10 Women Friendly Industries of India

The modern day’s empowered women are on a mission to conquer the world and are giving stiff competition of men in every possible field. But unfortunately, not all the industries are female friendly and offer the same perks for greater work-life balance.

Here is a list of female-friendly industries that offers flexible working hours, good maternity policies, help with child care and most of all, healthy working environment, as listed by Ankita Shreeram on ItsMyascent.

#10. Education:

Teaching is a career that screams out for women’s touch. It is a line of work that is easy to get into and in addition offers utmost flexibility in terms of schedules. The demand for quality education and the subsequent rise in the number of schools and colleges across the world is bound to create new opportunities for women who aspire to utilize their time effectively.

#9. Sports:

Sports may seem like a dubious choice for many, but the fact is that, it is a highly lucrative career option that offers stardom and fame. With the emergence of youth icons such as Mary Kom or Saina Nehwal, and increased backing by Government, a large number of women definitely ought to be encouraged to take up this field as a viable career option.  

#8. Human Resource:

This industry has been traditionally dominated by women. The percentage of men working in this profession is very little, with most of them occupying the top notch positions, while the lower level is predominantly under the control of females.

HR is a profession that craves for the ability to understand the underlying issues, face the challenges, and respond to them rationally, that are traits most women are intrinsically born with. The ability to apply their inherent skills to take tough decisions and manage emotions can be an added bonus for women in this profession.

#7. Food & Hospitality:

This field provides an opportunity to unleash women’s touch and creative potential to the highest degree. It is a good career that offers a high degree of flexibility and autonomy, and in addition, does not require much investment.

Women’s inherent flair to establish constructive relationships with the customers and management capabilities can prove its worth in this line of work. 

#6. Health & Fitness:

This field is in fact the best line of work for the women. Opportunities in this field are plenty, especially in health related sectors such as beauty, physiology or fitness. Kindhearted, intuitive and people centric nature of women can be a big plus in this industry. Though the initial years can be quite challenging, the flexible and accommodative nature of this field makes it an ideal and the most desirable career option for women.

#5. Social Work:

Women are generally caring, loving and compassionate by nature, which makes them a perfect-fit for this profession. Here they get do a lot of service to the humanity, especially the underprivileged.

Over the past decade the number of women in this field has risen drastically and the rise is primarily attributed to the higher intensity of social service needs. This trend towards sharp employment growth is expected to continue in the coming years.

#4. Entrepreneurship:

Presently, an increasing number of women are turning to entrepreneurship in a pursuit for greater flexibility. Artistic entrepreneurship is currently the booming line of work for women that are offering autonomy and good income opportunities.

Women have a greater chance of being successful in this field due to the fact that most women have a strong academic background, tend to be neither pushy nor rude and most of all, have a strong drive for initiating activities.

#3. Fashion and Style:

Fashion and style has always been and shall continue to be the most desirable field for women.

This field demands artistic flair and creativity that comes naturally to most females. This is an ideal option for women, since it is something they generally enjoy and understand to minute details. Flexibility and work-life balance are other perks of this field, which most women are craving for.

#2. Public Relations and Marketing:

This is an ideal profession for women because they have a natural flair for keeping others happy. The work-life balance, huge pay packages and most of the autonomy make this the most sought after field by women in the job market.

#1. Media:

Media is a glamorous and promising field, especially for women. This field demands creativity, intelligence, good communication and most of all, the artistic flair, which most women are inherently born with. Huge pay packages and the added perks are some of the factors that are luring women into this field.

 

Ten Most Famous Business Cards Of Legends

In an era of Facebook, iPhone and Smartphones; the humble business card is at the brim of turning outdated. But once, the captivating business cards, of rich and famous tech tycoons, celebrities and politicians have marked a remarkable change from being pragmatic to giving an insight into their personality sticking to an old-fashioned manner but in their own unique style.

Here are the 10 famous business cards that belong to the some tech titans and celebrities which everyone would love to have a look at.

#10 Steve Jobs

There was a time when walkman was the future and iPod was outlandish. At that point of time, Steve Jobs, founder and CEO of Apple was in immediate need of business card to flourish his business. Following, he came up with a variety of business cards in a simplistic and unique manner. He started his creation of business cards from 1979.

#9 Eric Schimdt

Eric Schimdt, according to his card holds the title of “Chairman of the Executive Committee and CEO of Google”. Schimdt’s card was actually a talk of the town soon after it was created due to its typo errors. It created hype in the media because of his power and designation as the Search Giant’s CEO.

#8 Mark Zuckerberg

“I’m CEO, Bitch”, Facebook CEO and billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg, shows the world that you can get away with anything and everything when you’re the boss. The story of this title has been the talk of the town since 2009. The film “the Social Network”, based on Ben Mezrich’s book, announced the phrase to the world. Through his card, he shows that you’re the boss and can put anything on the card and no one can deny it. It marks a bold statement and presents an impression of radicalism or lack of concern and considered expression.

#7 Bill Gates

The colorful visually-appealing business card introduced by Microsoft founder and billionaire, Bill Gates. Back then, Microsoft was headquartered in Albuquerque. The card introduces the founder with a full title.  He might not carry the prestige of a former President, but his contributions to the society are far-reaching. The business card design and possibilities reached a matured stage where he has made the best use of it.

#6 Steve Wozniak

One of the coolest and most modern business cards we’ve ever seen comes from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. The card is made of stainless steel with creative design and laser etching. It is custom made and includes designs, both etched and printed. It is sleek, smooth sexy lines wrapped around future-proof metal.

#5 Evan Williams

Evan Williams, the founder of several internet companies, is known to be the creator of two most popular internet websites, Blogger and Twitter. Williams’ business card carries a logo of Twitter on one side along with his name, designation and the company name where he has looked forward to make it simple. It was created soon after he was raised as the CEO of the social networking site, Twitter.

#4 Barack Obama

The Senatorial business card of Barack Obama presents a rare archive of the 2008 Presidential elections. Barack Obama, the junior United States Senator from Illinois was elected as the first African American President of the United Sates. The business card carries the patriotic raised seal of a gold eagle and his name, designation and office details as United States Senator. It guarantees authenticity as it comes with a certificate.

#3 Walt Disney

The animation giant, Walt Disney, popularly known as Disney, created a business card hand-drawn which obviously sounds and appeals cool. It provided a taste of his passion and illustrative skills on the card which shows a vivid example of who he is and what he does.

#2 Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga teamed up with Polaroid in 2011 with an aim to restore the famous brand. The company designed a business card for the pop-music star which is quite innovative and catchy. It is designed with a logo of the company in bold characters alongside her name and designation as “Creative Director”. The texts, probably supposed to be the company’s address is striked off whch have made it catchy.

#1 Albert Einstein

Known to be the father of modern Physics, Albert Einstein, had a surprisingly plain business card which hardly had any justice to his theories, his personality nor his appearance. He has mainly focused on the simplicity of the card, rather than revealing his identity and profession.

Twenty Biggest Websites In The World

From online candy sales to a website to search other website, everyone has got a website under their name these days. The popularity of a website is the measure of visitors it has garnered, and it is what draws the defining lines between being big and being meager. If you were thinking Google is the biggest website in the world, you are wrong! It is another one from USA. comScore, the digital analytics company came up with the list of most popular Website in the world. If you are curious to know which ones found their way up in the ladder, then here are the 20 biggest websites in the world, compiled by Business Insider.

