UN's conniving inaction in Afghanistan

United Nations should have assisted the Afghan govt when US left or taken temporary charge of the administration.  That is the purpose of UN in conflict ridden places of the world. 

UN has a lot of questions to answer in this issue..

1. Does UN want to destroy Afghanistan ? 

2. Does US favour a weak Afghan govt ?  

3. Is UN with the oi-rich enemy-of-humanity Qatar in destroying Afghanistan ? 

4. Why did UN Sec Gen Antonio Gutteres remain silent and inactive in this case ?

5. Why did UN ditch the Afghan govt and people in this time of crisis and allow enemies of humanity like Pakistan and Qatar play a destabilizing role in Afghanistan ?

Answers please, Antonnio .. 😟😟

This question was raised by my daughter yesterday when we were having a discussion at home on global issues .. 😟

A destabilized Afghanistan means a disturbed Asia. A disturbed Asia means a silent and inactive China and India, which means a golden opportunity for US to play the Good Samaritan and establish yet again its dominance of the world.

George 

An apheresis procedure at St. Johns hospital, Bangalore

I had the good opportunity of going through a voluntary 2 hour apheresis procedure on Saturday 4 Sept '21 morning to separate platelets for a cancer patient in St. Johns hospital, Bangalore.

Apheresis is a medical procedure that involves removing whole blood from a donor or patient and separating the blood into individual components so that one particular component can be removed. The remaining blood components then are re-introduced back into the bloodstream of the patient or donor. 

 

Platelets, one of the 4 components of blood, (about 3 x 10^^11 was collected), is a yellowish thick liquid separated from our blood,, about 50 - 100 ml, given to critical / terminal cancer and leukaemia patients. 

Human blood contains platelets 45% and plasma 55% by volume, platelets helps the blood to clot and prevent blood loss. 

The monitor gives progressive info

Actually I went for blood transfusion, but since my last transfusion was just 2.5 months back, they suggested instead an apheresis procedure.

A young doctor there explained to me the procedure well and uncle google also was helpful, I agreed. I was told it is a really harmless procedure, I can do apheresis, every two weeks, if I want to. This time only platelets, next time could be only plasma etc. By this, more people can donate the diff blood components. Though this was my 42nd blood donation, this was my first experience at apheresis and it was cool ..

A very safe procedure, an approximate count of platelets taken was mentioned, 3 x 10 to the power 11, (300 billion or 300,000,000,000 platelets .. ). The procedure app took 45 minutes, totally 2 hours pre-harvesting and post-harvesting in an a/c room under watchful eyes. 

Having had a good breakfast, I was given two Calcium tablets before and one orange juice packet after the procedure. I am perfectly fine after the procedure, healthy and active, no hangovers at all.

If you want to touch the past, touch a rock.  If you want to touch the present, touch a flower.  If you want to touch the future, touch a life.” – Author Unknown

Thanking Almighty God for giving an opportunity to serve society, hope this will motivate others to continue give back to society ..  🙏🙏

An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching - Mahatma Gandhi

George 

Visit to Dayabhavan, Kunigal, Tumkur.

2005 pic of inaug. by HG Osthathios (c).

Dayabhavan is the home for the non-HIV infected children of HIV infected parents situated in Kunigal in Tumkur district in Karnataka run by the Orthodox Syrian Church of India. Wanted to visit some socially stimulating place and this institution run by the Orthodox Syrian church founded by Geevarghese Mar Osthathios in 2005 was a very apt place to visit. This is our second visit... The website of the orphanage is www.dayabhavan.org 

 

The place has two buildings, the St Gregorios orphanage that houses 72 inmates from 5 years to about 20 years of age, mostly studying in the local Kannada medium govt schools and some in local english medium schools, going to PUC and Degree. 

 

The other building is the govt recognised St Gregorios adoption centre for Tumkur district that has about 17 children from 1 day to about 4 years of age. The kids are in different stages of adoption by local childless couples and foreign ones. Usually adoption is a very long legal process taking about 3 years of time. The government system works well in trying to understand over this period of time the willingness and capability of the couple to adopt and take care of children well into their adolescence. Children from the adoption centre move in to the orphanage as they grow. About 7-8 babies are in different stages of adoption by Indian and foreign couples. 

From St. Gregorios Orthodox church, Hosur Road, Bangalore, a team of ten members from five families and driver Anil, under the leadership of Dr. Alice Mani, got ready by 6 AM. By 6.45 AM we were hitting the road to Kunigal in two Toyota Innova, loaded with food and gifts for the children. We went there to spend a very productive day with the children.

