Thursday 31 January 2013

7 easy tips to increase hair volume naturally

Did you know it is very common and normal to lose upto 100 strands a day. So don't be tense if it is happening with you too especially during weather change. "Just relax" is the mantra and key for good health. Follow below tips regularly to reduce hair fall. These tips are effective only when used regularly for 2-3 weeks.

Massaging:
Use warm oil to massage hair and scalp. It increases blood circulation thereby making roots healthy. Always keep scalp and hair clean. Shampoo whenever hair or scalp is oily but not too often.

Balanced diet is must:
Include necessary Vitamins and minerals such as vitamins B, C, and F, zinc, iron and copper in your diet. They promote hair growth.

Conditioning:
Conditioning hair with good conditioner after shampoo use is must. Its use makes hair more manageable and much easier to untangle.

Aloe Vera:
It can work wonders if used judiciously. Apply Aloe vera gel directly to scalp and let it stay for one hour. Then use shampoo to rinse it. Regular use will definitely reduce hair fall.

Chemicals Use; Strict No:
Its use besides making hair dull and dry makes hair fragile and more prone to hair loss by weakening roots. Avoid unnecessary perming , straightening, coloring.

Amla; Indian Gooseberry:
Include atleast one Amla in your diet. Lesser processed better it is. For best results eat one amla empty stomach early morning.

Exercise and Yoga:
Include yoga in your daily regimen. It is very necessary to include yoga or exercise because lack of oxygen or blood flow to scalp contributes to hair loss.

Yuvraj’s Test career looks to be on its last legs

Former players feel he needs to work on his batting and score heavily in domestic cricket

As far as Yuvraj Singh’s Test career is concerned, the curtain seems to be well and truly on its way down.

The selectors have desisted from naming him in either the Rest of India squad for the Irani Cup match against Ranji winners Mumbai next week, or in the Board President’s XI or India ‘ A’ sides selected to play the practice games against Australia in Chennai ahead of the four- Test series that begins on February 22.

The signals were clear when, after three lacklustre Tests, Yuvraj was dropped in favour of Ravindra Jadeja’s all- round skills for the fourth Test against England in Nagpur.

And the Chandigarh lad didn’t do himself any favours in the subsequent T20 and ODI series against Pakistan and England, showing form in just two games out of a combined 12.

The Low Points:

His worst series came against Australia. Against the Kangaroos he has played 4 Tests and scored 64 run at an average of 9.14.His highest score being 27.
India won 18 and lost 10 out of the 40 Tests he has played. In the 10 matches he has scored only 567 runs at an average of 28.35 including 2 centuries.
In Australia he played 2 Tests and scored only 17 runs at an average of 4.25 in 4 innings.
His worst year was 2006. In that year he played 9 Tests and scored only 339 runs at an average of 28.25.
Mohammad Sami and Muralitharan dismissed him 4 times each.
Apart from Australia, Bangladesh, West Indies and Zimbabwe are the other three countries against whom he averages less than 19.

Against the arch- rivals from across the border, it was the pace of Umar Gul and Junaid Khan that stopped him from getting into any kind of flow, before England off- spinner James Tredwell made him his bunny in the five- match ODI series by getting him out on four successive occasions.

He did drag India to victory on one occasion – in the Ahmedabad T20 against Pakistan – with a knock of 72. But after that, his bat fell silent, and as a result, he seems to have slipped behind Jadeja, Suresh Raina, Manoj Tiwary, Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane as a Test contender.

Yuvraj’s record also tells a story. In more than nine years since his Test debut against New Zealand at his home ground, Mohali, he has played in just 40 matches, and a return of 1,900 runs at 33.92 can hardly be called top bracket.

And yet, Yuvraj has his supporters because of the sheer thrill and elegance his batting engenders, and cricket experts feel it is premature to call it the ‘ end of the road’ for him.

“I don’t think we can say that it is the end of the road. I think it is more a case of him being out of contention at present.