#20 Amazon.com 163 Million Unique Visitors

The company: Amazon.com is the world’s largest online retailer. Started as an online bookstore, it soon diversified, selling DVDs, CDs, MP3 downloads, software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys and jewelry. The company was founded in 1994, spurred by what Bezos called his “regret minimization framework”, which described his efforts to fend off any regrets for not participating sooner in the internet business boom during that time. Amazon was originally founded in Bezos’ garage in Bellevue, Washington.

The company also produces consumer electronics—notably the Amazon Kindle e-book reader and the Kindle Fire Tablet—and is a major provider of cloud computing services.

#19 Sina.com.cn 169 Million Visitors

Sina.com is the largest Chinese-language infotainment web portal. It is run by Sina Corporation, which was founded in 1999. Sina was recognized by Southern Weekend as the “Chinese Language Media of the Year” for 2003 and in the early 2000s, it was known as the “Yahoo of China.” Sina launched a microblogging service Weibo in 2009, and has grown to more than 400 million users. Sina has said it has more than 60,000 verified accounts, consisting of celebrities, sports stars and other VIPs. The top 100 users now have over 180 million followers combined.

#18 WordPress.com 170.9 Million Visitors

WordPress.com is a blog web hosting service provider owned by Automattic, and powered by the open source WordPress software. WordPress has been able to attract users by offering dead-simple tools for blogging and web publishing. Given that it’s open source, WordPress has the upper hand on other platforms that require licensing fees.

There are nearly 60 million WordPress.com sites, which receive more than 100 million pageviews per day. Everyday over one million new articles and over one million comments are published. Some notable clients include CNN, CBS, BBC, Reuters, Sony and Volkswagen. In September 2010, it was announced that Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft’s blogging service, would be closing, and that Microsoft would instead be partnering with WordPress.com for blogging services.

#17 Apple.com – 171.7 Million Unique Visitors

Apple.com is online destination for Apple products and software. It is the domain for the Apple Store as well as customer support pages for all Apple products. It’s bookmarked as the default homepage on Safari browser that is the default browser in all Apple Internet-connected products which are owned by countless number of people already.

#16 Sohu.com – 175.8 Million Unique Visitors

Started in 1997 as the country’s first online search company, Sohu.com is a Chinese portal and search engine. It offers advertising, online multiplayer gaming and other services. Sohu was ranked as the world’s 3rd and 12th fastest-growing company by Fortune in 2009 and 2010 respectively.

#15 Bing.com – 184 Million Unique Visitors

Bing is a web search engine from Microsoft. The Redmond Company has aggressively advertised Bing, and made huge efforts to make the search engine much easier to use, with the addition of things like the social sidebar and improved algorithms. Microsoft also pays other Websites to link to Bing.
On July 29, 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced a deal in which Bing would power Yahoo! Search.[6 hat it is: Web search engine.

#14 Twitter.com – 189.8 Million Unique Visitors

Twitter is an online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as “tweets”. Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and by July, the social networking site was launched. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with over 500 million registered users as of 2012, generating over 340 million tweets daily and handling over 1.6 billion search queries per day. Since its launch, Twitter has become one of the ten most visited websites on the Internet, and has been described as “the SMS of the Internet.”

The presence of news organizations, politicians, and other industry-specific experts have turned Twitter into the ultimate source of information.

#13 Taobao.com – 207 Million Unique Visitors

Taobao.com is Chinese marketplace for clothing, accessories, jewelry, food, electronics, and more, similar to eBay and Amazon, operated by Alibaba Group. Founded by Alibaba Group in May 10, 2003, it facilitates consumer-to-consumer (C2C) retail by providing a platform for small businesses and individual entrepreneurs to open online retail stores that mainly cater to consumers in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

#12 Ask.com – 218.4 Million Unique Visitors

Ask is a question answering focused web search engine powered by Google. It founded in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in Berkeley, California.

#11 Blogger.com – 229.9 Million Unique Visitors

Blogger.com is one of the earliest dedicated blog-publishing tools; it is credited for helping popularize the format. It allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at a sub domain of blogspot.com.

#10 MSN.com – 254.1 Million Unique Visitors

MSN is a collection of Internet sites and services provided by Microsoft. The Microsoft Network debuted as an online service and Internet service provider on August 24, 1995, to coincide with the release of the Windows 95 operating system.

MSN was once a simple online service for Windows 95, an early experiment at interactive multimedia content on the Internet, and one of the most popular dial-up Internet service providers. Today, MSN is primarily a popular Internet portal.

#9 Baidu – 268.7 Million Unique Visitors

Baidu is a Chinese web Services Company headquartered in the Baidu Campus in Haidian District, Beijing. It offers many services, including a Chinese language search engine for websites, audio files, and images. Baidu also offers 57 search and community services including Baidu Baike, an online collaboratively built encyclopedia, and a searchable keyword-based discussion forum. Baidu was established in 2000 by Robin Li and Eric Xu.

Baidu is one of China’s most popular search engines. It employs thousands of China’s best engineers to continually update the quality and speed of its search engine.

#8 Microsoft.com – 271.7 Million Unique Visitors

Microsoft.com is destination for purchasing Microsoft products, and downloading MS software and updates. There are a lot of Microsoft Windows-powered computers out there, and most of them come with Microsoft.com bookmarked for customer support and lots of other functions, no wonder it’s on this list.

#7 QQ.com – 284.1 Million Unique Visitors

QQ.com is China-based search engine and portal. QQ is an abbreviation of Tencent QQ, which provides customers with a popular instant messaging software service. Due to popularity of the instant messaging software service, by 10 September 2012, there were 784 million active user accounts with approximately 100 million online at a time.

#6 Live.com – 389.5 Million Unique Visitors

Live.com is Microsoft’s new email service. It was a customizable portal launched by Microsoft in early November 2005 and it was one of the first Windows Live services to launch. Live.com lets users add RSS feeds in order to view news at a glance. Building off Microsoft’s Start.com experimental page, Live.com could be customized with Gadgets, mini-applications that could serve almost any purpose.

Some gadgets integrated with other Windows Live services, including Hotmail, Live Search, and Favorites.

#5 Wikipedia.org – 469.6 Million Unique Visitors

Wikipedia.org is simply the easy and best source of knowledge. It is a collaboratively edited, multilingual, free Internet encyclopedia supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 24 million articles, over 4.1 million in the English Wikipedia, are written collaboratively by volunteers around the world.

As of February 2013, there are editions of Wikipedia in 285 languages. It has become the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet, having an estimated 365 million readers worldwide.

#4 Yahoo.com – 469.9 Million Unique Visitors

Yahoo.com is a search engine and platform that connects to users to other Yahoo properties, such as Yahoo Finance and Flickr. Yahoo is one of the original Web portals from the 1990s; it offers news, sports, finance, and email.

#3 YouTube.com – 721.9 Million Unique Visitors

YouTube.com is the platform for uploading, sharing, and watching user-created videos. It was created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005. In November 2006, YouTube was bought by Google for US$1.65 billion, and now operates as a subsidiary of Google, and the site got more popular.

#2 Google.com – 782.8 Million Unique Visitors

Google.com is web search engine, popularly known as ‘search giant’. Google entered a crowded search engine market in the late 1990s, but won because it was the fastest and had a clean design. It was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while both attended Stanford University.

