A Great Drawing , From School to Universe !

From school to Universe !

This Drawing is one of the most colorful pictures we've seen. Has drawn by, Chaturi Himashi, 14 years student of Matara Central College, Sri Lanka.She has the ability to rise up her talent in time to come with age, 'cose still she a very small child with ability.

We are proud of you having with us. Because she is a one of student of our institite, The Future Global Educational Center, (T.F.G.E.) in Matara, Southern Provence of Sri Lanka.

She's drawn this one to send for a competition in India.
But, not going to send it explaining there are some incorrect parts in the picture. She said , with that reasons it'll not be able to win in the competition.

An Indian Man marries dog as atonement

Man in India marries dog as atonement

AP Photo: P. Selvakumar, left, places a garland on a sari-draped former stray female dog named Selvi...

NEW DELHI - A man in southern India married a female dog in a traditional Hindu ceremony as an attempt to atone for stoning two other dogs to death — an act he believes cursed him — a newspaper reported Tuesday.

P. Selvakumar married the sari-draped former stray named Selvi, chosen by family members and then bathed and clothed for the ceremony Sunday at a Hindu temple in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, the Hindustan Times newspaper said.

Selvakumar, 33, told the paper he had been suffering since he stoned two dogs to death and hung their bodies from a tree 15 years ago.

"After that my legs and hands got paralyzed and I lost hearing in one ear," he said in the report.

The paper said an astrologer had told Selvakumar the wedding was the only way he could cure the maladies. It did not say whether his situation had improved.

Deeply superstitious people in rural India sometimes organize weddings to dogs and other animals, believing it can ward off certain curses.

The paper showed a picture of Selvakumar sitting next to the dog, which was wearing an orange sari and a flower garland.

The paper said the groom and his family then had a feast, while the dog got a bun.

Colombo-Kandy: From footpath to expressway

Colombo-Kandy: From footpath to expressway

- JP

In 1972, Ceylon Observer Features Editor Eustace Rulach satirised Sri Lanka’s road and transport system in an article titled, `Tourist Ceylon in the year 2072.’ It is about a group of foreigners travelling from Colombo by tourist coach to the Katunayake airport. Two hours later, the tired and shaken passengers clamber off the coaches. One elderly tourist tells another, “I heard my grandpa talk about this trip to the airport from the city, and that it took longer than the flight to Bangkok. My God! That was eighty years ago, and I thought he was joking!”

Our road conditions are not far different today from what they were in 1972 owing to the increasing volume of vehicular traffic. Sri Lanka’s annual loss due to faulty road systems is around Rs.200 billion, according to a survey that the Moratuwa University conducted a few years ago. Needless to say this problem will continue until the planned network of expressways linking the country’s major towns and cities are completed.

How did our grand parents and their elders cope with such situations? To begin with they did not face the transport difficulties we face today. There were four very good reasons for this: (1) life moved at a much lower pace and people travelled less (2) an excellent railway system that was almost never hampered by work stoppages or strikes (3) there was far less vehicular traffic on the highways and (4) towns were much less congested. In the very early part of the last Century, the Galle-Colombo road - say from Moratuwa to Pettah - was half the width of what the same stretch is today.

There were no motor vehicles in Sri Lanka and most parts of the world until the beginning of the 20th Century since the first petrol-driven automobile was invented only in1885. Although the Dutch (1658-1796) constructed a network of roads encircling the island’s coastal belt this country’s most important road - the Colombo-Kandy highway - was built only after the Kandyan Kingdom fell to the British.

But around 2000 years ago at the peak of the ancient Sinhala civilisation our kings did construct some excellent roads and mileposts some of which were discovered in Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa. These however were built long before Sri Lanka’s encounter with the Western powers and the subsequent establishment of the Kandyan kingdom.