The main reason would be his lack of form. He hasn’t done much in the longer format and now needs to score heavily in the domestic circuit as well as the ODIs that he plays to earn a comeback into the Test squad,” former India opener Chetan Chauhan told MAIL TODAY. “ Fitness, I guess, is also an issue with him. I think he will need to work on that as well as it isn’t that easy when you are playing five days on the trot. Also, I think the Indian management is looking for separate individuals who will play the shorter formats and different individuals who will play in the longer format, something like what Australia has done.” Former India all- rounder Madan Lal, meanwhile, said it would come down to whether Yuvraj still had a desire to play Test cricket or not.

“I still think he is too good a player — just that he needs to work on his batting and ensure that he starts scoring in the longer format as well. It now depends on his desire of playing Test matches. It will be tough, but he has done it in the past,” Lal told MAIL TODAY .

EXCLUSIVE - Citigroup may exit consumer banking in more countries

Citigroup Inc(NYS:C) is looking to pull out of consumer banking in more countries in an effort to lower costs and boost profits, according to two people familiar with the matter.

In December, Citigroup said it was withdrawing from consumer banking in five countries - Pakistan, Paraguay, Romania, Turkey and Uruguay - as part of an expense reduction plan that will save $1.1 billion a year and eliminate 11,000 jobs. The cuts were one of Michael Corbat's first major steps as chief executive, a position he took in October.

"There is more on the list," said a source familiar with the situation.

The bank has been looking for months at countries, customer segments and products to cut, the source said, but declined to name any of the additional countries.

Sean Kevelighan, a Citigroup spokesman, said the bank is focused on major cities with the highest growth potential for its consumer business and will continue to invest in its franchise and optimize its assets.

Citigroup is one of the most international of U.S. banks, serving consumers in 40 countries out of the 100 in which it has some kind of presence.

Any cuts would likely represent a paring of the portfolio rather than a complete rethinking of the bank's commitment to global consumer banking.

Outside the United States, just three countries - Mexico, South Korea and Australia - account for half of the company's loans to consumers and the bank's presence in many other countries is tiny.

Investors said scaling down in some markets makes sense.

"If they're not going to have a significant presence, they shouldn't be there," said Mark Mandell, portfolio manager at Dalton Investments, which has $1.8 billion under management and owns Citigroup shares.

Selling any of the foreign assets now would be tough. Other lenders around the world have also been closing foreign outposts and buyers can be hard to find. London-based HSBC Holdings Plc (LSE:HSBA.L - News), for example, has sold more than 40 businesses and other assets, such as credit card portfolios, globally since 2011, but it has sometimes been a struggle to get the prices it wanted.

Citigroup has some extra complications, too. The bank is using about half its capital to support bad assets and tax benefits related to its huge losses during the financial crisis.

Speaking on a conference call with analysts and investors earlier this month, Corbat said he intends to make regular assessments of "how and where and with whom" the company generates revenue, so the process of cost cutting is more "BAU," or business as usual, instead of a one-time event.

Analysts unsuccessfully pressed Corbat to give more detail about which other countries he might focus on to cut costs.

Corbat, who previously oversaw company operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said that, over time, managers in different countries tend to expand by veering into tangential businesses and end up saddling the company with extraneous and inefficient operations. Other executives at the bank have made similar complaints in the past.

BANAMEX CONUNDRUM

One of the most radical alternatives Citigroup executives have discussed in the past is spinning off its Banamex unit, the second-biggest bank in Mexico, in a public stock offering there. Mexican regulators would likely allow a standalone Banamex to operate with less capital, which would increase its profitability, one of the sources said.

But Banamex is already highly profitable and has a good market position. Selling it would slow Citigroup's efforts to build capital, undercut its strategy of investing in emerging markets and would also mean parting ways with Banamex head Manuel Medina-Mora. Corbat recently named him co-president of Citigroup, which many inside the bank viewed as a sign he is an important part of the new management team.

The global operations long have been both a blessing and a burden for company executives.

Being in many different countries gives the company valuable name recognition and an edge in winning and keeping customers for one of its crown jewels, the Transaction Services unit that moves money internationally for businesses and governments.

But being in so many countries also means its operations are far-flung and subject to myriad local laws and customs. Those problems tend to be greatest in the consumer business. It is harder for the company to capture enough revenue to sufficiently exceed the costs of running branches, a payments network and offering products, such as credit cards.