#1 Facebook.com – 836.7 Million Unique Visitors

Facebook.com is the largest social networking site with over a billion registered users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow Harvard University students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.

30 Cool High Tech #Gadgets you will love for your home

Gadgets are becoming a part of our everyday life and like the mobile phone (one of the first gadgets) we are starting to be addicted, depending on them for our daily actions. As technology advances, so do these gadgets that we are fond of and we are amazed by the new concepts created by young and ambitious designers. These innovations appear from a necessity of solving the problems that old products have and besides new and improved functions, they also come with a beautiful design.

Transparent TV

The transparent tv designed by Michael Friebe is a marvelous piece of technology that combines conventional LCD and the latest TOLED display technology. This allows to create non-transparent / solid moving pictures with rich color reproduction and full contrast range from solid black to pristine white.

Floor Plan Light switch

Have you ever had a problem with forgetting which light switch stands for what light? Taewon Hwang came with the great idea of creating a master light switch with a simple design that shows you what lights you are turning on or off.

The AURA Lamp

Looking almost alien like, the AURA lamp lights up a room with a certain texture and that is because it’s a woven lamp hand made in France.

Dimensional Wall Panels

People aren’t familiar with 3D wall panels. I don’t know why, cause they surely bring a nice feel to a room, with their interesting shapes that create a beautiful arrangement of light and shadows. They can also be put in shops, restaurants, offices and because of their different that usual look they transmit a nice futuristic look.

The RIMA lamp

The RIMA lamp is one like no other because of its interesting feature that allows you to control the light via four controller rings that you can slide. This beautiful lamp created by Matthias Pinkert has a processor which controls the heat, intensity, angle of the beam and color.

Sony Eclipse

This Sony Eclipse concept created by Hoang M Nguyen and Anh Nguyen is a media player that uses photovoltaic cells situated on its backside to draw in solar power. With this player you have a slight change of seeing the battery low warning very very rare.

Pouring Light Lamp

A strange but interesting lamp that will surely be sold really fast if it would be put in stores is this one created by Yeongwoo Kim. The lamp uses LED lights that are situated in the bucket and with the help of phosphorescence in the “water” it lights in a marvelous way.

Door Handle With Self-sterilization System

Senzo Nightlight

It’s really annoying during the night when you wake up and not find the light switch. The solution is provided by Soledad Clavell and Marcos Madia who created this wonderful nightlight that lights up the room when touching it.

 

 

Electrolux Fireplace

This fireplace created by Camillo Vanacore for Electrolux looks almost magical because of its transformation from off to on, from an opaque ceramic column to a transparent one.

 

Eco Cleaner

Without using regular dish detergents, the Eco Cleaner makes the plates bright and fresh using ultrasonic waves to ionize food particles on the dishes, converting the food into reusable compost for plants. Less waste and more nutrients for plants are a good idea for the future and a solution for enriching the soil. Of course, we’re talking about the soil for the plants that you keep in your apartment.

Document Extractor – Combi Monitor

Saving space on the desk has always been a problem for some and to solve this issue Byeong Min Choe has come up with a marvelous idea of combining a printer and a monitor.

On Switch

Minimalistic and elegant. That’s how you define this light switch created by Burakov Denis.

Green Smart Glass

The Green Smart Glass has an interesting technology that harnesses the heat energy from the hot beverage and stores it to be used later.

 

iQ Alarm clock

Instead of the snooze button which you unwillingly press in the morning, this alarm clock has questions that need your lucidity to solve them. This way, you will surely get up fast in the morning.

Change It! Wall

This wall has been passed around on the internet for some time and has become a neat attraction. It’s not LED or anything digital, it’s actually made of turning triangles with different colors on them, white, black and a rainbow color. It is limited at these three options for now, but I’m sure we’ll see in the future various patterns and images.

Orbital Washing Machine

Washing clothes has never been so easy. With the incorporated basket you can load and unload the clothes in the washing machine as easy as 1, 2, 3. This isn’t the only innovative feature. The spherical drum is moving on two axes washing your clothes better than the old washing machines that use only one axe.

Bediator

Having a warm bed underneath you is a cool thing, especially if you’re in a place where winters are incredibly cold. Now I don’t know how much weight this bed radiator-bed supports but if it can take two medium people it is awesome.

LED Ceiling

This is an interesting concept created by Seo Dong-Hun that allows you to create on the ceiling the light shapes you want. Literally, you can paint the ceiling with light. Imagine the artworks that would result from some people’s imagination.

LULA Lung Lamp

LULA is a product that collects data and indicates the air quality in your room. If it’s connected to the internet, it can process the data and tell you the health issues that you are facing in that situation and how you can avoid having problems caused by the quality of air.

WAT Lamp

The WAT lamp has the interesting ability to generate light if you fuel it with water. Yeah, it sounds outrageously futuristic, but the system is actually not that strange. The water combines with a hydroelectric battery to generate an electrochemical reaction that lights it up.

Miranda

This surface tile is not for everyone but it is fun for sure, having the ability to morph the way you want it and create shapes and basic drawings on it. More info can be found on Giles Miller’s site.

WAVE Ultra Sonic Wine Ager And Refrigerator

Ever wanted to age your wine so that it will be of a higher quality? Now you can, it’s not only a movie idea. Designer Mika Yamamoto has created this device that does this incredible thing. The Wave uses magnetic cooling system that is based on the magnetocaloric effect, which is the ability of some materials to heat up when magnetized and cool when removed from the magnetic field. It reduces carbon emissions and increases energy efficiency. It can possibly cut energy consumption by 40%. It also reduces the cost of electricity.

The Wave Dish Washer

This dishwasher beautifully designed by Guilherme Parolin makes the action of washing dishes a piece of cake thanks to its user friendly control panel.

Swan Umbrella Dryer

Drying up a wet umbrella has always been a problem. Till Noh Seon Mi designed the Swan Umbrella Dryer, of course.

 

1limit Faucet

Unlike the +- water faucet which only tells you how much you consume and doesn’t technically help you to reduce your costs, the 1litre limited faucet helps you to consume only the water that you need.

iChef+ Oven

From what I’ve seen on the market, the ovens are not user friendly at all, having changed over the years only at an aesthetic level without modifying the process in which you actually cook the meal. The iChef Oven has an innovative and powerful computer behind it’s technology and I believe it can be considered a milestone in its niche.

The Book Light

This product with integrated LEDs in a plastic body is an interesting product for the people who read a lot and need a discreet light over their pages. Don’t worry about the light being to powerful, cause you can adjust it as you please.

The Tulip Bath/Shower

In a small bathroom there’s always a problem with space and the Tulip Bath/Shower designed by Piotr Pyrtek provides the solution. Saving space is not its only feature, having a number of characteristics that qualifies it as a luxury item, like underwater jets or massage programs.

10 Most Popular Books of 2012

“A room without books is like a body without a soul” said Marcus Tullius Cicero. There are certain books that are shelved as ‘must read’ and each year so many such books are published. Here are 10 popular books that were published this year, as listed by goodreads.com. These books are certainly a must read!

 

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green:
The Fault in Our Stars is the fourth solo novel by John Green and was published in January 2012. The story is narrated by a sixteen-year-old cancer patient named Hazel, who is forced by her parents to attend a support group, where she later meets and falls in love with the seventeen-year-old Augustus Waters, an ex-basketball player and amputee. Green stated on his Tumblr blog and his YouTube vlog that “the title is inspired by a famous line from Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar (Act 1, scene 2). The nobleman Cassius says to Brutus, ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.’”