Following the European occupation of the Maritime Provinces the Kandyan Kings did not allow the building of any roadways linking the hill country with the low lands for a very good reason. The non-existence of a road network made it extremely difficult for the foreign forces occupying the coastal areas to reach the hill capital. The jungle bordering the kingdom was kept thick and only footpaths were allowed to penetrate it.
This environment was ideal for waging guerilla warfare against any invader. The policy made good dividends in an age when ox caravans, horse-back and palanquins were the principle means of transport.

At the time it took as long as 10 days to reach Kandy along the cart-track-cum-foot path from Colombo whereas today it is a matter of two-and-a-half-hour journey by motor vehicle or train.
When the British decided to open up the jungle and build a roadway it was primarily for military purposes rather than for public use. Later with the dawn of the coffee era the road began to serve commercial objectives as well.
The credit for the construction of the Colombo-Kandy road goes to Governor Sir Edward Barnes who assumed office in 1820. While the first sod was cut in 1820 and the trail was completed in 1821, the road was not open to traffic until 1825. Even then it had a few culverts and bridges that were not completed until 1833 and the metalling was not begun until 1841.

Contract labour was employed to build the part of the road which went through the low country. This work was under the direction of Captain Frazer who was noted for his lurid language. When complaints were made against him Governor Barnes responded by saying that Frazer was just the man for the job since it required a person who was willing to “dam the streams” and “blast the rocks.”

Another military officer, Major Skinner was appointed to build a portion of the Kandy Road from Ampitiya to Warakapola, just above the half-way mark. He noted in his diary that the natives with whom he had to work were “totally unskilled labourers who had never seen a yard of made road in the country, for the best of reasons that such a thing did not exist”.
The villagers that Skinner mentions were working under a system inherited from the Sinhala Rajakariya system, under which the tenant of a property might be required to do two-weeks work for the State. A similar system prevailed in England in the Middle-Ages. Since labour was not paid, it was necessarily inefficient. Even worse was that the whole labour force changed every two weeks and a new labour force had to be taught how to exactly set about working.

This system, which was abolished in 1832, was going on all along the Kandyroad though there was also a Corps of Pioneers recruited for the purpose. Skinner’s fellow officers were a cheerful hard-working crowd and it appears that some of them died due to excessive drinking rather than by accidents during road building.

A bigger menace was malaria - called ‘jungle fever’ in those days since its connection with the mosquito was then unknown.
Building the road to the hill country literally became an uphill task since every night wild elephants broke down the embankments. In addition marshes, quagmires, swamps, pools and puddles posed a major challenge to the engineers and workers. But completed the road was enabling travellers to get to Kandy within a day by horse-drawn carriage.
While the road was under construction in 1822 a pontoon bridge was thrown across the Kelani River to span it at Grandpass. This bridge carried all the traffic that passed the point until the Victoria Bridge was opened for traffic in 1895.

The Gordon Bridge across the Hingula Oya was completed in 1822 and a few other minor bridges too came up by 1825. Two other important bridges - one across the Maha Oya at Mawanella and the other across the Mahaweli Ganga at Peradeniya were both completed in 1832.
The latter was of course spanned by the famous Wedge Bridge comprising one single span of 250 feet. Although it was to be done entirely of satin-wood some milla was substituted for its lower ribs during the latter part of the construction due to a shortage of satin wood. However it did not reduce its value for it was a piece of master-craftsmanship.

This was designed on the instructions of Lt. General John Frazer based on the system of wedge bridges. The bridge was constructed in Colombo and on completion transported to Peradeniya where it was erected by Captain A. Brown without a single nut or bolt of any kind!
This too withstood all the traffic for 72 long years until an iron structure replaced it in 1905. A model of this satin-wood bridge was taken to be exhibited permanently in the South Kensington Museum in London.
After the Kandy Road was opened to the public, toll points (a modern day feature in developed countries) were established at the bridge of boats at Grandpass, Atulugama, Ambepussa Bridge, Anguruwella, Kadugannawa Pass and the Peradeniya Bridge.