Two-thirds of the 40 countries where Citigroup does consumer banking provide no more than $2 billion of loans each toward the company's $1.86 trillion in assets. Those small operations include Argentina, Thailand and Russia.

Citigroup's Brazilian unit plans to sell its Credicard consumer finance unit as part of an effort to focus on the most profitable areas, according to a report on Wednesday from newspaper Valor Economico, which did not say how it obtained the information. A Citigroup representative declined to comment.

For the consumer businesses to succeed, Corbat said earlier this month, they have to be capable of being served by common systems for lending, issuing credit cards and opening accounts.

The U.S. consumer bank is also a thorny question for Citigroup. It has much smaller operations in retail banking than many rivals - just about 1,000 branches, less than one-fifth as many as JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYS:JPM - News) Bank of America Corp (NYS:BAC - News) and Wells Fargo & Co (NYS:WFC - News).

Normally, a bank with a relatively small business might look to sell it, but shedding good assets in the United States is particularly difficult for Citigroup, because the bank needs taxable U.S. revenue to benefit from the nearly $50 billion of deferred tax assets that it has on its books.

Microsoft launches new Office for consumers

Microsoft Corp launched new Office software for home users on Tuesday, featuring constantly updated, online access to documents from all kinds of devices as the world's largest software company attempts to tailor its most profitable product to a mobile generation.

The new Office suite of applications - including desktop staples Outlook email, Excel, Word and PowerPoint - is aimed at home users rather than businesses, and is designed to extend Microsoft's domination of the workplace to the home office and beat back growing competition from Google Inc's free online apps.

"The notion of an always up-to-date streaming version of Office comes directly from how people are using devices today," said Kurt DelBene, head of Microsoft's Office unit, in a phone interview. "You really want all your content to roam with you. We see that as an opportunity to deliver what customers are asking for."

The version of the new software launched on Tuesday, called Office 365 Home Premium, is the first major overhaul of Office since 2010. Big companies, which generally buy Microsoft's software under multi-year contracts, already got the latest features of the new Office in December.

Tuesday was the first look for individual customers, and initial reactions were positive at Microsoft's flagship Seattle store.

"It looks badass. And that whole touch-screen thing now," said Kouichi Armga, 25, who works at Trader Joe's grocery store and studies at the University of Washington in Tacoma, after seeing the new Office run on touch-screen hardware.

"It was actually very impressive," said Jeremy Payne, 26, from Olympia, Washington, who works in retail and is studying public relations at the local Evergreen State College. "The biggest thing was the new PowerPoint. I was really excited to see the new PowerPoint."

Payne, an avowed Apple Inc enthusiast, said the new Office was "really rad," but it might be hard to drag Mac users away from their Apple-centered world.

"They have their work cut out for them pulling people from Apple," he said. "The Apple system is so integrated to my way of thought."

DOWNLOAD UPDATES

After downloading the basic programs online, users can access the latest versions of all Office applications from up to five devices on a subscription basis for $100 a year.

The software will be updated online, marking a change from the past where users had to wait years for upgrades to installed software.

It is the latest step in what Chief Executive Steve Ballmer called Microsoft's "transformation to a devices and services business," making the company more like Apple.

The new Office largely adopts the look of last year's Windows 8, with a cleaner, more modern-looking design and includes touch-screen capability.

The "ribbons" showing commands in Word and Excel are mostly unchanged. For the first time the package includes online calling and video service Skype, which Microsoft bought in 2011.

Users' work can be stored on their devices but also in remote data centers - known as the cloud - and the latest version of a document can accessed from any licensed device with a browser.

GOOGLE KILLER?

Two and a half years in the making, the new Office is designed to extend Microsoft's domination of the business market and counter the growing popularity of Google Apps, a collection of online-only, Office-style applications Google provides free for home users and sells to businesses for $50 per user per year.

Microsoft is hoping its move into online services, alongside its new Surface tablets, will push it into the forefront of mobile computing, which has been led by Google's Android software and Apple's combination of slick hardware and apps.

"Microsoft Office remains the gold standard for productivity applications," said Avi Greengart, research director at Current Analysis. "It is bringing Office fully into today's connected, cloud-based environment. But it still has more work to do to make it fully finger-friendly for use on its own Windows tablets."