 

Pandemonium (Delirium, #2) by Lauren Oliver:
Pandemonium is a dystopian young adult novel written by Lauren Oliver, which was published in February 2012. It is a sequel to the 2011 book, Delirium. Pandemonium follows Lena, the series’ central character, as she explores the Wilds outside the walled community she was raised in.

Fifty Shades Freed by E.L. James:
Erika Leonard, better known by the pen name E. L. James, is the British author of the bestselling erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey. Fifty Shades Freed is one of the popular books published this year. It is the third book in the Fifty Shades of Grey series. It was published on April 17 this year. The book is a mix of fate and spite combined to make Anastasia’s worst fears come true. Anastasia is the female protagonist of the trilogy. She is the primary love interest of Christian Grey, with whom she finds true love.

 

Insurgent (Divergent, #2) by Veronica Roth:
The second novel Insurgent in the trilogy ‘Divergent’ was released in May 2012. Divergent is the debut novel of American author Veronica Roth. Roth said that the idea for the series was born while she was studying in college. The third book in the series will be released in the fall of 2013.

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling:
The Casual Vacancy is another ‘must read’ novel which was published this year. It is a tragicomedy novel by J.K. Rowling. The book was published worldwide by Little, Brown Book Group on 27 September this year. It was Rowling’s first publication since the Harry Potter series and her first novel for adults.

 
The novel is set in a suburban West Country town called Pagford and commences with the death of Parish Councillor Barry Fairbrother. Major themes in the novel are politics, class and social issues like that of drugs, prostitution and rape. The novel was the fastest-selling in the UK in 3 years and had the second best-selling opening week. It became the 15th best-selling book of 2012 in its first week of release. Within the first three weeks itself the book’s total sales topped one million copies in English in all formats across all territories. The book is being adapted into a BBC television drama and will be released in 2014.

 

City of Lost Souls (The Mortal Instruments #5) by Cassandra Clare:
City of Lost Souls is the fifth book in the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare and was published this year. It follows the books City of Bones, City of Glass, City of Ashes, and City of Fallen Angels. The next book in the series is City of Heavenly Fire which will be the final book in the Mortal Instruments, closing the series. City of Lost Souls was released on May 8 this year.

Bared to You (Crossfire, #1) by Sylvia Day:
Bared to You is a 2012 New York Times bestselling erotic romance novel by author Sylvia Day. It focuses on the complicated relationship between two people with equally abusive pasts. The novel was initially self-published on April 3, 2012 by Day, with Berkley Books re-publishing the book on June 12 this year with an initial print run of 500,000 copies. Day said that Bared to You will be the first novel in her Crossfire trilogy, with the follow-up novel Reflected in You published in October 2012. Bared to You was declared Penguin UK’s “fastest selling paperback for a decade” and Penguin Group (USA) reports that Bared to You is Berkley’s largest breakout book of 2012.

 

Cinder (Lunar Chronicles, #1) by Marissa Meyer:
Cinder is the debut novel of New York Times bestselling author Marissa Meyer, and published by Macmillan Publishers through their subsidiary Feiwel & Friends. The story is freely based on the classic fairytale “Cinderella”.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain:
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking is a non-fiction book by Susan Cain published in 2012. Cain argues how modern Western culture misunderstands and undervalues the behavior and capabilities of introverted people, leading to “a colossal waste of talent, energy, and happiness.”  The book presents a history of how Western culture altered from a culture of character to a culture of personality in which an “extrovert ideal” dominates and introversion is seen as inferior or even pathological. Stating that temperament is a core element of human identity, Cain cites research in biology, psychology and evolution to demonstrate that introversion is both common and normal.

 
Quiet reached the number 1 position on the NPR Bestseller List, number 3 on the Los Angeles Times Best Seller list and number 4 on The New York Times Best Seller list.

 

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn:
Gillian Flynn is an American author. She has published three novels Sharp Objects in 2006, Dark Places in 2009, and Gone Girl in 2012.

Major Overseas Acquisitions by Indian Companies

Indian companies have certainly become more ambitious and certainly adventurous. Most companies are no more the ‘frogs in the well of the license-raj era’. In today’s world, Indian companies are not only setting up their own bases overseas, they have become quite ambitious to fly out of the Indian business boundaries to find new companies and potential markets for acquisition and company investment. Even though it might take some years for them to start showing the big time profit evaluations from the acquisitions made so far.

However, this shows that Indian companies have certainly become confident about expanding their operations overseas successfully.

In the last decade itself, many Indian companies have been on a big time acquisition spree, and that has definitely added a huge value to Brand India. Indian companies (listed and unlisted) announced 1995 overseas acquisitions from the last two which involves an investment of nearly $ 116 billion – as reported by The Economics Times.

India has also come out as the world’s 21st largest overseas and foreign investor, with more than 75 billion dollars in foreign investment, just in the past 10 years. And during the financial year 2009-2010, the investment by the native companies in foreign joint ventures and self-owned subsidiaries alone come up to around 10.3 billion dollars, as per The Reserve Bank of India’s report.

1. Corus Group (U.K.)

Acquired by – Tata Group

Tata Steel, one of the leading steel producers in India, acquired Corus Group for U.S. $12.11 billion (€ 8.5 billion) on January 31, 2007. But only after nine rounds of bidding, the acquisition process was completed. The only other competitive bidder was Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (CSN), Brazil.

This acquisition is considered to be one of the biggest foreign acquisitions by an Indian company, and after this only TATA Steel came out to be the fifth largest steel producer in the whole world.

2. Zain Africa

Acquired by – Bharti Airtel

India’s largest mobile services company, Bharti Airtel’s ambition to expand into the markets outside India was completed after this complete acquisition of the African operations of Mobile Telecommunications Company (known as Zain).

Bharti Airtel had acquired Zain Africa for a value of U.S. $10.7 billion. The acquisition gives Bharti Airtel a total customer base of 180 million, including 131 million subscribers it had in India at the end of April.

“By expanding its business outside the country, Bharti Airtel can in the long term benefit from economies of scale, including getting better deals from suppliers” says, Kamlesh Bhatia, Principal Research Analyst at Gartner.

3. Novelis (U.S.)

Acquired by – Hindalco Industries

Aditya Birla Group, one of India’s leading MNCs, acquired the entire stake in the Atlanta based aluminium company Novelis for U.S. $6 billion. This company had separated from Alcan, a global aluminium company. This deal was announced on Feb 11, 2007 by Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman of the AV Birla group.

The deal, in a way recapitulates India’s new appetite for international acquisitions, as it comes barely a fortnight after the Tata-Corus deal, which made Ratan Tata the toast of Indian industry.

4. Imperial Energy (U.K.) 

Acquired by – ONGC

Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has acquired Imperial Energy. This deal was for 1.3 billion pounds (U.S. $1.9 billion). 96.8 percent of London-listed firm’s shareholders had top accept this takeover offer, for the acquisition deal to take effect.

“The company owed the acquisition to government support, which has seen OVL in the past seven years increase its number of projects to 39 in 17 countries, from just a single project in Vietnam,” says ONGC Chairman R S Sharma

5. Jaguar Cars and Land Rover (U.K.)

Acquired by – Tata Motors

Tata Motors, one of the leading automobile MNCs in India, has acquired both Jaguar and Land Rover, which are two iconic British brands with worldwide growth prospects. This deal was for a whooping U.S. $ 2.3 billion with Ford, the previous American owners.