No uniformity of rates prevailed in the early period and occasionally it led to confusion and exploitation of road users. To rectify this defect an Ordinance titled, “For establishing an uniform rate of tolls on the road from Colombo to Kandy...” was passed in 1841. These tolls were chargeable upon passengers, carts, carriages, cattle and other animals and goods.
There were also concessions to certain people enumerated in the Ordinance and the Government Agent was the proper authority to direct the toll-keepers in writing to permit cattle driven to grass, persons with agricultural implements or with seed grain to cultivate their land and school children to and fro, to pass a point.

The Colombo-Kandy Road ended the Hill Capital’s virtual isolation from the rest of the country. It also brought a new source of revenue to the Colonial Government as well as immense wealth to several hundred entrepreneurs with the opening up of land for coffee cultivation, soon afterwards.
The dawn of the motor vehicle era, saw a mixture of both old and new modes of transport on the Colombo-Kandy Road as elsewhere. These included what we today call ‘old crocks’ or vintage cars and buses with rubber (bulb) horns, long footboards and cranks (used for starting the engine), bullock carts, horse-drawn carriages and ox-drawn buggies.

Lake House was among the companies that operated a Colombo-Kandy bus service beginning in the 1920s. Horse drawn carriages continued to ply on our roads till about the late 1930s. However even in the mid 1950s I remember seeing as a child a few pony-drawn carriages in the Anuradhapura town.
The length of the island’s road network today is about 92700 km. The roads linking the provinces belong to the A class while those connecting the districts belong to B class. These roads are 11600 km in total length. The roads belong to the C, D and E categories are 16500 km long and unclassified roads are 64000 km.
New challenges - however - are bound to occur with the completion of expressways. . The problem however is that neither the police nor the emergency rescue services, pedestrians’ and local residents, are aware of road safety issues linked to super highways of this type.

According to Romesh Fernando, a one-time public awareness specialist at a Swedish consultancy firm, such expressways will require new facilities such as emergency phones at regular intervals to alert traffic police and emergency services. New regulations, he states, would also be necessary to facilitate the use of seat belts, speed control in designated lanes and the halting of vehicles.

www.friday.lk

Indian girl born with eight limbs stable

BANGALORE, India, Saturday (AFP) -

A two-year-old Indian girl separated from her conjoined twin was doing well today after regaining consciousness for the first time after a gruelling 27 hours of surgery. Lakshmi, who had been born with eight limbs, was under observation at the intensive care unit of Sparsh Hospital in this southern Indian city where doctors completed the surgery Wednesday.

This handout picture shows Indian girl Lakshmi, who was born with eight limbs sitting on her mother Poonam’s lap at a hospital in Bangalore. AFP

“Lakshmi is in satisfactory condition and all her parameters are within normal limits,” said T. Ramesh, the hospital spokesman. Chief paediatric surgeon Sharan Patil, who led the team of 36 medics that performed the surgery -- the first of its kind in India -- said that the little girl was “stable.”She regained consciousness on Friday and was in good spirits, able to open her eyes and move her fingers and toes slowly, Patil said earlier.

Yesterday afternoon, doctors took her off the ventilator to which she had been attached. They plan to shift her from intensive care to a private ward in about two days and put her on a schedule of physiotherapy to strengthen her legs and teach her how to walk. Prior to surgery doctors gave Lakshmi an 80 percent chance of surviving the procedure.

Her parents, who are from a remote district in the eastern Bihar state, were allowed to spend about 15 minutes with her on two occasions on Friday and were happy to see her conscious and recovering from the surgery, said the doctor. The girl, born with four arms and four legs, had the extra limbs removed in the operation after having been born fused at the pelvis to a headless “parasitic twin” that stopped developing in the womb.

