CELEBRITIES WHO TRUST YOGA

World to celebrate Valentine's Day with Indian roses

Come Valentine's Day, thousands of lovers across the globe, including in Europe and Australia, will exchange 'I Love You' greetings with 'Made in India' roses.Besides the roses in red, yellow and other hues, the much-hyped "Taj Mahal", a new variety of deep rose, will make its presence felt for the first time during Valentine's Day which falls on February 14.Tanflora Floriculture Infrastructure Park, a Tamil Nadu Government enterprise, plans to export about 10 million cut and Taj Mahal roses across the globe for this year's Valentine's Day."The roses are being exported to Europe, Australia and countries in Middle East and Far East. These roses will be sent to them a week before the Valentine's Day," Tanflora Managing Director Najeeb Ahmed said in Chennai.The demand for roses during this season is increasing day by day. Besides the other usual variety of roses, demand for Taj Mahal brand is high.Roses are always in high demand during the Valentine's Day season every year as more and more people express their affection towards their love through a rose, which is seen a symbol of love.Tanflora, which operates from Hosur, located near Bangalore, had exported 1 million cut roses in 2007 during the Valentine's Day and has sent 3 million flowers to markets across the globe last year.Tanflora Infrastructure Park Ltd grows roses in a 200 acre farm in Amudhagondapalli village in Hosur in Tamil Nadu.Europe, Japan, South-east Asia, Australia, Middle East, Russia and CIS countries are major markets for Tanflora, which has marketing offices in London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Sydney and Dubai.Ahmed said the global economic meltdown did not affect the export of roses."Personally... I feel there is no impact of the economic slowdown. We will achieve our target of exporting 10 million roses.Red Giant, Red Horizon, Red Corvette, Happy Hour, Passion Royal Class, Red Palace, Bohemia, Discovery, Gold Strike, Rimini High Society, Tenga Venga Bugatti, King Fihser, Apricot Kiwi and Avalanche Classic and Duett are some of the varieties which are exported to the foreign markets throughout the year, especially during the Valentine's Day.Asked about the price of the roses, Ahmed said it depends on the varieties and the place where the rose is sold."The price of the flower depends on the variety. The price will differ from place to place. The nominal price is also one reason why foreign countries like flowers from India.The 'Taj Mahal' variety of red rose, named after the famous 17th century monument of love, was launched in Australia and London last year.The roses are grown by 25 grower-investors in each of their 5 acre green houses. The processing, packaging and marketing of the roses from all the 25 green houses is done centrally by Tanflora at its world class Central Packaging Hall at the farm.The exclusive rose variety is known for its unique colour, shape, vase life, stem length and overall vigour and is a hit among buyers in Australia and Europe.