We carried the breakfast of appam (total 400) for all the orphanage inmates and their caretakers, while the chicken curry was prepared by the kitchen staff. After a blessed breakfast with the children, we were entertained by them for about two hours. They sang and danced to their hearts content. It was great motivation for them to perform in front of a very welcome crowd who gave them all support and encouragement to dream big and do great things in life.

Kids having breakfast

Then we went around the compound to watch the kitchen gardens being maintained by the children with Fr. Jinesh Varkey. A type of Miyawaki forestry (click here for Miyawaki at Toyota Kirloskar plant Bidadi)  of intense vegetation is practiced here. Instead of wild trees, lot of beneficial fruit bearing trees and vegetables were planted closely together that supported each other while giving high quality organic produce for the inmates to consume. They also make very pure vurgin coconut oil which they sell at rs 300 per liter. 

We also brought some of the produce with us back to Bangalore, at a cost, which helps the orphanage financially. Besides the members also gave good donations to the orphanage to help in it's daily functioning alongside sacks of rice, books, furniture, pickles, and so on.

Alice Mani was very helpful

We also were fortunate enough to plant about ten saplings, a practice to have deep intimate feelings of association with the orphanage and the inmates. The return trip at 2 PM got us back in our homes in Bangalore by 5 PM.

This is a trip we would not forget for a long time. We have enjoyed the warmth and safety of our parents during our lifetime and so have our children. When we think of these children who were denied these luxuries, we feel sorry for them and wish to help them in all ways possible. We are forever grateful to God for giving us the basic pleasures and luxuries of life. 

Were it not for the persistence from Dr Alice Mani, we would not have made it to Kunigal during this Covid time. A big thanks to her once again.

If you want to help the orphanage financially pl contact the Manager / warden Fr Jinesh Varkey 94483 71298. The passion and dedication of Fr Jinesh to this institution is commendable.

St. Gregorios Dayabhavan

Bhaktharahalli Post, Vanigere Village, Kunigal Taluk, Tumkur District, Karnataka State, India. PIN-572 120

Ph. No: +91-76767 05649 (Admin Office), +91-94483 71298 (Secretary Fr Jinesh)

dayabhavan@gmail.com

George.

Artificial Intelligence role play in the MBA class

30 July 2021 we did a role play in the MBA sem 1 class, section B in Alliance School of Business, Bangalore, India.

According to wikipedia, Role-playing is the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role.

Northern Illinois University has this explanation of role playing. Click here .. 

Role playing is that allows students to immediately apply content as they are put in the role of a decision maker who must make a decision regarding a policy, resource allocation, or some other outcome. - serc.carleton.edu

Click here for my earlier writing on the Bloom's Taxonomy to effect great understanding in the learning process, Role play comes in the top create part of the pyramid.

Objective : Understand how AI applications in daily rioutine activities in industry or elsewhere can help simplify matters and improve productivity

Procedure : There were 3 groups of 4 students each, the rest of the 45 students were taking online sessions from home. The 12 students carried out the role play.

The role we assumed in the class were of participants who earlier had issues with carrying out the mundane functions in the manufacturing plant or office or home and demonstrating how AI helped to efficiently carry it out.

The first group showed how they had problems manufacturing computer displays in the shop floor. The manual processes were inefficient and resulted in errors which the quality manager often found and complained to the top management in the company. It was when they decided to call in an AI expert and succeeded in effectively shifting from manual control to AI based control, which saw high quality and increase in efficiency.

The second AI based role play involved the hostel mess where the students were bored with the same breakfast. Even after repeated complaining, the menu had not changed. That was when one of the students had a friend who was contacted and who helped come out with an AI program that helped to mix the right ingredients of different varieties of flour to get any food of their liking and preferences. It changed the students perception to the hostel mess food immediately and was a big success.

The third group focused on a retail store. Earlier the store had problems with low sales and the store management decided to install AI systems. This system tracked eye ball movements of customers that gave indicators to the store management what were the items customers were looking at which would move faster than the other items in the store. The store was able tom improve its sales by installing this system. 

Learning : The exercise helped the students to visualise a poorly performing situation and the improved situation with the application of AI based systems that led to overall improvement.

Difference between religion and spirituality (from Internet)

This is one tremendous message, read it completely at a leisurely pace. 

A learned man was once asked to explain the difference between Religion and Spirituality. His response was profound:

▪ Religion is not just one, there are many.

▪ Spirituality is one.

▪ Religion is for those who sleep.

▪ Spirituality is for those who are awake.

▪ Religion is for those who need someone to tell them what to do and want to be guided.

▪ Spirituality is for those who pay attention to their inner voice.

▪ Religion has a set of dogmatic rules.

▪ Spirituality invites us to reason about everything, to question everything.

▪ Religion threatens and frightens.

▪ Spirituality gives inner peace.