The new Office will run natively on Microsoft's own Surface tablets - both the 'RT' and Pro versions running on ARM Holdings and Intel Corp chips respectively - but it will not run natively on Apple's iPad, disappointing some iPad users who are also Office fans.

"We have not said that we will do rich client software on the iPad at this point," said DelBene, although he did not rule out producing such software in the future. "We've been very logical in our approach. I'm pleased with the software we have delivered for the iPad to date," he said.

Microsoft's SkyDrive online storage system and its OneNote note-taking software are available as iPad apps, and iPad users can use limited Web versions of some Office applications.

The iPad issue has been a long-time quandary for Microsoft, which might gain more mobile users by making Office available on the iPad but would have to give Apple a cut of its subscriptions. Availability of Office on iPads would also take away a major incentive to buying its own competing Surface tablet.

Microsoft estimates that 1 billion people worldwide use some part of Office and the unit that produces Office is Microsoft's most profitable, edging out the flagship Windows division for the last few years. It now accounts for more than half of Microsoft's overall profit.

Sales dipped last quarter as consumers held off in anticipation of the new Office, but analysts expects sales to ramp up this quarter.

"In the immediate next year or two, this version of Office should help many of the core small and midsize enterprise customers stay with Office," said Al Hilwa at tech research firm IDC. "The value proposition for the consumer space has always stemmed from synergies with the enterprise. I don't think this is going to change."

India begin women's World Cup in style

Fine all-round performance gives Mithali's girls a 105-run win over West Indies.

Punam Raut (L) and Thirush Kamini (R) set the stage for a big India win.

Match scores | Action in images | A brief guide to women’s cricket

MUMBAI — India may not be one of the top contenders, but they began the 2013 ICC Women’s World Cup on an impressive not by thrashing the West Indies at the Brabourne Stadium.

Indian openers Thirush Kamini and Poonam Raut capitalised on Merissa Aguilleira’s strange decision to bowl in great conditions for batting in the first game of the tournament. India backed that up with spirited fielding and some miserly bowling to seal a 105-run win.

Kamini scored 100 off 142 balls, becoming the first Indian woman to score a World Cup hundred while Raut was the aggressor with a nicely-paced 72 off 94 balls.

Their opening partnership of 175 provided the launching pad for big-hitters Jhulan Goswami and Harmanpreet Kaur, who blitzed 36 quick runs each to boost India to a match-winning score of 284-6.

While Kamini anchored the innings, Goswami, the former India captain, was promoted up the order to quicken up the score.

The six-footer from Bengal swung six fours in 21 balls, while Harmanpreet kept the accelerator pressed by hitting four fours and two sixes.

The boundary ropes at the Brabourne Stadium have been brought in to about 60-odd metres on each side. But this didn’t seem to matter since the hits cleared the ropes comfortably. India were also aided by some sloppy West Indian fielding.

LOOK OUT FOR DOTTIN

West Indies never got going, losing wickets regularly. They lost Kycia Knight second ball when she tried to steal a single and Harmanpreet threw down the stumps direct at the bowler’s end.

While Nagarajan Niranjana ended with three wickets, Goswami and seamer Amita Sharma were impressive with the new ball, bowling straight lines and getting some swing as well. With their combined spell, India seized the initiative and kept West Indies on the mat.

A couple of umpiring decisions went West Indies’ way when Shaun George and Mark Hawthorne didn’t uphold India’s appeals for what seemed like a straightforward caught-behind and an LBW.

The entertainment of the innings was provided by Deandra Dottin, who scored 39 off 16 balls. The fearsome hitter from Barbados holds the record for the fastest women’s hundred – a 38-baller against South Africa in 2010 in a T20.

She’d already bowled well to take 3-32 having come on to bowl in the 43rd over. Then she started hitting out against the Indian bowlers operating with an attacking field.

Niranjana was hit for two fours off the first balls Dottin faced. Next over, Dottin hit left-arm spinner Gouher Sultana for two sixes down the ground.

Niranjana took some more punishment – six, four and six – before she trapped Dottin plumb LBW to end the contest.