JESSICA ALBA SEXY GALLERY

ADOLF HITLER,A LOVER OF BOOK

Better known for burning books rather than collecting them, Adolf Hitler owned an estimated 16,000 volumes and was a voracious reader who loved Shakespeare, says a new book."It was by any measure an impressive collection: First editions of the works of philosophers, historians, poets, playwrights and novelists," historian Timothy W Ryback writes in his Hitler's Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life."He read voraciously, at least one book per night and sometimes more, he claimed. 'When one gives, one also has to take,' he once said. 'I take what I need from books'," says an extract from Ryback's book published in the Sunday Times.The book, which is to be published in Britain next month, says Hitler ranked Don Quixote, along with Robinson Crusoe, Uncle Tom's Cabin and Gulliver's Travels, among the great works of world literature.He also owned a multi-volume German-language set of the collected works of William Shakespeare, the entire set bound in hand-tooled Moroccan leather, with a gold-embossed eagle, flanked by his initials, on the spine.Ryback, who researched collections of Hitler books in the US and Europe, reveals that Hitler considered Shakespeare superior to fellow-Germans Goethe and Schiller."Why was it, he wondered, the German enlightenment produced Nathan and Wise, the story of the rabbi who reconciles Christians, Muslims and Jews, while it had been left to Shakespeare to give the world The Merchant of Venice and Shylock?Hitler, who kept Shakespeare volumes in the second floor study of his Alpine retreat in southern Germany, "appears to have imbibed his Hamlet” and was especially fond of Julius Caeser. "To be or not to be" and "It is Hecuba to me" from Hamlet were favourite phrases of his.The German leader, versed in Holy Scriptures, also owned a "particularly handsome tome" of "Worte Christi" (Words of Christ), American industrialist Henry Ford's anti-semitic tract, The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, and a 1931 handbook on poison gas.Ryback found the volumes among 1,200 surviving books from Hitler's library that are stored in the Rare Book Division of the Library of Congress in Washington. These volumes once graced Hitler's bookcases in his three elegantly appointed libraries at private residences in Munich, Berlin and Obersalzberg.Ryback also found further collections in public and private archives in Europe and the US, including at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.Among the 80 books in the Brown University collection, taken from Hitler's bunker in 1945, were half a dozen or so spiritual and occult volumes, including an account of supernatural occurrences, The Dead Are Alive! The author says several dozen books contain marginalia - notes written along the books' margins."Here I encountered a man who famously seemed never to listen to anyone, for whom conversation was a relentless tirade, a ceaseless monologue, pausing to engage with the text, to underline words and sentences, to mark entire paragraphs, to place an exclamation point beside one passage, a question mark beside another and quite frequently an emphatic series of parallel lines..."But, Ryback notes, easily two thirds of the collection consists of books that Hitler "never saw, let alone read".

Intelligent fingertip 'eye' to help blind interact with their environment

Ultrasound canes and voice-enabled GPS devices that help blind and partially sighted people in navigation may soon be history, for scientists have created a new intelligent fingertip 'eye'.The device may change how such people interact with their environment.George Stetten, a bioengineer at the University of Pittsburgh, has launched the idea of a tiny video camera that sits at the end of a finger and connects to a portable computer that can analyse the footage and flag up objects of interest.In fact, the camera mounting also has the capability to vibrate for providing physical feedback from the computer to signal when it sees something significant.Thus, the camera can warn when it spots a nearby obstacle, like a wall or the edge of a table.In fact, it could even trace out the shape of the obstacle to guide the user past, reports New Scientist.Via image processing, it's possible for the system to recognise very specific objects.According to Stetten's patent the computer even has the capability to recognise light switches or other controls from a distance.Also, the user could be guided towards a switch using physical feedback, or given the option to activate it remotely.Stetten said that the capabilities of such a system are limited only by imagination and has the potential to give blind and partially sighted people much greater control and interaction with the world around them.And very soon, a portable system able to look for objects for could offer benefits to fully sighted people too

PICTURES TAKEN AT RIGHT TIME: GOOD ONE

ISRO TO LAUNCH 4 FOREIGN SATELLITE THIS YEAR

Indian Space Research Organization will launch four foreign satellites this year as it seeks to make further inroads into the international satellite-building and launch services market in 2009. Two weeks ago, communication satellite, W2M, built by ISRO on a commercial basis in partnership with EADS-Astrium of Europe, was successfully launched by the European Ariane-5 launch vehicle from the Guiana Space Center at Kourou in French Guiana.Managing Director of Antrix Corporation Ltd, the commercial arm of Bangalore-headquartered ISRO, K R Sridhara Murthy, said the Indian space agency is gearing up to launch four satellites of Singapore, the Netherlands, Italy and Algeria. (These contracts were bagged by ISRO independently and not in partnership with EADS-Astrium)."We have four commitments for Singapore, the Netherlands, Italy and Algeria. We want to complete it in 2009,""It (the four spacecraft) is a mix of nano and small satellites". Contractual obligations bar ISRO from talking about specific launch price but Sridhara Murthy said that the space agency's charge per kg of satellite (to be launched) is around Euro 20,000 per kg, quite cheaper than prevailing International prices.But, he stressed that the launch price is guided by competition, market conditions and demand-supply scenario.