▪ Religion speaks of sin and guilt.

▪ Spirituality says, "learn from an error".

 

▪ Religion represses everything which is false.

▪ Spirituality transcends everything, it brings you closer to your truth!

▪ Religion speaks of a God; It is not God.

▪ Spirituality is everything and therefore, it is in God.

▪ Religion invents.

▪Spirituality finds.

▪ Religion does not tolerate any question.

▪Spirituality questions everything.

▪ Religion is human. It is an organization with rules made by men.

▪ Spirituality is Divine, without human rules.

▪ Religion is the cause of divisions.

▪Spirituality unites.

▪ Religion is looking for you to believe.

▪ Spirituality you have to look for it to believe.

▪ Religion follows the concepts of a sacred book.

▪ Spirituality seeks the sacred in all books.

▪ Religion feeds on fear.

▪ Spirituality feeds on trust and faith.

▪ Religion lives in thought.

▪ Spirituality lives in Inner Consciousness.

▪ Religion deals with performing rituals.

▪ Spirituality has to do with the Inner Self.

▪ Religion feeds the ego.

▪ Spirituality drives to transcend beyond.

▪ Religion makes us renounce the world to follow a God.

▪ Spirituality makes us live in God, without renouncing our existing lives.

▪ Religion is a cult.

▪ Spirituality is inner meditation.

▪ Religion fills us with dreams of glory in paradise.

▪ Spirituality makes us live the glory and paradise on earth.

▪ Religion lives in the past and in the future.

▪ Spirituality lives in the present.

▪ Religion creates cloisters in our memory.

▪ Spirituality liberates our Consciousness.

▪ Religion makes us believe in eternal life.

▪ Spirituality makes us aware of Eternal Life.

▪ Religion promises life after death.

▪ Spirituality is to find God in our interior during the current life before death.

Religion is for the illiterate masses

Spirituality is for our soul

-We are not human beings, who go through a spiritual experience.

-We are spiritual beings, who go through a human experience.

Why the Covid second wave could be serious in India ?

Of late, just over the past two weeks, we have been hearing about more Covid occurences. Why did this happen ? Many reasons are cited, I am listing some of them here.

1. People have felt relaxed about the restrictions of Covid

2. The second wave is a different variant not responding to the vaccines nor showing any response to the RTPCR vaccine.

3. During the elections held in some states, no Covid restrictions were followed that led to the massive spread

4. People have been traveling wide and far and have been responsible for bringing the virus from other parts

5. The covid patients now are asymptomatic, because of which they are moving freely in society acting as super spreaders

6. Asia and particularly India is showing the max Covid patients now.

7. travel is still possible over air, rail and road across the different affected states 

8. curfew restrictions were relaxed initially that led to people moving across the states and affected areas freely

9. People who have taken one and two doses of Covaxin or Covishield are now getting infected, proving that the new variant has no vaccine and is dangerous

If the situation goes this way,  lockdown will also be declared in Karnataka like it has been done in Mumbai. 

So be prepared and take care.

George

Blood donation at Narayana Hrudayalaya Bangalore 3/3/21

My close friend and classmate Brian DSa from Goa, sent me a message on 2nd March. It was from the Bangalore Blood Donors Forum (BBDF) that a patient is in urgent need of 30 units of blood at Narayana Hrudayalaya (NH) and asked whether anyone could help. A sincere request, a great deed to carry out. After all, it was a request from a close friend.

NH was the most convenient place for me to go, just 10 kms from my Anekal campus of Alliance University. Also my blood being O+ve I could donate to anybody. Though my last donation was on 24 Dec '20 and it was just past 9 weeks, because of the urgent  request from BBDF, I did not wait for the mandatory 12 weeks before the next donation. 

At 10.30 am I left the AU Anekal campus to NH by bus (a low Carbon footprint activity) and returned by 12.15 pm after donating 350 ml of blood. Very trained nursing personnel made the process very simple, professional, smooth and remarkable one. The donation procedure lasted about 20 mins. After a very minor refreshment I was back inside the bus to the campus at Anekal.

 

This is my 39th blood donation, ever since the first one in '85. This is my fourth or fifth donation at NH. I was feeling really on top of the world after  the donation. I thought they would take 450 ml of blood as is usually the case at St. Johns, but at NH they took only 350 ml, no strain at all.

Thanking God for giving me the great opportunity to serve mankind this 39th time. 

Most people look down upon blood donation because of poor awareness. That system should change in our society. Blood donation keeps you healthy and active, with a great feeling of doing something and giving back to society. Click here for the link to my 2016 blood donation, again to Narayana Hrudayalaya. 

One blood donation gives you enough vitality and health as running two full length 41 km marathons .. so why wait ?

George