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The India story : Energetic at 60 !

Celebrating her 60th birthday on 15th August 2007, Mother India is rejoicing the day with more stamina to excel, distinct vision to look forward and an audacious mindset to conquer the world.

The sage of Independent India, that began with A Tryst with Destiny speech delivered by Pandit Nehru in 1947, has culminated into a trillion dollar economy in the world today. Consistently maintaining around 8 % GDP growth, India is leaping to become a super power in the world by 2025 despite the plethora of unsolved problems that are currently being addressed, albeit at a slow pace.

Time and often, by various luminaries, India has been acknowledged as a cradle of the human race, the birth place of human speech, the mother of history, the grand mother of legends and the great grand mother of human traditions. As Gurudev Ravindranath Tagore truly mentioned, India is a land where words come out from the depth of truth and the tireless striving stretches its arms towards the perfection.

I have a real story to share : when my father could afford to buy a refrigerator before 30 years, everybody in the family and the society celebrated his 'achievement'. People applauded when he could subscribe to a landline phone and own a car thereafter. Before 10 years; he bought a mobile phone, and also got a personal computer. YET; till date, no one has either telephoned OR emailed him a congratulatory note ! As he privately told me yesterday ,"I NOW feel, things HAVE changed. India HAS progressed. God Bless you my Son, you ALL have a very bright future ahead..."

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY TO YOU

MESSAGE WRITTEN BY :

HEMANG PALAN
BUSINESS JOURNALIST
THE ASIAN AGE (DECCAN CHRONICLE GROUP OF NEWSPAPERS)
MUMBAI MOBILE 99204 44940

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LOHANAS CHERISH THE RAIN IN VERAVAL

The torrential rains that lashed the coastal belt of Gujarat in the heart of Saurashtra region in July 2007 cheered the local population of Lohanas as the area witnessed such an heavy downpour after a span of about 23 years. Although the whole region got submerged in knee-deep waters, the jubilant mood of the people residing across Somnath-Junagadh belt was evident from the reports that they used water rafts to visit their friends and relatives in the area, and attended chai-Pakora parties in absence of electricity. When these partymen ran out of their cooking gas quota at homes, the gas-stoves were used to make the lavish delicacies for the guests. It was a pleasant sight in Veraval when most of the front yards of about 25,000 houses in the town got illuminated by lanterns to enable the kids to swim and play during the evening hours.

Dr Dipesh Lakhani, a 27 year old doctor residing in Veraval since childhood said, "After the heavy rainfall, I took long walks with my friends in waist-deep waters during the evening hours everyday to monitor the water levels in the nearby Hiran and Devka rivers. It was lovely scene as I had never enjoyed the gracious strides amidst the aura of wet clay and the mela sort of an atmosphere since most of the residents were seen chatting and roaming across bylanes of the town in shorts and T-shirts while distributing warm mungfalis and home made laddoos to everybody. The jubilant atmosphere in Veraval was mainly due to the fact that the district's water reservoirs have now accumulated enough quota to cater to the demand poised by the region for the next 5 years."

A coconut merchant based in Veraval, Shri Rasiklal Tanna said, "Since supply of coconuts from the nearby plantations to the neighbouring states and the cities came to a standstill, the price of a 300-millilitre large coconut, usually retailed in Veraval and the adjoining areas at Rs 5, went down to Re 1 per piece when stormy rain crippled the normalcy in whole of Junagadh district. Which means, 1 litre of fresh and pure coconut water got sold for a week long span in Veraval at the price of Rs 3. In a way it turned out to be a blessing for the local administration to check on the outbreak of the epidemics as in absence of cooking gas and the electricity supply, none of the houses in the town had enough reserves of hygienic drinking water. It was a time when all the families in Veraval quenched their daily thirsts by consuming only the coconut water through out the whole day for as long as 7 to 10 days !"

Retired railway station master Shri Vallabhdas Karia staying nearby Veraval town railway station said, "For about 10 days, the railway tracks till 6 kilometres far off the Veraval junction were submerged in about one feet deep waters. Since no passenger or the cargo trains could either leave or enter the region, the 36 empty compartments in Veraval railway yard were used by the district administration as a temporary shelter to house the population residing in slums and hutmentsn in and around the town. It was a memorable sight as throughout my 30 year long career in the Indian railways, I had never seen all the train compartments full of people who were not the passengers !"

Mr T K Vithlani, the Police Sub Inspector in Sutrapada village police station near Veraval mentioned, "We had to 'discharge' the 7 prisoners lodged in our small jail to the nearby guest house under our vigil as all the rooms of the jail and the police station custody got flooded with 10 to 12 feet of rain water within 24 hours of the downpour."

Although the heavy rains paralysed the towns across Gujarat's Saurashtra region, the heart and minds of the local population got flooded with the memoirs that would cherish them forever.

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Rocketinfo Partners with Viapoint to Provide Current News and Business Information Adaptor

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rocketinfo Inc. (OTCBB:RKTI), a leading provider of real-time business news search and content solutions, today announced a partnership with Viapoint Corporation that will see Rocketinfo provide a current news and business information adaptor for the Viapoint Smart Organizer.

The Rocketinfo adaptor will enable users of the Viapoint Smart Organizer to find and organize news headlines relevant to their work directly on their desktops. The Viapoint Smart Organizer provides an intuitive Windows desktop interface for organizing, searching, and navigating the information people use every day including contacts, Microsoft Outlook e-mail, Google Desktop Search results, and files. With the Rocketinfo adaptor, Smart Organizer users will be able to organize and search for relevant, up-to-the-minute news from the 16,000-source Rocketinfo database.

"Viapoint has developed a brilliant product that allows people to both find and organize the information that matters to them," said Rocketinfo Director of Business Development Darren DeJean. "The importance and time-sensitivity of news makes it a natural addition to the Smart Organizer, and we are delighted to have been selected by Viapoint to provide this critical addition to their product."

Rocketinfo will support the free version of the Viapoint Smart Organizer by providing basic news search functionality and results that include embedded, contextual advertising. Those seeking to harness the full power of Rocketinfo will be able to subscribe to an upgraded version of the Rocketinfo adaptor that will include advanced search features and functionality, along with the ability to save searches for ongoing monitoring, create alerts, and share relevant items with colleagues.

Speaking about the partnership, Viapoint Vice President of Marketing Dan Housman said: "With the Rocketinfo adaptor, the growing community of Smart Organizer users gain access to the huge Rocketinfo current news database. We looked at a number of potential news providers and none offered the depth and breadth of content provided by Rocketinfo, nor the ease of integration. We see this as a winner for both companies, but more importantly for Viapoint's customers."

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