10 facts about kissing

Some people believe that the custom of kissing originated in India! Difficult to believe, looking at the amount of fuss that is kicked up over onscreen kissing! And did you know that the perfect picture of marital bliss, the image of a man kissing his wife before leaving for work actually started in ancient Rome. But the reasons are far from romantic! The gladiators kissed their wives just wanted to make sure they hadn’t been drinking the wine at home, in their absence! Read on for more such interesting trivia on one of the most pleasurable activities!

1. Kissing is an art. Kissing is a science. And this science is called Philematology.

2. A German University studied hundreds of couples kissing and came to the conclusion that two-thirds of people turn to their right when kissing.

3. The longest recorded kiss lasted for 31 hours and 18 minutes. This feat was performed by an Italian couple, however the man had to receive oxygen soon after. Hope both had had a lot of mouth fresheners!

4. When you kiss, you release the same chemical messengers in the brain as those that are released when you indulge in intense physical activities like running a marathon! Cool! Skip that run and kiss your way to a slim bod!

5. Kissing helps reduce tooth decay by increasing the production of saliva, which results in a clean mouth and thereby the prevention of tooth decay.

6. Most of us love the candy Hershey’s Kisses. Do you know how it got its name? The machine that makes them actually looks like it’s kissing the conveyor belt.

7. In medevial Italy, if a man was caught kissing a woman in public, he had to marry her. Whether they liked it or not!

8. Today a big deal is made about kissing in Indian movies, but the fact is that the first movie kiss happened in 1896 in a movie called The Kiss.

9. The official first on screen kiss in India happened in 1933. The movie was Karma and actress Devika Rani kissed Himanshu Rai. Himanshu was her husband!

10. Ever wondered how kisses came out right in the dark? Well, our brain has special neurons that help kissers probe each other’s lips in the dark.

Source: India Syndicate

Asian financial centers raise their global rankings

Shanghai vaulted into the ranks of the world’s leading centres of commerce, becoming one of eight Asian cities among the top 25, while Mumbai, improved its tally by 3 notches, emerging as the 7th most preferred destination for investment in 2008, a study by MasterCard said.

Tokyo retained its spot as Asia’s top commercial centre — and number three globally — while Singapore overtook Hong Kong which ranks sixth globally to move into fourth spot overall, the MasterCard Worldwide Centres of Commerce Index said.

“Asia’s dominance among the top 25 cities globally demonstrates the growing importance of Asian cities to a progressively urbanised global economy,” MasterCard said in a press release.

Other Asian cities in the top 25 global centres of commerce are: Seoul in ninth spot, Sydney in 12th, Osaka 19th, and Taipei at 22nd spot. New Delhi and Bangalore are the two other Indian cities that have been for the first time included in the index at 61st and 66th positions respectively. In addition to Shanghai, the Chinese cities are Beijing, at 57th spot globally, Shenzhen at 60th, Chengdu in 72nd spot and Chongqing at 73.

Regionally, Western Europe dominated with 10 of the top 25 cities, while Asia strengthened its reputation as an economic hub with seven of its cities in the top 25.

The index, developed by a panel of social scientists, rates cities on seven key dimensions including legal and political framework, economic stability and livability, MasterCard said.
http://www.2point6billion.com/2008/06/12/asian-financial-centers-raise-their-global-rankings/

Online love is short-lived : Study

If you are interested in someone you have met on the net, verify his credentials before the relationship takes a serious turn

A recent survey by a psychologist of Queensland University of Technology shows that relationships formed over the net are short-lived. TOI speaks to netizens on their take on the issue

Love at first click
Smriti and Aditya would utter (read type) the same words together at the same time, spend hours locked up in a “room” where there would be no one except them, swear by the same chocolate truffle and Emily Dickinson poetry. It was a love so perfect...until they met. A lot of on-line affairs meet a sad ending as reality hits hard once couples meet face to face, says a recent report.

Survey findings
Psychologist Matthew Bambling of Queensland University of Technology, Australia claims that on-line love is mostly short-lived. People cleverly and easily hide their flaws and “present themselves as a good catch.” When two people meet in person, they realise they are too different from each other and everything that they fancied turns out to be untrue. What follows is big time disappointment, heartbreak and disillusionment. The psychologist further says that as you develop emotional attachment by chatting online, you tend to believe that you have found your match. The best thing to do in such a situation is to immediately make real life contact and check out if there is a possibility of a future together. But not everyone is smart enough to verify the credentials of the person they have got hooked on to. Most of the time people develop a very close bond and are crestfallen when they discover that the person is not a tad like what they had imagined him or her to be.

