What is the meaning of interlocutor?

Has the media misquoted him again? Shashi Tharoor is in the habit of shooting his mouth off quite often, rather tweeting too often about things that he felt is not quite right. And as always he has got somebody's goat. Sadly, the former Under-Secretary-General in the United Nations often forget that being Minister of State for External Affairs is a tough job. Even if he is right on some of the issues, there are too many who hates his guts for speaking his mind be it regarding travelling cattle class or on Nehru's policies.
See what his latest tweet is: see MEA website (http://mea.gov.in/) for official statement of denial of remarks wrongly attributed to me by some sections of media.
And there are many even from the ruling party baying for his blood.
In fact, it was a major achivement for the Stephanite from Palghat that, as an outsider, he won from Thiruvananthapuram in the very first election that he voted. After his illustrious career in the UN, few thought he would win from this Lok Sabha constituency. Many had betted on Neelalohithadasan Nadar of the BSP. Even though Tharoor was given the option of coming into the Union council through the Rajya Sabha route, he declined it seeking the people's mandate.
In the event, Tharoor won a thumping victory, defeating his nearest CPI rival P. Ramachandran Nair by a margin of around 100,000 votes (the biggest victory by any candidate in Thiruvananthapuram in over 30 years).
Is it the Minister's fault that the media would not understand him, a doctorate from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Massachusetts?
One only hopes that this Minister would not trip over a controversy that would see his exit from the Ministry

Lay Off the Layoffs

I always supported the free market economy. That was until they started laying off employees in the West. they were killing off people's purchasing power that is key to a good economy. How stupid that could be.
The companies that were laying off employees made huge profits is the apt word and were paying some of the top CEOs dream salaries. This was going for many years. And, at the slightest hint of profits falling (not going in the red, yet) they began sacking employees. The IT companies thought it safe.
They made a few costly mistakes when they did that.
First, they lost good, loyal hands. Secondly some of them could possibly go to a competitor taking along with them secrets and possibly skills that a rival lacked. And imagine the money they had invested in the employee during their trainning. It was actually foolhardy to sack people, often destroying lifes, families, careers and future. Even as there are no figures on the actual number of former employees who ended up in the streets in the United States, there were quite a few.
Thirdly, they were extingushing their own life line by sacking trusted employees.
Now, an article in the Newsweek says what I all along believed.
Lay Off the Layoffs

Small plane crashes into office in Texas

A disgruntled software engineer, Joseph Andrew Stack crashed a small, single-engined private plane into a seven-storey office building in Austin, Texas on Thursday morning.
Smoke could be seen billowing from the building, which houses offices of the federal tax agency. Most employees have been evacuated but one person is unaccounted for, a spokesman for the Austin fire department said.
The building is next door to FBI field offices, but the bureau said there was no indication the crash was deliberate.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesman said that there was no reason to believe there is terrorist angle to the crash.
The official said they were also investigating the possibility that the crash might have been intentional act by the pilot.
A spokesman for the Austin fire department said the plane hit the building at 1556 GMT. He said two people had been taken to hospital, but it was not clear if they were seriously injured. The fire department has cut power to the area to help it tackle a blaze at the scene.

Four wives, 30 kids, another on way

Hats off to 80 year old Hussain Ali, for managing to live with four wives and 30 kids. One realy wonders how he has managed to feed so many mouths. Even with one wife and a kid life is quite a challenge for many in India.
Maybe being in a village in Assam would mean little demands on the man. But I am still wondering how he met the demands of four wives, who are living in separates huts in the same compound. And Ali, who reportedly looks frail and emaciated, says: "Don't judge someone by his weight or height. I am young at heart although I am not going to marry any more and am happy with my 30 children and another that one of my wives is expecting."
Ali lives in Mohkhuli village in Lakhimpur district, about 370 km east of Assam's main city Guwahati.
"It is all god's gift and wish that I have a large family of four wives and 30 children," Ali says.
But the octogenarian cannot remember the names of all his children but claims that he knows each one by their face.
"At times it was hard to maintain the family, but now with some of my sons working, they help us financially," Ali said.

Kudos for a Green court

At a time when the world is always taking the fast lane with little consideration for slow modes of transport, the Delhi High Court's observation on February 10, terming the ban on cycle rickshaws on the city's arterial roads "arbitrary" comes as an eyeopener.
In this context I recall the move by the court in reducing pollution in the capital's roads by forcing green buses and autos forcing them to go for greener technologies. The switching to better fuel saw pollution coming down in New Delhi.
A division bench of the Delhi High Court observed: "Planet earth seems to be running out of options unless unorthodox and sometimes unpopular policies are pursued. Whatever be the nuances about the technical soundness of the exact extent of global warming, the signs are self evident - erratic weather patterns, drying rivers and a depleting water table, food insecurity, retreating glaciers, drastically reducing forest cover."
Turning down the traffic police's submission that cycle rickshaw pullers create a nuisance on the roads, the court said: "It would be important for public authorities, particularly law enforcement agencies, to display sensitivity when exercising the coercive powers under various statutes to the vulnerable situation in which the underprivileged populations, of which the rickshaw pullers form an integral part, are placed."
"This is a fit case where authorities should explore all options to reduce road congestion and consider all proposals from an overall or holistic perspective," the bench said while forming a committee to explore the options available.
"Our country is vast with an ever-growing population, alarming numbers of whom continue to swell the list of the unemployed. In these circumstances, any opportunity towards gainful employment, howsoever slight, is worth exploring - it may be part-time employment or full-time, it may be seasonal or regional. If these are recognised as legitimate, the conclusion that cycle rickshaw plying is offensive to human dignity cannot be understood at all," the bench remarked.
Terming that every person has the right to earn their living, the court said:"Prohibiting a class of impoverished persons altogether of the chance of livelihood in a category of non-dangerous commercial activity, i.e. hiring cycle rickshaws for plying cannot be supported as a reasonable restriction."

Hey guys, this is great news for you!

Hit the beaches... for the sun. It will boost your sex drive!
A new study by researchers at Medical University of Graz, Austria have found that the levels of the male sex hormone testosterone in men's blood rise accordingly with doses of vitamin D.
Vitamin D is a vital nutrient produced in the body after exposure to sunlight and contained in fish and meat.
In their study the researchers found that men with more vitamin D per millilitre of blood had much more of the main male sexual hormone circulating than those with less.
And the average amount of testosterone over the course of the year was subject to the same fluctuations as the vitamin D level. Both decrease from October - at the beginning of the winter months - and reach their lowest level in March because of the weaker solar radiation during this period.
The new findings back up previous research that found an hour of sunshine can boost a man s testosterone level by up to 69 percent.
Testosterone is the most important male sexual hormone. In males it is mainly responsible for the development of the sex organs, the formation and maintenance of typical male sexual characteristics, sperm production as well as the controlling of male desire.