Wednesday 30 January 2013

New US citizenship plan could help 200,000 Indians

Even as President Barack Obama is set to announce an immigration reform plan, a bipartisan group of US senators have unveiled their own scheme offering millions of undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship.

The compromise plan proposed Monday by a bipartisan group of eight senators would give 11 million undocumented immigrants, including an estimated 200,000 Indians, a provisional status to live and work in America.

Currently the sixth largest nationality of illegal immigrants behind Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and the Philippines, Indians are also the fastest growing illegal immigrant group in the US since 2000, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

The senators' plan also called for strengthening border controls, improved monitoring of visitors and cracking down on hiring undocumented workers.

Once these steps take place, undocumented immigrants already in the country could begin the process of getting permanent residence -- green cards -- as a step toward citizenship, the senators told a news conference.

"They would no longer be deported, provided they don't have a criminal record. They would no longer be harassed, they would be allowed to stay here and work," said Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer.

The outline for a possible immigration bill reflects a new willingness by mainstream Republicans to compromise following their party's defeat in November, when Obama got strong backing from Latino voters, CNN said.

Obama is expected to deliver a speech in Las Vegas Tuesday to discuss comprehensive immigration legislation, which he calls a priority of his second term.

According to senior administration officials cited by CNN, the president will say the senators' plan represents progress and argue that now is the time to act.

At the White House, spokesperson Jay Carney said the president welcomed the senators' framework, calling it a "big deal" because it included an eventual path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Schumer said Monday that an initial timetable called for delivering the text of a bill to the Senate Judiciary Committee by March, and Senate passage by late spring or in the summer.

Latino activists have criticised Obama for failing to deliver on 2008 campaign promise to make immigration reform a priority of his first term.

The richest chocolate dessert ever!

Ingredients:
For the pastry
11/2 cup flour (maida)
1/4 cup cocoa powder
3/4 cup castor sugar (fine sugar, but
not powdered)
A pinch of salt
160gm cold butter, diced
2 eggs
For the chocolate filling
11/4 cups heavy cream
225gm dark chocolate, chopped
1tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs, beaten

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180oC.
2. For the pastry: Rub chilled butter, flour, cocoa, sugar and salt together till it resembles breadcrumbs.
3. Add eggs and bring together and gently knead until just smooth on a lightly floured surface.
4. Shape into a disc; cover with plastic wrap, refrigerator for 10 minutes.
5. Roll out the pastry to a rectangle, about 3mm thick. Line a shallow 10-inch round fluted tart tin with a removable base with the pastry; trim any excess. Chill for 15 minutes to rest.
6. Line the pastry with baking paper and fill with uncooked rajma. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove paper and rajma and bake for a further 5 to 10 minutes.
7. For the filling: In a pan over low heat, bring cream to just simmering.
8. Take off heat; stir in chocolate and vanilla essence until mixture is smooth and chocolate has melted.
9. Whisk a small amount of the hot chocolate cream into eggs. Then mix with the remaining hot chocolate, a little at a time. Whisk until smooth.
10. Pour chocolate filling into the prepared pastry. Cut out strips from remaining pastry and place over filling in a criss-cross pattern; bake for 18 to 25 minutes, until the filling is set and only the centre jiggles when moved.
11. Cool tart in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Remove tart ring and chill in the refrigerator before serving. Each serving: 430.0 calories, 5.8gm protein, 33.2gm carbohydrate, 31.6gm total fat (17.1gm saturated), 0.3gm fibre, 121.8mg cholesterol, 27.6mg sodium.

Plane crash kills 22 in Kazakhstan - emergencies official

A passenger plane crashed in thick fog near Kazakhstan's commercial capital of Almaty on Tuesday, killing all 22 people on board, an emergency services official said.

The Canadian-built Bombardier Challenger CRJ-200 was en route from the city of Kokshetau in northern Kazakhstan to Almaty in the southeast when it crashed near the village of Kyzyl Tu, Deputy Almaty Mayor Maulen Mukashev said.

He told reporters near the scene that the plane belonged to private Kazakh airline SCAT, which operates extensive domestic services and some international flights.

"There was no fire, no explosion. The plane just plunged to the earth," Yuri Ilyin, deputy head of the city's emergencies department, told Reuters near the scene.

Ilyin put the death toll at 22.