The deal was effective from May 2008. The deal is seen as yet another endeavor of the fast growing Indian industries, also the latest in a string of foreign acquisitions by Tata.

6. Honiton Energy Holdings (China)

Acquired by – Tanti group

Tanti group of companies jointly with Bahrain-based Arcapita Bank, has acquired Honiton Energy Holdings, a Chinese wind energy firm. The joint venture partners invested around U.S. $2 billion which help to develop a 1,650-MW portfolio of wind farms in China.

Tulsi R. Tanti, Chairman Tanti Group felt that the acquisition would reinforce their commitment towards the renewable energy sector. And also would have a potential growth of wind energy in developing countries like India and China.

7. Abbot Point Coal Terminal (Australia)

Acquired by – Adani Enterprises

Adani Enterprises completed a $2-billion deal which acquired Abbot Point Coal Terminal in Australia on the month of May, 2011.This acquisition marked the third overseas acquisition in nine months by Adani Enterprises, the country’s biggest private port and is India’s largest coal importer.

This deal one of the largest port acquisitions in the world. There have also been many Indian companies which have acquired many mines in foreign countries to secure coal supplies for Indian projects.

8. Algoma Steel (Canada)

Acquired by – Essar Steel Global

Ruias owned Essar Steel Global acquires the Canadian steel company Algoma Steel at a valuation of Canadian $1.85 billion. The arrangement must be approved by Algoma’s shareholders by the affirmative vote of at least 66 per cent (2/3rd) of the votes cast. Algoma Steel is an integrated steel producer based in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario.

Essar Steel Holding, Essar Group’s overseas investment arm made the investment possible and easy. Algoma would definitely provide Essar an excellent platform for the Canadian and North American market.

9. Marcellus Shale (U.S.)

Acquired by – Reliance Industries

India’s Reliance Industries bought a $1.7 billion stake in natural-gas properties Marcellus Shale, from Atlas Energy Inc. This acquisition made Reliance in becoming the latest international energy company to bet on growing fuel output in U.S. shale formations.

Reliance, led by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, got the right to buy 40 percent of all new Marcellus Shale leases that Atlas acquires, after this purchase acquisition and agreement was completed. And this was one of the most lucrative deals which have been seen in the Marcellus.

10. Minnesota Steel (U.S.)

Acquired by – Essar Steel Holdings

Ruias owned Essar Steel Holdings, part of Essar Global, has acquired Minnesota Steel, a U.S. based steel company with estimated reserves of over 1.4 billion tones. Essar Global invested a sum of $1.65 billion which was used to set up a steel plant in Minnesota Steel company’s facilities.

The Essar Global chairman felt that the investment in Minnesota Steel was very benefiting as they would get good exposure in the North American market. He added that Minnesota’s iron ore reserves will help the company to be one of the low cost producers of steel in the world.

Ten Creative Ways to Spend Less on Halloween

Costume swaps, repurposing outfits,and do-it-yourself projects can help cut costs

Halloween is a tricky holiday for anyone on a budget: On one hand, it’s completely voluntary; no one needs a $50 Red Riding Hood outfit. On the other, it’s one of the most popular and widely celebrated holidays around: The National Retail Federation has found that more than 70 percent of Americans plan to celebrate this year, spending around $80 each.

So what’s a festive frugalista to do? Luckily, there are plenty of strategies for saving without sacrificing candy, costumes, or spooky décor. Here are 10 tips:

1. Swap costumes with others. Some towns, including Charlotte, N.C., participate in National Costume Swap Day, where families can trade gently used costumes. Writer and stay-at-home mom Emily Harris participated and got her daughter a dinosaur costume and son an Elmo costume for free, after turning in last year’s dragon and baby tiger. (Find out more at http://www.greenhalloween.org/CostumeSwap.)

2. Build costumes out of household items. “You can make a costume out of a garbage bag and coffee beans,” says The National Retail Federation’s Kathy Grannis. Pinterest offers plenty of ideas, along with instructions. Tin foil often plays a prominent role, either as headgear or wrapping.

3. Re-use last year’s costumes. Harris, who passes out candy to trick-or-treaters while her husband takes their two children around the neighborhood, wears the same outfit every year: a witch costume.

4. Buy costumes you can wear again later, in normal life. A denim studded jacket for a biker chick costume (just add tight black pants, a helmet, and short gloves) can be used again over dresses or dark denim, says Emma Starks of Copious, an online marketplace. Similarly, a tight, white, lacy cocktail dress can turn into a Madonna costume with the addition of a veil and extra bracelets and necklaces, and then can be worn without the accessories to a summer party next year, she says.

5. Don’t buy loads of candy. Some people stock up on Skittles and Hershey bars only to find that they get few visitors at the door, or none at all. Grannis says it’s also okay to simply turn your front light off and skip the trick-or-treat tradition altogether. “The rules have changed in recent years … It’s okay not to participate,” she says.

6. Grow your own décor. While pumpkins have proved challenging for Harris—she’s tried, only to watch them die, for three years in a row—she has successfully grown corn, which turns into easy decorations for the front door.

7. Skip the holiday-specific items. “It makes no sense to buy seasonal gear that you use only once a year,” says Starks. Instead of Halloween-themed bowls, for example, she suggests buying clear glass bowls that can work again at Christmastime, or decorating mason jars with washable paint and candles. “Store-bought signs and decorations look tacky, are expensive, and end up being clutter in your garage or closet,” she says.

8. Embrace DIY projects. Craft guru Martha Stewart recommends creating an ice bucket out of the bottom half of a scraped-out pumpkin. A paper cut-out of a ghost’s profile stuck on a door or mirror can be as scary as a store-bought one. Another option is to pour tonic water into drinks to make them glow under a black light.

9. Shop around for your pumpkin. Prices on those orange gourds can vary widely from store to store; a medium-sized one can cost as much as $20 or as little as $4 in city grocery stores. Also, consider taking a trip to a local farm, where pumpkins are often sold by weight and come with a hay ride.

10. Shop after Halloween is over. Stores are usually eager to unload Halloween-themed inventory as soon as the last trick-or-treaters are home for the night, and that means steep discounts on costumes, decorations, and even candy. If you have a place to store the goods at home for next year, you can save yourself some dough.

By Kimberly Palmer

Ten Hottest Women In Technology

‘Beauty with Brains’, it is hard to find girls who don that perfect body, wear a perfect smile and still have brains on their shoulders. But here is a list of women who are a contradiction to the above statement. They are smart, they are tech-savvy and yes, they are SMOKIN HOT!!

1. Amber MacArthur

Profession: Net-casting personality

Number 1 in the list of hot women in technology is the Canadian national who has worked with Microsoft and Razorfish and many more. She has a career that many will be envious of and it will leave many kill for. She started her career as a reporter with Canadian CBC and rose to fame  as a cohost of G4 Tech TV Canada’s Call for Help. She played an important role on other shows of the network that includes Gadgets, Gizmos and Torrent. She had a ling tenure in Toronto’s City TV news broadcast where she worked as a media specialist and is currently working on the same profile for CP24. She comes as an irresistible beauty that one would die for. It is her looks and personality that is next to perfection that has made her to the top in the list of hottest women in the world of technology.