She had absorbed the organs and body parts of the undeveloped foetus, a condition that occurs once in 50,000 conjoined twin births, requiring the rare, risky operation. Doctors said the girl would have been unlikely to live into her teens with her condition.

Lakshmi was brought to Bangalore by her parents Shambhu, a manual labourer, and Poonam, for the surgery. The hospital bore the cost of the operation, estimated at 2.4 million rupees (about 60,000 dollars).

Ban on cell phones for under 18s In Sri Lanka ?

Ban on cell phones for under 18s?

By Nadia Fazlulhaq
The Sunday times

The Ministry of Child Development and Women’s Affairs is hoping to introduce a ban or implement strict regulations in 2008 over the use of mobile phones by youth under 18.

The main intention of bringing the ban is to minimize the misuse of mobile phones by youngsters and to minimize abuses through mobile phones Ministry Secretary Mrs. Indrani Sugathadasa said that although any legal documents have not been prepared, Minister Sumedha Jayasena has given directives to organize discussions with relevant authorities, including the Attorney General’s Department.

“Youth under 18 are very vulnerable. Many children and youth send SMSs which has a bad impact on language use and watching pornography through mobile phones is a great threat to their mental development. We also see many youngsters misusing camera phones Playing games through mobile phones ” she said.

How to Become Rich Someday ! _Part 2

How to Become Rich Someday

There are many way to become rich, but many more to become poor. Of course it's usually not easy and many quick methods involve a lot of risk. so take your time and follow these steps to build your wealth.

Note that people have different perceptions of what it means to be rich. In this article we will define rich as having a fortune higher than $1 million.

Steps

Start by investing in your most important asset: Your mind

1. Doing well in school and getting an education in a high-paying profession such as doctor, lawyer, economist, etc. will give you a head-start and a safe economic position.
2. Learn about basic economics such as Compound interest and investment strategies.
3. Develop yourself all your life. Increase your professional skills, leadership skills, financial skills, social skills and general life skills. Making yourself valuable will increase your chances regardless of your path to riches.
4. Develop a vision; why should you become wealthy? Based on this, set your goals. You wont rise up unless you are able to build and focus your ambition.

Invest

1. Start investing as early as possible. Do not wait until you have "enough" money to invest. You will end up with a larger account in the end if you start investing a small amount early and keep adding more regularly.
2. Make smart investments

If you don't understand what you are investing in, don't. Start with something easy like index funds. They have fewer ups and downs than individual stocks, and you will not have all your eggs in one basket.

1. For safety: Stay as debt free as possible. A paid-for education and a paid-off house will enable you to invest more money in the stock market or your own business. Only gear up low-risk investments with loans.
2. Starting now is better than never starting. The power of compound interest can make anyone wealthy. Example: Investing only $10 every year at 15 % annual profit will give you over $1,3 million after 70 years.

Start your own business

1. It is always better to be an employer than an employee, if you are disciplined and able to devote time and money. Learn all you can about running a business. Take a class. Ask an experienced business owner for advice. Be careful, though. Many businesses fail, especially in their first year. You could end up with considerable debt, no savings, and no benefits. Get help!
2. Entrepeneurs make up the majority of millionaires, it is high risk, but it is also the most likely way to become truly wealthy. Few people amass great wealth through other means. Less than 1 % become a millionaire through "other" means such as being a rockstar, winning the lottery, etc. So unless you inherit wealth your best shot is doing this.
3. Note that you can start your own business part-time. For example by going into real estate, purchasing, renovating and selling homes is a commong way for building wealth for people without money to invest.

Be Smart

1. Learn about budgeting, credit, and debt. Learn how credit cards work! If you get into debt early it can sabotage your progress.
2. Put an amount of money in the bank monthly. 10, 20, 30 dollars is good - $100 is better. By the time you get old, retirement would be easy. (See segment about compound interest).
3. If you are in college and can't afford an apartment and don't like those nasty dorms, then gather with 3 or 4 people, and buy a good sized house while splitting the payment. It'd probably cost less than a apartment.