Case study
Take the case of Smriti Agarwal who met her ‘soul mate’ online. He was everything she had dreamt of – handsome, well-read and oh-so-understanding. And it was all lovey-dovey between them until they decided to meet. Says Smriti, “I had little doubts left that this was the guy I had been waiting for all my life. We chatted for almost a year and decide to meet on his next visit to my town. I was totally taken aback when I saw him. He bore no resemblance at all to the picture he had sent me. (It was his college days picture). He was brash with the waiters and he made a strange burbling sound while he ate. I was so put off, I made my mind to call it quits then and there. After coming back I cried my heart out as I felt I had simply wasted a year of my life.” Now Smriti is wary of strangers on the net and says she would steer clear of a “netty affair” all her life.
“If you are interested in someone you have met on the net, verify his credentials before the relationship takes a serious turn. You never know if people are actually who they claim to be through their profiles. Arrange a meeting and then only take things further,” says Smriti.

Expert speak
Experts agree that it is easy to get deceived on the net as most people present a rosy picture of themselves and in the absence of personal meetings, a lot of important facts do not surface. Psychiatrist Sameer Parikh says, “When the basic communication between couples is happening, a virtually serious or a life-long bond cannot develop. The human touch is important for any relationship to survive. Online bonds fall apart in the absence of personal contact. Also, people tend to conceal a lot of information about themselves.”

Happy endings
But there are others who say that the internet is just another means of meeting people. It is very much possible to fall in love over the net and make the relationship click for life. As Suhana Ameen, a media professional puts it, “I met my boyfriend online. We chatted for hours and later switched over to talking over the phone. We shared every bit of our lives and never felt as if we had never met each other before. Then,
when we met after two years, we knew at once that we were meant to stay together for life. We are getting married soon. Our bond has strengthened with time.”

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3120503.cms

Tatas, Infosys among world's 15 most reputed firms

India's Tata Group has been ranked the world's sixth most reputed company and Infosys Technologies 14th in the annual 'Global 200: The World's Best Corporate Reputations' list compiled by the Reputation Institute here.

The list that includes 10 other Indian companies is topped by Japanese automaker Toyota, followed by Google and Ikea, Sweden's home products' chain.

"India's Tata Group and Infosys Technologies saw their reputations increase by over 8 points in 2008, and catapulted over 100 spots in the ranking to join the top tier of global companies in 2008 in recognition of their growing role among the world's business elite," the Reputation Institute said in its survey report released Thursday.

Other Indian firms in the top 200 list include Maruti Udyog (ranked 77th), State Bank of India (107), Hindustan Lever (131), Hero Honda Motors (147), Life Insurance Corporation of India (161), Bajaj Auto (169), ONGC (186), Mahindra and Mahindra (191), and Indian Oil Corporation (199).

Some large Indian firms which were among 600 shortlisted companies but could not make it to the final 200 included Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries, the country's biggest by revenue among private sector firms and overall largest in terms of market value.

India's biggest private sector lender ICICI Bank, Airtel, BSNL, Wipro, ITC and Air India also could not make the cut.

According to the Reputation Institute, the Tata Group and Air India have the strongest and weakest corporate reputations, respectively, among Indian companies.

The Tatas are ranked higher than companies like Walt Disney, Marks and Spencers, Xerox, Colgate-Palmolive, Sony, Honda and General Electric (GE), all of which are in the top 50.

Reputation Institute said that all the 200 companies earned scores higher than the global mean of 64.2 points, but despite earnings better-than-global average, the companies ranked 51-200 have "significantly weaker reputations than the top tier companies."

Each company's overall Global Pulse score is based on what the institute terms the seven dimensions of reputation: products and services, innovation, workplace, citizenship, governance, leadership and performance. The most influential dimensions are products and services, and citizenship.

Reputation Institute, a private, New York City-based research and consulting firm, launched its list of world's most reputed companies in 2006.
http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/42524

'India, second largest newspaper mkt'

Growing literacy and new technology have resulted in India emerging as the second largest newspaper market in the world, according to latest research by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN).