2. Morgan Webb

Profession: Website administrator

This Canadian babe is a well known personality in the tech world and her includison in the hottest women’s list is completely justified. She got a job as a website admin soon after finishing her college and later went on to become a producer and web researcher in TechTV’s The Screen Savers program. The best part about this lady is her girl-next-door looks and her cheerful persona. Her seductive photographs acted as a fuel to her fame to success and she never looked back. This helped her in gaining popularity for her show and because of this she was invited to host the series on several occasions. She also had her chance to cohost the X-Play series and went on to pile up her success as a columnist of the FHM magazine. She can also be seen video blogging often where she talks about the prominent and interesting technology related tiny bits.

3. Jessica Chobot

Profession: On-Camera host.

This beauty rose to fame with her photo in which she was licking the PSP. Her naughty photograph with the PSP proved to be the best decision she ever took in her career. After the success of that photograph she gave up her modeling career to take advantage of the opportunities that were coming her way in the gaming and entertainment sector. The blond beauty has appeared in The Baroness, Mania.com and on G4;;s Filter and Attack of the show. Shw also hosted the video game Fuel TV’s The Daily Habit. She went  on to host the IGN weekly show in which she appears in the audio and on the street pieces. She is also penning a script with the TRON famed writer Steven Lisbeger. Her seductive photographs acted as a fuel to her fame to success and she never looked back. Her  charm combined with her beauty were the perfect mix of a beauty with brain.

4. Olivia Munn

Profession: Actress, Comedian, Model, Television Personality and Author.

Olivia Munn, look at her photo and you can see an image of a ‘geek-goddess’. She started with her career as an actress and a sportscaster. Her seductive looks helped the series Scarecrow Gone Wild and The Road to Lake gained immense popularity and viewership. In 2006, she substituted Sarah Lane as a co-host for Attack of the Show program and became an instant hit among viewers and made her reach the top of ‘hot’ list. Her beauty hardly leaves her with a chance to act as she leaves everybody spell bound with her charisma. She is currently working for a return to the world of acting and appearance in some theatrical shows. Her return will surely bring a new charm to the screen and we all will be waiting for the hottest tech women to make an appearance as many times as possible for us to acknowledge the hard work God has put in.

5. Cali Lewis
Profession: American Podcaster

Cali has a success story that will make anyone jealous. She is a well known Internet personality famous for her podcasts for GeekBeat.TV. She has also featured in a TV commercial for GoDaddy.com and her hotness was acknowledged by many who viewed that commercial during Super Bowl. Her seductive photographs acted as a fuel to her fame to success and she never looked back. She started with a website along with husband Neal dedicated to short tech-based podcasts entitled GeekBrief.TV. The main reason behind the success of the website is often credited to her drop-dead insane looks. The viewership of her website reached to millions of downloads in just a month because of which she quit her regular job and focused herself completely to this venture. She has also launched a tech –advice blog entitled ‘Dear Cali’ that comes on Ustream.tv and has a podcast dedicated completely to Apple’s iPhone.

6. Veronica Belmont

Profession: Popular Host

Veronica was born to top executives and she used this to her full advantage. An audio production and new media studies graduate from Emerson College she worked as an intern at CNET. She was an audio producer with their business technology division. From all the experience that she gathered, she used iit in becoming a producer for CNET’s online videos. She went on to become a co-host of Buzz Out Loud and in less than a year, she resigned from CNET and joined another high profile job at search engine Mahalo where she worked as a producer for a daily centric video show till April 2008. Her other ventures include a stint at Revision 3 as a staff co-host, at Qore that was a monthly lifestyle gaming program by Sony in which she was hired as a host. She also worked in Sword and Laser and TWiT.TV.

7. Amanda Congdon
Profession: Video Blogger

This New Yorker can confuse you with her well-carved looks for being a super model but no, Amanda is a popular video blogger who hosts an audience of nearly half a million people across the globe. She was an aspiring actress who had to give up on her dream to make a living. She started working for an advertising agency consequently pursuing her graduation from the Northwestern University. She somehow found her way into the entertainment industry by taking up any job that came her way but luck struck her favor when she landed with Rocketboom, a daily video blog. Her charming and bubbly persona made her an instant hit among masses and soon she was hosting to 300,000 people. She worked with Rocketboom for another 2 years before starting with her own online venture called AmandaAcrossAmerica that shows her travelling around the country in her hybrid vehicle.

8. Kristin Holt
Profession: Television Personality

This beauty from Texas is a popular television personality. The fact that she was earlier a cheerleader for the Dallas Cowboys is enough explanation for her inclusion in the top hottest women. With her aspirations to become a playback singer, she participated in the famous series American Idol’s second season. Though she failed to emerge as the winner of the show, her splendid beauty impressed the executives at FOX who hired her as their special correspondent for season three. She is currently hosting the popular show Cheat! that airs on G4 and the show has helped her in establishing her image as an effortlessly cool anchor with excellent sense of humor and prettiest looks. Kristen is also recording an album with her band Stranger Days, working as a reporter for G4’s Attack of the Show, and hosting a new DVD game, Shout About Television. She’s sure a girl to watch out for!

9. Blair Butler

Profession: Stand-up comedian, television host

A stand-up comic by profession this blonde can tickle your funny bones and flatter you with her stunning looks both at the same time. Her comic background gives her the reputation of one of the most naturally funny and splendidly gorgeous tech pundits of all times. She started working with some stage shows and lined herself some loyal followers. She has a career that many will be envious of and it will leave many kill for.Blair soon got noticed for her comic timing and started featuring in a spot on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend program. The attention combined with her killer looks helped her in getting hired as a head writer for X-Play. Blair’s charisma makes her a perfect fit for a career on-screen and that is when she became a prominent figure in X-Play’s recurring sketches. Blair, currently, has an online segment on the G4 website called ‘Geek Out’ where she scrutinizes things from the world of geeks.

10. Wendy Chang

Profession: Blogger

This Chinese beauty ranks number tenth in our list. A blogger by profession, Wendy blogs about her personal life, fashion, and local issues. The story of how she got into blogging is also interesting, a little less interesting than her hotness though. Wendy used to maintain a diary to pen her thoughts which were thrown out by her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend. In order to publish her thoughts on a platform that no one can throw, she started with her blog in April 2003. Her looks do work wonder for this Chinese diva as she writes about hot pumping topics such as sex, dating and fashion with blunt honesty.

9 Amazing Inventions From The Soul Of India

India was always a fertile land for innovations. The most notable Indian inventions range from number Zero to some high end technologies that we use every day.

While many of these high-tech inventions are usually glorified, certain others which come from the ‘soul of India’- villages are usually ignored. These inventions from the country’s small corners cannot be designated as “life changing,” but still they are powerful enough to propel the dreams of a small population and also motivate the generations to produce something good for the society.

Here are some of them.

#9 Washing cum Exercise Machine

Inventor: Remya Jose
City: Malappuram
State: Kerala

Remya, a high school girl from Kerala was forced to do laundry when her mother fell sick. Out of her dislike to wash clothes by hand, Remya invented a pedal-powered washing machine at the age of 14.

The machine, which looks like the exer-cycle which we see in a gymnasium, consists of an aluminium cabin containing a horizontal cylinder made of iron net. The cylinder is connected to a pedaling system that consists of a cycle chain, pedals and a seat. Clothes are put in the cylinder, the cabin is filled with water, detergent is added and is left to soak for some time. Pedal it for three to four minutes after that and you are done! The cylinder rotates at a very high speed with the clothes inside, cleaning them thoroughly. Soap water drains out, the barrel is refilled and the process repeated. By pedaling, the clothes also become about 80% dry.

