NEW INDIAN RUPEE SYMBOL

The Indian Rupee Symbol was finalized a few days ago by the Union Cabinet. The country didn’t have an international symbol until now. Previously the Indian currency was typed as INR which is an abbreviation of “Indian Rupees”. The new symbol for the Indian Rupee, which was designed by a postgraduate at  Indian Institute of Technology, looks like this:

Now the question on everyone’s mind is how to type it using the keyboard? The symbol doesn’t have a Unicode character and it can take from a few months to a year for the new symbol to get accepted by the Unicode Consortium's Unicode Technical Committee that is responsible for the development and maintenance of the Unicode Standard, including the Unicode Character Database.

Until that happens, you can use the Rupee font designed by Foradian Technologies. The symbol has been mapped to the (`) key of the keyboard as shown below.

Just download the Rupee.tff file and install it (How to install font? Windows XP users copy the file to C:\Windows\Fonts directory. Windows Vista/7 users right-click the file and choose “Install”)

It is advised not to use this font in your documents such as Word, as all computers are unlikely to have this font installed. This means that when such a document is opened on another computer the viewer will not be able to see the symbol. The Rupee font is strictly for designing purposes. 

FACTS ABOUT SMOKING

1. Cigarettes are the single-most traded item on the planet, with approximately 1 trillion being sold from country to country each year. At a global take of more than $400 billion, it’s one of the world’s largest industries.

2. The nicotine content in several major brands is reportedly on the rise. Harvard University

and the Massachusetts Health Department revealed that between 1997 and 2005 the amount of nicotine in Camel, Newport, and Doral cigarettes may have increased by as much as 11 percent.

3. In 1970, President Nixon signed the law that placed warning labels on cigarettes and banned television advertisements for cigarettes. The last date that cigarette ads were permitted on TV was extended by a day, from December 31, 1970 to January 1, 1971 to allow the telivision networks one last cash windfall from cigarette advertising in the New Year’s Day football games.

4. U.S. cigarette manufactures now make more money selling cigarettes to countries around the globe than they do selling to Americans.

5. The American brands Marlboro, Kool, Camel and Kent own roughly 70% of the global cigarette market.

6. Cigarettes contain arsenic, formaldehyde, lead, hydrogen cyanide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, ammonia and 43 known carcinogens.

7. In the early 1950s, the Kent brand of cigarettes used crocidolite asbestos as part of the filter, a known active carcinogen.

8. Urea, a chemical compound that is a major component in urine, is used to add “flavor” to cigarettes.

9. The ‘Cork Tip’ filter was originally invented in 1925 by Hungarian inventor Boris Aivaz, who patented the process of making the cigarette filter from crepe paper. All kinds of filters were tested, although ‘cork’ is unlikely to have been one of them.

10. In most countries around the world, the legal age for the purchase of tobacco products is now 18, raised from 16, while in Japan the age minimum is 20 years old.

11. Contrary to popular social belief, it is NOT illegal to smoke tobacco products at any age. Parents are within the law to allow minors to smoke, and minors are within the law to smoke tobacco products freely. However, the sale of tobacco products is highly regulated with legal legislation.

12. Smoking bans in many parts of the world have been employed as a means to stop smokers smoking in public. As a result, many social businesses have claimed a significant drop in the number of people who go out to pubs, bars and restaurants.

13. Scientists claim the average smoker will lose 14 years of their life due to smoking. This however does not necessarily mean that a smoker will die young – and they may still live out a ‘normal’ lifespan.

14. The U.S. states with the highest percentage of smokers are Kentucky (28.7%), Indiana (27.3%), and Tennessee (26.8%), while the states with the fewest are Utah (11.5%), California ( 15.2%), and Connecticut (16.5%).

15. Cigarettes can contain more than 4,000 ingredients, which, when burned, can also produce over 200 ‘compound’ chemicals. Many of these ‘compounds’ have been linked to lung damage.

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FACTS ABOUT E-MAIL

1)160 billion emails are sent daily, 97% of them are spam.

2)Spam generates 33bn KWt-hours of energy every year, enough to power 2.4 million homes, producing 17 million tons of CO2.

3)9 out of every 1,000 computers are invected with spam.

4)Spammer get 1 response to every 12 million emails they send (yet it still makes them a small profit).

5)The first electronic mail, or "email", was sent in 1972 by Ray Tomlinson.

6)It was also his idea to use the @ sign to separate the name of the user from the name of the computer.

7)Queen Elizabeth of Britain sent her first email in 1976.

8)Some 190 billion emails are sent daily - more than 2 million per second - by 1,2 billion email senders.

9)About 70% (133 billion emails) are spam and viruses.

10)There are about 1,4 billion registered email addresses.