Extremely high risk/dubious morality: not covered in this article

• Stealing
• Lottery
• Gambling
• Importing drugs
• Seducing a rich person with the hopes of marrying into wealth

On the other hand, there haven't been covered any specific ways in this article.

Please update........

Sources : Wikihow.com

Bopath Ella’s captivating cascade

A day in the life of...
Bopath Ella’s
captivating cascade

Text and photography by W. A. Mahil

The Nation
True to its name, Bopath Ella fall dazzles! A frothy white foam bursts forth from Kuru Ganga which starts from the Adams Peak mountain range. The sheet of water that comes crashing down envelops the area in a fine mist.

As you approach the waterfall, the sound of water echoes all around. When you look up, practically nothing is visible except for a blinding white curtain, which against the sunlight makes the surrounding rolling hills look blue.

Bopath Ella is Sabaragamuwa’s most picturesque waterfall, as voiced by every visitor to this place. The breathtaking spot is about five kilometres away from Kuruwita on the Colombo-Ratnapura main highway. The perennial waterfall is a hot spot for picnickers and lovers from all over the island. The place is too charming to be ignored.

Travelling about five kilometres from Kuruwita, the narrow road branches off on to the right which is motorable for half a kilometre, after which you have to park your vehicle at the car park, maintained by Kuruwita Pradeshiya Saba for a charge of 30 rupees, and wade through a shallow stream to reach the waterfall. For those who can’t wade in the water to reach the waterfall there is a canoe operating in the stream by a villager.

During holidays, visitors throng the area and many people are seen bathing at the small shallow stream at ground level. Unmindful of the crowd, I walked on the pebbled muddy road leading to the waterfall. While absorbing the lush beauty of the environ, I could not ignore the severe environmental pollution in the place. Specially the young crowds who come there to enjoy, take liquor and leave the broken bottles causing grave environmental pollution in the vicinity of the waterfall.

The villagers in the area have a tremendous opportunity to earn their livelihood by selling various goods to the visitors, setting up their stalls beside the road. I learnt from the trader who sells foods to visitors in the spot, that these are evergreen and semi-evergreen forests where small animals like rabbits and fox and a few varieties of birds are occasionally spotted in the periphery. Back to the falls, the continuous stream of white foam at a height of 30 metres, is definitely a sight worth freezing.

It is interesting to see how the waterfall is compartmentalized. The gushing stream actually crashes down like a Bo leaf between two huge rock boulders, curves and forms a second sheet of water. After the steep fall, the water gathers and cascades over another rock boulder.

There are several small streams straying off here and there by the side where you can relax and spend as much time as you want at Bopath Ella falls, even for a whole day.

****

Girl Born With 4 Arms, 4 Legs Has Successful Surgery

Lakshmi Tatma Had a 25 Percent Chance of Dying During Surgery

(AP Photo)

By NICK SCHIFRIN
NEW DELHI, India, Nov. 7, 2007

In the desperately poor corner of Bihar, India, she was a miracle.

Tiny Lakshmi Tatma was born two years ago with four arms and four legs. The local population considered her the manifestation of a goddess. Her parents named her after the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth.

A local circus even tried to buy her, but her parents chose health over fame and asked a team of doctors to remove her extra limbs. The surgery, conducted in Bangalore, ended successfully this afternoon.

"The child has withstood the procedure in an excellent manner," Dr. Sharan Patil, the team leader who planned the surgery for more than a month, told reporters outside the Sparsh Hospital. "This girl can now lead as good a life as anyone else."

It took more than 30 surgeons 27 hours to not only remove two of Lakshmi's arms and two of her legs but also to rebuild much of her body and save her organs. They say the chances of death were as high as 25 percent.

The cost of such a complex procedure would have been $625,000, far too great for the Lakshmi's family to afford. The hospital's foundation paid.

