively.
The parents who were present there raised a few questions that were related to enabling their wards’ conversational English. I take the following two questions for discussion:
1. “What steps do you take to make students speak English at school?” 2. “Could you suggest ways to develop our children’s spoken English?” When the first question was asked by a parent, pat came this reply from the teacher. “My mother tongue is different from yours. I don’t speak the language your children speak at home. In this situation there are only two possibilities. I should communicate with them either in English or Hindi. If I speak in Hindi not a single child will understand what I tell them. So I speak to them in English.” The teacher’s message is very clear. Exposure to English does wonders. The teacher does not know the students’ first language and so she communicates with them in the target language. Her English is quite good. She is fluent and her utter ances are accurate. She is very interactive and it provides ample opportunities for the students to use English in the classroom. The exposure to the English language has helped students develop their listening and speaking skills to a great extent.
I had a feeling of satisfaction after the meeting and I told my son that he was lucky to have such a good teacher of English. A teacher is expected to be a role model for her students.
The second question for discussion is how we can develop our children’s spoken English.
Parents are also expected to play an important role in helping their children learn English at home.
Let me start with my own example. My son, Aldeesh, is fond of stories. He enjoys reading and listening to stories and it has become a habit for me and my wife to narrate stories to him almost every day Whenever a guest comes home, he asks .
them to tell him a story. Listening to stories has had a positive impact on him.
Here I explain how I, as a parent, helped Aldeesh develop his English language skills.
STAGE 1 I narrated a story to the child and asked him to narrate the same story back to me. At the initial stage he was a bit reluctant but later he gained confidence and became very enthusiastic. The reason is very simple. My aim was to develop his fluency in the target language. I never tried to stop him while he was narrating a story. In other words, I tolerated his grammatical errors. The teacher in me did not play any role.
As an enthusiastic listener, he listened to me actively and developed his listening skills. Then without fear or inhibition he recounted the story and it helped him develop his fluency He proved .
the saying that a good listener is a good speaker.
His range of vocabulary is also good.
Some tips:
Speak simple English. Communicate and don’t complicate.
Don’t stop your child in the middle while he/she is speaking to correct his/her gram matical errors.
If there are grammatical errors, narrate the story again using correct sentences. By lis tening to correct English, the child picks up the language naturally .
Help him/her gain confidence.
Allow them to speak naturally .
STAGE 2 I narrated a story and stopped in the middle and asked him to continue the story. The objectives were to develop his listening and speaking skills and foster his imagination and creativity As days .
went by, he could create characters and narrate new stories.
Tips Be imaginative.
Narrate a story and stop in the middle.
Ask the child to continue the story.
Ask them to create their own characters and produce new stories.
Don’t look for logic in your child’s story It is .
not important at this stage.
Appreciate your child’s imagination. A pat on the back helps your child gain confidence.
Spend 10-15 minutes every day with your child for this purpose.
Look at this sample. The transcription of a story narrated by Aldeesh is given below. Though it contains a mixture of tenses and a number of grammatical errors, it was quite comprehensible.
“There was a lion.
His name was Jangu.
The lion was going to the other side of the forest.
There he saw a monkey in a tree.
The monkey was very frightened to see the lion.
But the lion is happy to see the monkey .
Then the monkey started running.
The monkey cannot run fast.
It was thirsty .
The monkey drank so much water.
Then he started running fast to the other side of the forest and escaped.
The lion was very sad.
He drink water.
Afterwards it saw a tiger.
Then the tiger and the lion fighting.
The lion jump up and stamp on the tiger.
He killed the tiger and he was very happy .” STAGE 3 Reading is an important habit that a child should cultivate at a young age. I have bought a number of story books for Aldeesh and I read the stories to him. The stories are in simple English and they do not contain any difficult words. I ask him to read one or two stories every day The regular reading .
practice helps him improve his pronunciation and reading skills.
Tips:
Subscribe to magazines such as Champak and Magic Pot.
Don’t try to teach vocabulary as a teacher does. Let the children read stories and under stand the meanings of unfamiliar words from the context.
Ask your child to read at least 10 minutes every day .
Albert P’Rayan is an ELT resource person and editor of ELTeCS for India and Sri Lanka. He can be reached at rayanal@yahoo.co.uk
A boon for would-be mothers
A boon for would-be mothers
Monday June 16 2008 11:33 IST Zubeda Hamid EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
CHENNAI: Grandmothers apparently, no longer know it all. A generation ago, they would have done everything from predicting the sex of a baby to helping with labour pain. Today, young women go for childbirth classes.
A recent trend in the city, childbirth classes are becoming popular. And it’s not just pregnant women who go for them, most are accompanied by nervous yet determined husbands, some by mothers and mothers-in-law.
Rekha Sudarsan, a psychologist and childbirth educator, who takes lessons on ante-natal and post-natal care at several city hospitals, said these days her classes are full. “I started six years ago with just one pregnant woman. Now my classes are full of expectant mothers, their husbands and in-laws.”
Nithya Ranganathan, who delivered this February, swears by birth lessons, saying that the classes gave her both an objective perspective on pregnancy and prepared her mentally and physically for delivery.
Sriram, Nithya’s husband, said the classes were extremely informative. “I had no clue what my wife would go through, but the class had helped,” he said.
Rakhi Kapoor, who runs Dwi Maternity Studio, said working women have a stressful period, when it comes to pregnancy. This, coupled with the absence of a joint family, had led to the popularity of classes.
The childbirth classes offer guidance in every aspect of pregnancy, including diet, fitness, exercises and breast-feeding after the delivery.
“I see a lot of women who are terrified of labour. Then there are the google-confused-moms who have no one to guide them,” said Sudarsan.
Though there seems to be only two centres at present – Progeny and Dwi Maternity Studio
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