The Invention has many advantages. It doesn’t require electricity to work, it is hugely affordable and moreover, it replaces your exercise machine.

#8 Water Walking Shoe

Inventor: Dwarka Prasad Chaurasia
City: Mirzapur,
State: Uttar Pradesh

Well, this beautiful invention from a village man of tremendous determination. His invention dates back to three decades. It is called the Water Walker, which comes handy in the flooded regions of India, even now.

The shoes consist of two floats made of thermocol, bonded with a rexine sheet. This whole unit is attached to metal straps with back foot support. These two individual shoes are also tied to each other to prevent them from going apart beyond one’s ability to steer them. The size of shoe gave him good buoyancy and ease in maneuvering.

With a pair of hand held oars for balancing, a person can either walk or skate across the lake.

Chaurasia had demonstrated his shoes in front of media at the Delhi Boat Club, which was widely covered. He was also interviewed by BBC at that time, which was great recognition for him.

He had another invention on his name, “the amphibious cycle” which used the same principle of his shoes.

#7 Electric Painting Brush

Inventor: Jahangir Ahmad
Place: Anantnag
State: Jammu & Kashmir

Jahangir, a young student from the militancy hit Anantnag district of Jammu & Kashmir invented eclectic painting brush, which is essentially a blessing to the painting workers. His invention avoids the need for dipping brush into the paint bucket, which decrease the tediousness of the job and saves paint.

Jahangir was the son of a carpenter. He used to work while studying in order to help his poor family and also fund himself. One day he saw some workers painting a high wall near his house. They were struggling with the work as there is little space on the ladder to keep the paint bucket. They have to periodically dip the brush in the bucket and manage everything without losing the grip from ladder. The paint was also spilled over the worker’s clothes. After seeing this, he was determined to reduce their effort.

The automatic painting device he invented has a painting brush attached to a tube, which goes directly to a paint bucket via a motor which pumps the paint to brush. User can control flow of paint through a liver and the paint is equally distributed to bristles at 4 places through a distributor. His working prototype has great commercial potential along with wide usability.

#6 Tree Climbing Machine

Inventor: M J Joseph (Appachan)
Place: Kannur
State: Kerala

Late M J Joseph was an innovative farmer. After many of his innovations failed to gain popularity, including a fruit squeezer which can get juice out of any fruit, Joseph made the best invention of his life- a machine, using which anybody can climb a coconut or areca nut tree.

Joseph made this machine under the guidance of his father. The climber consists of two metal loops with several sub-loops and connecting rods. There are two pedals, one right and one left, for placing the foot. The device is designed in such a way that once it is fastened to the tree using the attached ropes, you can use the pedal movements to climb.

The cost effective, safe and convenient machine had become so popular in south India. Many modifications were made to the device and the National Innovation Foundation facilitated sale of his climber to customers in USA, Maldives, Thailand, Australia, Brazil and Mexico.

#5 Cotton Harvester

Inventor: Nattubhai Vader
State: Gujarat

Nattubhai Vader, a farmer from Gujarat invented the cotton harvester, a machine which can be fitted to a tractor for harvesting the cotton. He was determined to make a machine for harvesting the troublesome variety of cotton, after he saw women and children performing the slow exhausting work in the fields.

His determination paid off well as he designed and tweaked a massive apparatus of spinning rubber hoses and vacuums to fit over a tractor. The apparatus can pick as much cotton in one hour as 10 people can harvest in two days.

#4 Well Pulley With a Brake

Inventor: Amrit Agrawat
Place: Sehore
State: Madhya Pradesh

In the villages, water is mainly drawn from wells. The traditionally designed pulley system is physically demanding, especially for the women folk. Realizing the importance of pulley in the daily routine of average rural women,   Amit Agrawat has decided to redesign it. He came up with a pulley attached to a braking system or a “stopper.” He made three pulleys- Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswathi, which can be used according to the type of the well. The pulleys allow women to rest mid way through their labour. 

#3 Water Tires

Inventor: Farmers
State: Madhya Pradesh

The village farmers of Madhya Pradesh were finding it difficult to work on the thick and hard soil in the fields with their tractors. It required them to put extra weight to the machine. The tractor salesmen were trying to sell them expensive weights to attach to vehicles. But the farmers invented an inexpensive and easy way by simply filling the tires with water, which gave an added weight at literally, no cost. They not only saved money, but also invented something which can be benefitted by millions of farmers across the country.

#2 Cotton Deseeder

Inventor: Abdul Rahim Khan
Area: Mogra
State: Madhya Pradesh

Abdul Rahim Khan a farmer from the village of Mogra had many small inventions under his belt. Among that, his miniature cotton deeseeder is a miracle. It cost less than 220 to make and saved 10 times as much each year in processing fees.

#1 Multipurpose Herbs Processor

Inventor: Dharamveer Kamboj
Place: Yamunanagar
State: Haryana

Dharamveer was born as the 5^th child of Ramswaroop Kamboj, who was a farmer and Savitri Devi who was an herbalist. He was attracted to the herbs at an early age, following his mother’s passion. After seeking out different ways to lead his life, Dharamveer finally realized that agriculture is indeed the profession meant to him.

Inspired from a bank manager, who promoted Aloe vera farming, Dharamveer started to cultivate it. But after realizing the huge cost of an Aloe vera gel extractor machine, he decided to build one on his own.

After a number of prototypes, he was successful in building a table top machine capable of pulverizing and extracting oil or gel from various herbs including Amla and Aloe vera. The machine can cheaply make gel from the leaves and was widely recognized.  

Dharamveer give all the credit for his success to his mother, who instilled in him urge to know more about herbs.

 

 

Ten High-End Smartphones in India

It’s true that Indian market is filled with budget smartphones from Indian mobiles makers and others too. Micromax, Karboon Mobile and many others have created a tsunami of affordable smartphone in India. If price is not an issue, than you should certainly look for a high-end smartphone. To help you we have listed ten popular high-end smartphone which are above 30,000.

1. Nokia PureView 808

Price: Around 31,000

Nokia PureView 808 is one of the best camera smartphone in the India. The camera is the main highlight of the device. It comes with outrageous 41 mega pixel sensor camera at the back with Carl Zeiss lens, powerful Xenon flash and a new pixel oversampling technology. This technology combines many pixels to create a single (super) pixel from which the result will be less noise image.

The 41 mega pixel sensor enables to select from various megapixels options while taking pictures like 5 MP, 8 MP and up to 32 MP. It means the image will be with more pixels to work after zooming and cropping the image.

The 808 is a Symbian Belle based phone, packed with 4 inch AMOLED touchscreen featuring its own CleatBlack technology for better viewing at sunlight. It is powered by ARM single-core 1.3 GHz processor, 512 MB of RAM and 6 GB of internal storage which can be expandable up to 48 GB via microSD card.

2. Samsung Galaxy Note

Price: Around 32,700

The Samsung Galaxy Note is the first smartphone in its race which comes with tablet like features.  The Galaxy Note is powered by the company’s very own Dual-Core Exynos microprocessor at clock speed of 1.4 GHz along with Mali-400MP graphic chip, 1 GB of RAM and runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system (Android 4.0 ICS upgrade is available)

The device features a large 5.3 inch, HD Super AMOLED display at 1280×800 pixels resolution and also features 16 GB of built-in memory, a card slot for expandable memory up to 32 GB using micro SD card.

