FACTBOX - Highs and lows in Pakistan-India ties

Tension is running high between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan after militants attacked Mumbai.
India says it has proof of a Pakistani link to the Mumbai attacks that killed nearly 200 people, raising the prospect of renewed confrontation between the countries.
Pakistan condemned the assault, denied any state agency was involved and assured India of full cooperation in investigations.
Following are some of the highs and lows in relations between the neighbours:
1947 - Britain divides its Indian empire into secular but mainly Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan, triggering one of the greatest and bloodiest migrations of modern history.
1947/48 - India and Pakistan go to their first war over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. The war ended with a U.N.-ordered ceasefire and resolution seeking a plebiscite for the people of Jammu and Kashmir to decide whether to become part of India or Pakistan.
1965 - India and Pakistan go to war over Kashmir. Fighting ends after United Nations calls for ceasefire.
1971 - Pakistan and India go to war a third time over East Pakistan, which became independent Bangladesh.
1972 - Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi sign agreement in Indian town of Simla to lay principles meant to govern relations.
1974 - India detonates its first nuclear device.
1990 - Indian army opens fire in Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar during protest against crackdown on separatism, killing 38 and spurring a revolt. India accuses Pakistan of arming and sending Islamist militants into Indian Kashmir. Pakistan denies that, saying it gives political, moral and diplomatic support to what it calls a Kashmiri freedom movement.
1998, May - India carries out five underground nuclear tests and announces plans to build a nuclear arsenal. Pakistan conducts six tests of its own in response.
1999
Feb - Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee makes a historic bus ride to Pakistan for summit with Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif.
May - The two countries stand on the brink of their fourth war after India launches major counter-strike against Pakistani intruders dug in on mountains in Kargil in Indian Kashmir.
2000
July - Summit between Pakistani leader and army chief General Pervez Musharraf and Vajpayee in the Indian city of Agra ends in failure.
2001
Dec - Militants attack Indian parliament. Fourteen people, including the five assailants, are killed. India blames Pakistan-based Kashmiri separatist groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad and demands action against them. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers confront each other on the border.
2003 - Pakistan announces ceasefire along the Line of Control, the de facto border in Kashmir. India welcomes the move.
2004 - The two countries launch a peace process that brings an improvement in diplomatic, sporting and trade links but no progress on Kashmir. Peace process comes under strain from occasional bomb attacks in India.
2008
July - India says Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency was behind a bomb attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul that killed 58 people.
Nov - Mumbai attacks bring tension to its highest level since since the weeks following the December 2001 attack on India's parliament.
http://in.news.yahoo.com/137/20081130/742/tnl-factbox-highs-and-lows-in-pakistan-i.html

15 Steps to Cultivate Lifelong Learning

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.” - Marcel Proust“I don’t think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.” - Abraham Lincoln

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” - Mark Twain

Assuming the public school system hasn’t crushed your soul, learning is a great activity. It expands your viewpoint. It gives you new knowledge you can use to improve your life. Even if you discount the worldly benefits, the act of learning can be a source of enjoyment.

But in a busy world, it can often be hard to fit in time to learn anything that isn’t essential. The only things learned are those that need to be. Everything beyond that is considered frivolous. Even those who do appreciate the practice of lifelong learning, can find it difficult to make the effort.

Here are some tips for installing the habit of lifelong learning:


1) Always have a book.

It doesn’t matter if it takes you a year or a week to read a book. Always strive to have a book that you are reading through, and take it with you so you can read it when you have time. Just by shaving off a few minutes in-between activities in my day I can read about a book per week. That’s at least fifty each year.

2) Keep a “To-Learn” List

We all have to-do lists. These are the tasks we need to accomplish. Try to also have a “to-learn” list. On it you can write ideas for new areas of study. Maybe you would like to take up a new language, learn a skill or read the collective works of Shakespeare. Whatever motivates you, write it down.

3) Get More Intellectual Friends

Start spending more time with people who think. Not just people who are smart. But people who actually invest much of their time in learning new skills. Their habits will rub off on you. Even better, they will probably share some of their knowledge with you.

