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POPSUs Indians can be quite confounding sometimes Largely lost in this euphoria is the sense that in the real Mumbai Jamal Malik wouldn't have come within five miles of a TV game show. Of course the film was fantasy, but the fantasy had an ugly core that Indians are blind to. Jamal would not have survived his torture in a real Mumbai police station.
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POPSThe greener option - burial or cremation.... two new technologies have eco-geeks (not to mention sci-fi fans) excited. The process of alkaline hydrolysis involves liquefying your body in a solution of lye and water, resulting in a pile of bone ash and a bottle of biofluid that you can pour on your houseplants. One of its leading proponents, a Scotland-based company called Resomation Ltd., claims that the procedure has a carbon footprint 18 times smaller than a typical cremator. In the other procedure, called promession, a corpse gets freeze-dried with liquid nitrogen and then shattered into powder, Terminator-style. Neither of these options is commercially available yet, but both the Mayo Clinic and the University of Florida use alkaline hydrolysis to dispose of their teaching cadavers
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POPSGlobal Database of Quotas for Women
Obstacles to women's political participation exist throughout the world in prevailing social and economic regimes, as well as in existing political structures. In 2005, the representation of women reached nearly 16 percent globally. Although this total has increased in recent years, the minimal progress globally means that the ideal of parity remains a long way off. Given the slow rate at which the representation of women is increasing, various methods -- such as electoral quotas -- have been proposed or implemented to address the present gender imbalance in decision-making. Consequently, governments and political parties have experimented with different types of quotas. As the debate about the use of quotas as a tool to increase the political participation of women gains momentum, International IDEA and Stockholm University are collaborating on a research project leading to the production of a comparative knowledge and resources on their implementation and impact.
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POPSSinglism and Matrimania I've noticed this, but wasn't aware there was a name to it.....interesting article; the author points out a few instances too
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POPSConflicts using child soldiers drops - report The 2008 Child Soldiers Global Report documents military recruitment and use of child soldiers in 197 countries including their release and reintegration into society. It covers the period from April 2004 to October 2007 and considers anyone below the age of 18 in a government or non-government armed group a child soldier, whether or not an armed conflict exists.
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POPSVikings acquitted in 100-year-old murder mystery The discovery of the ornate Oseberg oak longboat in south Norway, with a curling prow and the bodies of two women, was one of the archaeological sensations of the early 20th century The old woman suffered from Morgagni's syndrome, a hormonal disturbance that gave her a man-like appearance with a beard and a thick-set body
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POPSCrustacean "Swarm" Destroying Small Hiroshima Island The island's soft rock, a material called tuff that is primarily composed of densely compacted volcanic ash, is an ideal habitat for the booming population of nanatsuba-kotsubumushi Through normal weathering, it would usually take thousands of years for the elements to reduce an island the size of Hoboro to debris But some experts have estimated that, at the current rate, the island may be gone within a century Hoboro appears to be something of a geological oddity, with no other islands in the immediate area made of the same material. Although he prefers not to put a time scale on the island's destruction, Okimura added that it's unclear where the burrowing creatures will go when Hoboro does ultimately disappear beneath the waves
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POPSTolstoy & Gandhi: Two Giants Bound By Pacifism
Enlightening account of the relationship between Tolstoy & Gandhi "In South Africa, Tolstoy's writings landed on the desk of a young Indian dissident, Mahatma Gandhi. He was overwhelmed, declaring that after reading Tolstoy his "lack of faith in non-violence vanished." He hung a picture of Tolstoy on his office wall and named the camp where he trained activists in peaceful resistance Tolstoy Farm. Gandhi wrote five letters to Leo Tolstoy and received four in return, all glowing with praise and intellectual exchange. In his last letter, written in September 1910 only weeks before his death, Tolstoy told Gandhi that his activity was "the most central and important of all the work now being done in the world." Years later, Gandhi repaid the compliment, writing that he knew of no one "in India or anywhere else who has had as profound an understanding of nonviolence as Tolstoy had." Tolstoy had inspired Gandhi's legendary instruction to "be the change you want to see in the worl
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POPSAlbum covers lots to check out here....a handful of these I've come across/heard of/own, rest are brand new....I see myself spending a lot of time at this site ;)
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POPSForbes Fictional 15 To make the list, candidates must be an authored fictional creation, must star in a specific narrative work and be known, both in their fictional universe and by their audience, for being rich