It comes with 8 MP camera at the back and a front facing 2 MP camera for video chat. The primary camera can capture images up to 3264 x 2448 pixels of resolution and features autofocus, LED flash, geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection and image stabilization. The camera is also capable of recording 1080p videos at 24 to 30 frames per second.

3. LG Optimus 4X HD

Price: Around 33,000

The LG Optimus 4X HD is the first Quad-Core smartphone from the company. The LG Optimus 4X HD has great looks with slim form factor. It has a powerful Quad-Core processor and offers great display, great video playback and good battery life.

It comes with a massive 4.7 inch True HD IPS display, Optimus 4X HD runs on Android 4.0 operating system and has an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor with a 1 GB RAM and an expandable memory slot of up to 32 GB. The huge screen display is coupled with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixel and 16:9 ratio; this allows the user to view more at a glance. The phone boasts of an 8 megapixel camera which comes with features like autofocus, LED, touch focus and image stabilization. All these features are backed up with a powerful 2,150 mAh battery.

4. BlackBerry Bold 9900

Price: Around 33000

The Blackberry Bold 9900 is crafted with finest equipment that includes brushed stainless steel frame which gives an excellent look. The Bold 9900 is powered with high performance QC 8655 1.2GHz processor, 768 MB of RAM memory and runs on BlackBerry 7 operating system which includes number of pre-loaded applications and integrated functionality for increased productivity and collaboration. The operating system also comes with next generation Blackberry browser which is much faster and easier.

Its amazing 2.8 inch touch screen display, QWERTY keypad and Optical trackpad, which make messaging much easier and faster. It also features, 5 mega pixel camera with Auto Focus and LED Flash, the other camera features include geo-tagging, face detection and image stabilization. The internal phone memory is 8GB and can expandable upto 32GB.

It is equipped with 1230 mAh Li-Ion battery, integrated GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It also supports NFC (Near Field Communication) and high speed HSPA+ data.

5. HTC One S

Price: Around 33500

HTC One S is the second model in the HTC One series after the HTC One X. This smartphone is slim and lightweight which makes it portable.

HTC One S is powered with dual core 1.5 GHz processor, Adreno 225 graphics processing unit, 1 GB RAM and runs on Android 4.0 operating system. It sports a 4.3 inch qHD Super AMOLED Gorilla glass display with 540×960 pixels resolution, 8 MP auto-focus rear camera along with LED flash.

Other features include 16 GB of internal storage and supports Bluetooth, WiFi, DLNA functionality, and micro USB. With its 7.8 mm metal body and weighing only 119.5 grams this smartphone is one of the thinnest handset in the market.

HTC One S is a good android smartphone, but it let’s down on various factors like the high price it charges for a poor battery life and a previous generation less powerful processor.

6. Sony Xperia Ion

Price: Around 36000

Sony claims the Xperia Ion is the competitor for Samsung Galaxy S III and HTC One X. Like the other smartphones Xperia Ion also follows the trend of large screen, it comes with a 4.6-inch LCD screen with a resolution of 1280 X 720 pixels. The device is powered by a fast 1.5 GHz Dual Core processor, an Adreno 220 GPU (Graphic Processing Unit) and runs on outdated Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system. The company has promised that the smartphone would soon to be upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich or Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

The phone comes with an internal memory of 16 GB and a slot for the microSD card with which you can expend the memory of up to 32 GB.  It has 12 mega pixel camera at the back and a 1.3 mega pixel front facing camera for video calling and chats.

It also comes with a powerful 1900 mAh battery that promises to offer up to 400 hours of 2G and 350 hours of 3G standby time.

7. HTC One X

Price: Around 36,000

HTC has brilliantly crafted the best branding, industrial design and user experience in this masterpiece of theirs named One X. The phone has the best display we have seen, comes with quad-core processor, good camera and easy-to-use interface.

The HTC One X sports 4.7 inch HD display with 1280×720 pixels of resolution, it is powered by 1.5 GHz Nvidia quad-core processor and currently runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system with HTC’s Sense 4.0 user interface.

It also features 8 MP camera with LED flash, capable of recording 1080 pixels HD video recording, 32 GB of expandable memory, 1 GB of RAM and for connectivity it has HDMI ports, NFC capabilities, Bluetooth and 3G. It also has built in Beats Audio and a powerful 1800 mAh battery.

The unique feature of this phone is; it can capture continues photos with just a touch and is capable of taking four photos per second.

8. Samsung Galaxy S III

Price: 37,000 Onwards

The Galaxy line smartphone from Samsung has proved that they are the biggest iphone challenger in the market and the newly launched Galaxy S III has made it.

The Galaxy S III is the fastest and most advanced device yet, powered with its very own Exynos Quad Core processor. This sleek and innovative smartphone has the enhanced intelligence to make everyday life easier. You can view the content like never before on the 4.8 inch HD Super AMOLED display. An 8MP camera and a 1.9MP front camera offer users a variety of intelligent camera features and face recognition related options that ensure all moments are captured easily and instantly. Samsung Galaxy S III is powered by Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, with greatly enhanced usability and practicality to make life easier.

The new feature includes S-Voice a voice assistant app similar to iPhone’s Siri. Furthermore it has some interesting features like S-Beam, wireless charging, SmartStay, double tab scrolling, pop up play and many more. Click here to know more about its features.

9. Apple iPhone 4S

Price: 40,000 Onwards

The Apple iPhone 4S sports high-end specifications which are made it one of the top selling smartphones in the mobile world. The selling factor of this phone is the Voice Assistant Software – Siri which excited customers with its interactive and intuitive features. Siri allowed users to carry out functions like setting an alarm through voice commands.

The device is powered by a Dual-core 1 GHz Cortex-A9 processor , has a superior graphics chip and sports an 8 mega-pixel camera. For connectivity it has WiFi, 3G, GPRS, EDGE, Bluetooth and USB port. The phone runs on iOS5 which is upgradable to iOS 5.1. The phone runs on Standard battery, Li-Po 1432 mAh which gives around 9 hours of talk time.

The iPhone 4S is presently the latest model of smartphone from Apple. With iPhone 5 all the rumors we can surely expect to see the next generation of iPhone hopefully by the end of 2012. iPhone4S is a pricy possession to own for every gadget freak.

10. BlackBerry Porsche Design P’9981

Price: Around 139,990

RIM’s a new luxurious smartphone Blackberry Porsche, has been developed in association with Porsche Design. Blackberry Porsche P’9981 features a stainless steel frame, with a hand-wrapped back cover, crystal clear touch display with a hand sculpted QWERTY keypad. To keep up with the tag of being an exclusive luxury phone, it comes with a PIN which easily identifies the user as holder of the phone.

The device is powered with 1.2 GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 Snapdragon processor, 768 MB of RAM and runs on BlackBerry 7.0 operating system. It sports 2.8 inch TFT capacitive touchscreen with 640×480 pixels of resolution, QWERTY keypad and an optical trackpad.

It also features 5 MP autofocus camera at the back with LED flash featuring Geo-tagging, face detection and image stabilization. It has 8 GB internal storage, expandable memory up to 32 GB using microSD card and for connectivity options it has Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, GPRS, 3G and a built in support for NFC.