4) Guided Thinking

Albert Einstein once said, “Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.” Simply studying the wisdom of others isn’t enough, you have to think through ideas yourself. Spend time journaling, meditating or contemplating over ideas you have learned.

5) Put it Into Practice

Skill based learning is useless if it isn’t applied. Reading a book on C++ isn’t the same thing as writing a program. Studying painting isn’t the same as picking up a brush. If your knowledge can be applied, put it into practice.

6) Teach Others

You learn what you teach. If you have an outlet of communicating ideas to others, you are more likely to solidify that learning. Start a blog, mentor someone or even discuss ideas with a friend.

7) Clean Your Input

Some forms of learning are easy to digest, but often lack substance. I make a point of regularly cleaning out my feed reader for blogs I subscribe to. Great blogs can be a powerful source of new ideas. But every few months I realize I’m collecting posts from blogs that I am simply skimming. Every few months, purify your input to save time and focus on what counts.

8 ) Learn in Groups

Lifelong learning doesn’t mean condemning yourself to a stack of dusty textbooks. Join organizations that teach skills. Workshops and group learning events can make educating yourself a fun, social experience.

9) Unlearn Assumptions

You can’t add water to a full cup. I always try to maintain a distance away from any idea. Too many convictions simply mean too few paths for new ideas. Actively seek out information that contradicts your worldview.

10) Find Jobs that Encourage Learning

Pick a career that encourages continual learning. If you are in a job that doesn’t have much intellectual freedom, consider switching to one that does. Don’t spend forty hours of your week in a job that doesn’t challenge you.

11) Start a Project

Set out to do something you don’t know how. Forced learning in this way can be fun and challenging. If you don’t know anything about computers, try building one. If you consider yourself a horrible artist, try a painting.

12) Follow Your Intuition

Lifelong learning is like wandering through the wilderness. You can’t be sure what to expect and there isn’t always an end goal in mind. Letting your intuition guide you can make self-education more enjoyable. Most of our lives have been broken down to completely logical decisions, that making choices on a whim has been stamped out.

13) The Morning Fifteen

Use the first fifteen minutes of your morning as a period for education. If you find yourself too groggy, you might want to wait a short time. Just don’t put it off later in the day where urgent activities will push it out of the way.

14) Reap the Rewards

Learn information you can use. Understanding the basics of programming allows me to handle projects that other people would require outside help. Meeting a situation that makes use of your educational efforts can be a source of pride.

15) Make it a Priority

Few external forces are going to persuade you to learn. The desire has to come from within. Once you decide you want to make lifelong learning a habit, it is up to you to make it a priority in your life.

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/15-steps-to-cultivate-lifelong-learning.html

Obama makes history, elected US president

Democrat Barack Obama captured the White House on Tuesday after an extraordinary two-year campaign, defeating Republican John McCain to make history as the first black to be elected US president.

Obama will be sworn in as the 44th US president on January 20, 2009, television networks said. He will face a crush of immediate challenges, from tackling an economic crisis to ending the war in Iraq and striking a compromise on overhauling the health care system.

McCain saw his hopes for victory evaporate with losses in a string of key battleground states led by Ohio, the state that narrowly clinched President George W. Bush's re-election in 2004, and Virginia, a state that had not backed a Democrat since 1964.

Obama led a Democratic electoral landslide that also expanded the party's majorities in both chambers of Congress and firmly repudiated eight years of Republican President George W. Bush's leadership.

The win by Obama, son of a black father from Kenya and white mother from Kansas, marked a milestone in U.S. history. It came 45 years after the height of the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King.

In a campaign dominated at the end by a flood of bad news on the economy, Obama's leadership and proposals on how to handle the crisis tipped the race in his favor. Exit polls showed six of every 10 voters listed the economy as the top issue.

Tens of thousands of Obama supporters gathered in Chicago's Grant Park for an election night rally that had the air of a celebratory concert, cheering results that showed his victories in key states.

McCain, a 72-year-old Arizona senator and former Vietnam War prisoner, had hoped to become the oldest president to begin a first term in the White House and see his running mate Sarah Palin become the first female U.S. vice president.