TOP MONEY MAKING SUPER STAR IN HOLLWOOD

The recent poll was made to know the top money making moving star in the Hollywood industry for the year 2008.The following list below are the top 8 money maker

1. Will Smith

2. Robert Downey

3. Christian Bale

4. Shia Labeouf

5. Anne Hathaway

6. Chris Pine

7. Tom Cruise

8. Johnny Depp

HONDA V4

Honda has just pulled the covers off a radical new concept motorcycle at the Intermot show in Cologne, Germany. Technically, there isn't much here that's real, but there's still plenty to dissect. Honda is obviously feverishly working on a new V4 engine and that will soon show up in a production bike. Rumor has it that the Japanese company is taking another look at oval pistons, which would allow for more valves and larger combustion chambers. Could this powerplant show up in a new Interceptor? While this is currently nothing more than a sculpture, so was the new VMax when Yamaha first showed that concept. Studying the lines a bit, we can tell that this wouldn't likely be a race bike, but more likely a new street-going model. We also see hubless wheels, which would be an extremely far-out bit of tech if they were to make it into production. Is that possible? According to Honda, yes. Big Red is saying this design is a "new beginning" for the company and the direction that it's headed, and that sounds awfully exciting. We'll be watching.This year Honda celebrates its 60th anniversary as a company and next year the 50th anniversary of its participation in road racing, as well as the 30th anniversary of racing with an innovative 4-cylinder V-engine with oval pistons. Considering these milestones, Honda chose "The New Beginning" as its exhibition theme leading into 2009 and exhibited the V4 Concept Model which signifies the beginning of a new era.
For Intermot, Honda collected and exhibited successive V4 race machines as well as mass-market motorcycle products which were developed by feeding back the technologies cultivated through participation in challenging race competition, enabling visitors to review the lineage of 30 years of V4 engine technologies and see how Honda will take motorcycling somewhere it has not been before. The exhibition also offers an easy-to-understand introduction to various challenges Honda has undertaken in order to create joy for its customers, by utilizing its technologies that have been continuously advanced through Honda's 60-year history and by its participation in motorsports.
Honda understands the global trend today that motorcycle users see increasing value in more emotional and sensual performance during the real world riding experience rather than absolute performance measured in numeric specifications. On another front, user friendly features that meet with human sensibilities are also becoming important along with safety and environmental features, especially in mature markets.
Honda believes that the challenge to create attractive products with an increased focus on sensual performance will be the key for the future. At the same time, safety and environmental technologies as well as future energy technologies will continue to become an important theme for the development of motorcycle products. Moreover, in order to offer a comfortable life with motorcycles for a larger number of customers, Honda will put increased focus on the human-fitting match of rider and machine. Conceived around the trademark 4-cylinder V-engine, the V4 Concept Model expresses functional beauty as well as a more sensual image to appeal more to the emotions of people. Embodying Honda's passion for motorcycle development, the V4 Concept Model expresses the unique characteristics of Honda for a new era.
The V4 Concept Model mobilizes the driving forces of Honda - dreams, challenges, and creating new value. Honda positions this model as "the new beginning" of Honda's motorcycles.

Sarah Palin best celebrity people want as neighbour

Britney Spears is No 1 on list of celebrities people don't want next door while Alaska governor Sarah Palin has been named the most desirable neighbour.The pop star landed the top spot in the Zillow.com poll, reports the New York Daily News.Some 2,000 people were questioned for the real-estate site's survey, and one in five said they wouldn't want to live near Spears.Comedian Rosie O'Donnell came second. Joe the Plumber of 2008 election fame, Lindsay Lohan, Pacman Jones and disgraced ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer were among those who really need big fences.In the survey, 13 percent said Oprah Winfrey would make a good neighbour, followed by Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and Tina Fey.