"We are very grateful to all the doctors for seeing our plight and deciding to help us," Tatma's father, Shambhu, told The Associated Press.

The doctors "worked relentlessly through the night to make the operation successful," Patil said, adding there had been "no setback at any stage of the surgery."

Half a Twin

Lakshmi Tatma, 2, sits in the lap of her mother, Poonam, a day before the marathon surgery

Lakshmi is essentially one half of a conjoined twin without a living sibling. Her condition is called ischiopagus. In the womb, a "parasitic twin" stopped developing, but Lakshmi absorbed its arms and legs, its kidneys, its stomach and chest cavities as well as a series of nerves.

The surgery removed the extra body parts and unfused Lakshmi's spine from her twin's. To rebuild her pelvis, surgeons used tissue from the twin. And to save her kidney, doctors said, they had to remove it from the "parasitic abdomen" and move it into Lakshmi's own abdomen. She may still need more surgeries.

Conjoined twins occur in about one in every 200,000 births, and their survival rate can be as low as 5 percent.

Tutankhamun's mummy to Be Displayed for 1st Time

Tutankhamun's mummy to Be Displayed for 1st Time

http://emi-argentina.blogspot.com/

The mummy of King Tutankhamun will soon go on display for the first time, exposing the bare face of the boy king, Egyptian officials have announced. The mummy will be removed from its sarcophagus and placed in a climate-controlled glass case in the antechamber of the pharaoh's tomb in Luxor in November (see Egypt map).

"I am taking [the mummy] out to show it to the public for the first time," said Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The move is part of an effort to preserve the mummy, which has been in poor condition since it was first discovered, Hawass explained.

Archaeologist Howard Carter unearthed Tutankhamun's treasure-filled tomb in 1922, the first discovered with its riches so intact.

But Carter and his team partly destroyed the mummy in search of more treasures buried with the pharaoh, separating it into 18 sections, Hawass said.

Humidity and heat, much of it generated by the breath of the tomb's 5,000 daily visitors, have also taken a toll.

"Right now the mummy has no special protection from the humidity in the tomb," Hawass said. "The new case will be specially sealed to protect it from this sort of damage."

The pharaoh's remains will be partially rewrapped in linen with the face of the pharaoh left uncovered, according to Mansour Boraik, general supervisor of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Luxor.

Officials hope the display will increase the number of visitors and generate profit for the conservation of other Egyptian antiquities.

"The 'golden boy' has magic and mystery that bring people from all over the world," Hawass said.

(Hawass is a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence. National Geographic News is a division of the National Geographic Society.)

The mummy has been examined four times before, but it has never been seen by the public.

In 2005 Hawass opened the sarcophagus to perform a series of CT scans that allowed researchers to create a reproduction of the king's face.

(See photos of Tut's mummy and reconstructed face.)

"I was fascinated with his face," said Hawass, who noted the king's buck teeth are similar to those of the pharaoh's royal ancestors.

"Meeting King Tut face to face was very personal. … It was an important moment in my life."

Tutankhamun became pharaoh at the age of nine, ruling for only ten years in the 14th century B.C. before meeting an untimely death.

(Read: "King Tut Died From Broken Leg, Not Murder, Scientists Conclude" [December 1, 2006].)

Awakening the Curse

Exposing the mummy is likely to resurrect the myth of the pharaoh's curse, once believed to bring tragedy to those who disturb the tomb.

Most famously, Carter's sponsor, Lord Carnarvon, died shortly after entering the tomb from an infected mosquito bite.

Other tragedies were also blamed on the curse, and some experts have said ancient toxins lying in the tomb could have played a role.

"There is always mystery about King Tut, and it will never stop," Hawass said.

"Of course this will reawaken fears of the curse, as any new project involving the tomb or the mummy always does."

"I don't believe in the curse at all," he added. "But the gold, the intact tomb, the curse—all this history makes everybody fascinated by King Tut."