FAIR SKIN

• Stay out of the sun. The sun makes your skin darker. Even when your suntan fades, your skin becomes darker and ruddier over time, not to mention burned, damaged, blotchy, and susceptible to skin cancer.
• Whenever you’re outside, wear a hat. Choose a wide-brimmed one in the summer months to keep the sun off your face and a baseball cap with a long brim in the fall and winter months. Even indirect sun exposure is detrimental to fair skin.
• Use sunscreen every day. Make sure it has a UV factor of 30+.
• Fake it. Use a light makeup base one shade lighter than your natural color, then dust on translucent powder to keep skin fair and radiant. Don’t slather on the makeup or your skin won’t look natural or fair. In the summer, choose a makeup base with sunscreen for extra protection to ensure fair skin.
• Follow a good skin-care regimen. Cleanse your skin regularly and gently with facial cleanser, and follow with a light moisturizer to keep skin hydrated.
• Even out a bad complexion. Is your skin uneven? Try using these home remedies to restore a smooth complexion:
  • Sandalwood oil: Sandalwood can help remove pimples, red blotches, prickly heat, lessen the effects of sun exposure, fade freckles, soothe rashes, eliminate spots, and heal swelling. Pricey but worth it, sandalwood might be your ticket to fair skin. Add sandalwood to every facial cleanser, scrub, toner, moisturizer, and product you use to achieve and maintain a fair complexion.
  • Almonds: Grind almonds into rosewater and apply the paste to your skin.
  • Eggs and honey: Whip an egg white with honey and a squeeze of lemon juice, and smear on face for a super-nutritious skin treatment. Wash off after 15 minutes.
  • Radish: Apply grated radish and radish juice to skin to make it fair.
  • Tomato juice: Bathe your face in tomato juice. The antioxidants provide a good skin treatment for fair skin.
  • Oatmeal: Serve breakfast to your skin: Mix tomato juice and oatmeal to use as a facial scrub, then rinse.
  • Milk powder may also help you achieve your goal of fair skin. Mix with warm water to form a paste, spread on skin, let sit for 30 minutes, then rinse with cool water.
  • Papaya has been used for centuries in many cultures to help women get fair skin. Cut a papaya in half and rub all over your face every night.
  • Bleaching creams: There are creams that can help you get fair skin. Some are safer than others, so use with caution, and apply to a small, inconspicuous spot on your arm before slathering on your face to make sure you don’t have an adverse reaction. Always consult your dermatologist before using any bleaching cream.
  With a few small lifestyle changes and some easy home remedies, you can even out your skin and become the fairest of all!

FACTS ABOUT ANIMALS

LION:

Lions cannot roar until they reach the age of two.

A lion feeds once every three to four days.  

An adult lion's roar is so loud, it can be heard up to five miles away.

TIGER:

All tigers have a similar marking on their forehead, which resembles the Chinese symbol Wang, meaning King.

A white tiger can only be born when both parents carry the gene for white colouring.

Between 1902 and 1907, the same tiger killed 434 people in India. 

DOG:

First place for the country with the greatest dog population goes to U.S. Second place goes to France.

World-wide, unvaccinated dogs are the number one transmitters of the rabies virus.

Police dogs were first used in 1816 in Scotland.

COWS:

A group of crows is called a murder.

The average cow produces about 2,305 gallons of milk each year.

Cows can detect odors up to five miles away.

ELEPHANTS:

An elephant can live up to the age of seventy, or in some cases even more. 

The elephant is the national animal of Thailand.

An elephant's tooth can weigh upto three kilograms.

An elephant in the wild can eat anywhere from 100 - 1000 pounds of vegetation in a 16 hour period.

BIRDS:

A duck's quack doesn't echo. No one knows why.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain. 

All birds have 3 eyelids, an upper, a lower and and a nictitating membrane which protects the eye without eliminating sight.           

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WORLD'S BIGGEST THINGS

Burj Dubai will be completed late 2008 and is currently standing at 604.9 meters in height. It will cost approximately $4.1 billion USD.

 Millau bridge is found in Paris and reaches 343 meters at its highest point, 23 meters taller than the Eiffel tower. It connect Paris to the Mediterranean avoiding the wavy roads beneath. Millau Bridge cost $524 million USD to build.

The world's largest axe is found in Nackawic, New Brunswick. The giant axe represents the importance of forestry in their local area.

This is currently the biggest Ferris Wheel, the Singapore flyer, but once Beijing finishes their Great Ferris wheel, it’ll outshine Singapore’s efforts quite comfortably.

The big banana is a major attraction in Coffs Harbour. Enjoy the rides, shopping and especially the bananas. You can also organize functions at the big banana theme park.

Every beer drinkers dream. The biggest 6 packs you’ll ever find in the world. They’ve actually been repainted now to represent the new owners.

The biggest thermometer in the world is found in Baker, CA, definitely a hot and steamy part of America. Apparently a business man had a dream to build the biggest thermometer (as all normal people would) and made it happen in 1991.

The Great Wall of China is the biggest of everything in every way. It stretches from one end of the country to the other and it was built as a defensive structure for the country.

The world’s largest chair is found in Anniston, Alabama. But really… who’s going to sit on it?

FACTS ABOUT A.R.RAHMAN

*A R Rahman records most of the songs in the late night because he belives that is the time at which a person’s sound will be at it’s top best.

*Rahman allows singers to sing there own versions of the song separately and chooses best among them.

*There are more than 1000 samples available in Sony and Apple.

*Rahman has used a ghatam loop in the Rang de Basanti background score from Apple’s loop library. The same loop been used elsewhere. But it sounded a lot better the way Rahman used it.

*The song “Maiyya Maiyya” has a flute interlude in the beginning similar to the one in Anu Malik’s “San Sanana” song in Asoka. The flute sample in Mayya Mayya is a commercially available sample. Both the Asoka song and Mayya Mayya have been arranged and programmed by Ranjit Barot.

*Chinna Chinna Asai was composed as a ‘sad’ full song initially but later was changed to a happy song.

*ARR first composed only the first stanza of “Tu hi Re” song for Bombay. Later Mani Ratnam shot the song and after feeling confident of the song, Rahman completed the composition.

*Thiruda Thiruda and Duet took most time in composing followed by Box-office Flop Mangal Pandey.

*Maiyya Maiyya was recorded in Toronto and music was added later as usual.

*In Thiruda thiruda there are two special songs in it. One is Konchum Nilavu which is fully computer programmed. Another is Rasathi where you can’t hear a single instrument.