The new figures show that the four largest markets for newspapers are: China, with 107 million copies sold daily; India, with 99 million copies daily; Japan, with 68 million copies daily; and the United States, with nearly 51 million.
Indian newspaper sales increased 11.2 per cent in 2007 and 35.51 per cent in the five year period. Newspaper advertising revenues in India were up 64.8 per cent over the previous 5 years.

Seventy-four of the world's 100 best-selling dailies are published in Asia. India, China and Japan account for 62 of them.

The research found that newspapers are facing hard times, but circulations worldwide increased by 2.57 per cent in 2007, taking global daily sales to a new high of over 532 million copies.

The global paid-for circulation rose 2.57 per cent year on year and 9.39 per cent over the past five years. However, when free dailies were added to paid-for daily circulation, global circulation increased by 3.65 per cent year on year to 573 million copies.

Free dailies now account for nearly 7 per cent of all global newspaper circulation. Print remains the world's largest advertising medium, with a 40 per cent share.

Timothy Balding, chief executive officer of WAN, said "Newspaper circulation has been rising or stable in three-quarters of the world's countries over the past five years and in nearly 80 per cent of countries in the past year. And even in places where paid-for circulation is declining, notably the US and some countries in western Europe, newspapers continue to extend their reach through a wide variety of free and niche publications."

WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, defends and promotes press freedom and the professional and business interests of newspapers world-wide.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News_By_Industry/Media__Entertainment_/India_second_largest_newspaper_mkt/articleshow/3096316.cms

Most Polluted Place in India

Talcher, a coalmine hub in Orissa, is the most polluted place in the country, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) said.

The ministry of environment and forests said CPCB has identified 24 problem areas on the basis of air and water pollution by industries. The board will prepare Environment Management Plans (EMPs) for these regions soon.

Talcher in the Angul district of Orissa is known for its vast coal reserves and also houses a major National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) plant. The district is also home to the National Aluminium Company (NALCO), one of the profit making public sector units.

Following Talcher, Ankleshwar in Gujarat, Bhadravati in Karnataka, Bollaram in Karnataka, Chembur in Maharashtra and Dhanbad in Bihar are among the worst polluted places in India.

Jodhpur in Rajasthan, Durgapur and Howrah in West Bengal, Vellore in Tamil Nadu, Greater Cochin in Kerala, Vapi in Gujarat and Singrauli in Madhya Pradesh also made it to the list of 24 most polluted places in the country.

In the national capital, Najafgarh Drain Basin Area in southwest Delhi is the 17th most polluted place in the country, CPCB said.

CPCB said it has been conducting inspections to ensure compliance by industrial units of various pollution control norms.

It has identified 17 categories of polluting industries located along the rivers and lakes and in problem areas. According to the board, aluminium and cement industries are the top two polluters in the country.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Earth/Most_polluted_place_in_India/articleshow/3085538.cms

Why I fired my secretary...

Last week was my birthday and I didn't feel very well waking up that morning. I went downstairs for breakfast hoping my wife would be pleasant and say, "Happy birthday!", and possibly have a present for me.

As it turned out, she barely said good morning, let alone "Happy birthday".

I thought... well, that's marriage for you, but the kids will remember. My kids ate breakfast and didn't say a word.

So when I left for the office, I was feeling pretty low and somewhat despondent.

As I walked into my office, my secretary, Jane said, "Good morning boss, happy birthday!" It felt a little better that at least someone had remembered.

I worked until one o'clock and then Jane knocked on my door and said, "You know, it's such a beautiful day outside, and it's your birthday, let's go out to lunch, just you and me".

I said, "Thanks Jane, that's the greatest thing I've heard all day. Let's go!"

We went to lunch. But we didn't go where we normally would go. We dined instead at a little place with a private table. We had two martinis each and I enjoyed the meal tremendously.

On the way back to the office, Jane said, "You know, it's such a beautiful day... We don't need to go back to the office, do we?"

I responded, "I guess not. What do you have in mind?"

She said, "Let's go to my apartment".

After arriving at her apartment Jane turned to me and said, "Boss, if you don't mind, I'm going to step into the bedroom for a moment. I'll be right back".

"OK", I nervously replied.

She went into the bedroom and, after a couple of minutes, she came out carrying a huge birthday cake... followed by my wife, kids, and dozens of my friends and co-workers, all singing "Happy Birthday".

And I just sat there...

On the couch...

Naked...