Almaty and the surrounding area were veiled in thick fog on Tuesday.

"The preliminary cause of the accident is bad weather," Mukashev said. "Not a single part of the plane was left intact after it came down."

It was the second plane crash in the Central Asian country and former Soviet republic in just a over a month.

On December 25, a military transport airplane crashed in bad weather near the southern Kazakh city of Shymkent, killing all 27 people on board.

Prosecutors have said that a fatal combination of technical problems, bad weather and human errors caused that accident.

Inflation has gobbled up your savings in the bank

Happy with your high bank deposit rates? Sorry, the inflation monster has quietly eaten it up. A consumer inflation rate of more than 10% and fixed deposit (FD) interest rate of 9% mean the returns on your bank deposits are actually negative. If you had set aside Rs. 10,000 in December 2011 in a bank FD that gave you an annual return of 9% and were planning to buy something that could cost Rs. 10,900 a year later, then probably you would have been disappointed.

During the intervening period, the retail price of the same good would have grown by over 10%, putting a spanner in the works. This is because "real" interest rates or earnings on assets adjusted against inflation are negative.

"Real interest rates tend to weaken when inflation remains high in the economy for a long duration," said Ananda Bhoumik, senior director- financial institutions, India Ratings & Research- a Fitch group company.

Consumer price inflation - a more realistic cost of living index because it captures shop-end prices - has shot up to a worrisome 10.56% last month.

Almost all everyday products and services - from food to footwear, movie tickets to medicines, restaurant meals to deodorants and lipsticks - have turned dearer in the past 12 months, pinching family budgets hard.

Experts recommend more diversified financial planning to keep returns ahead of inflation.

"Investors need to invest 50% of their investment into assets that beat inflation in the long term, such as equities and real estate," says Vishal Dhawan, founder of Plan Ahead Wealth Advisors.

How to manage money in your early twenties

Ok if you are reading this, it means you are young! Not sure how young, but let me assume that you are really young. It means you are still wondering who will pay for your higher education.

You have just graduated and are wondering whether your parents can / should pay for your higher education. If you think it is their duty, you are wrong. If you think they are doing you a favor, you are right.

Here are some tips to handle money:

1. Paying for college education: College education really helps, and you should go. In fact it makes sense to do a good MBA (I mean in the top 10 MBA schools of India – or even Ivy League if you can afford it). However expect your parents to pay only for a portion of the costs. It is amazingly good to pay for your education, books, etc. In life you will NEVER ever regret this piece of advice. Sure, if your parents cannot afford it, you will be FORCED to find ways to fund it. Even if your parents can afford, it will give you a great feeling of paying partly for your own education.

2. Become financially independent: The aim to try to earn an income to meet your own expenses is a brilliant move. The earlier you can do it the better. Remember Warren Buffet was 11 when he started looking for business opportunities? So no age is too early to start, and no age too late to start. Living within your own income (not depending on parents) is also a great feeling. The younger you are the better.

3. Start saving and investing: Savings make your money go, investments make your money go faster. So earn, save and invest. Once you see your money making money you will enjoy the process of investing. When your money makes money you also do not like to blow it away on things that you do not need.

4. Do not buy junk: If you have already been earning and buying unnecessary things, you surely understand what I mean. Just look around if you have things that you have not used for 3 months (6 months if you insist) ask yourself ‘do you really need it?’. If the answer is NO, gift it away, throw it away, get rid of the junk. However, remember the lesson ‘Do not buy junk’. Warren Buffet said: ” If you buy things you do not need soon you will have to sell the things that you need”.

5. Talk money while you are dating: Know the other person’s attitude towards earning, saving, spending and investing. Just too many young people get hitched without knowing the other person’s attitude towards money. Being on the same page as far as budgeting, saving, investing helps. Needless to say I am seeing vicious fights among dating and married couples. Sadly India does not have enough financial behavior data – so we have no clue about how many marriages end in divorce because of money matters alone. Be warned.

6. Avoid credit card debt: If you cannot afford something, hey you cannot afford it that is all. If you are spending everything on the cc and are unable to pay off in FULL at the end of the period, simple, you are in a debt trap and you will need a GIFT to pull you out of the shit. Unless you are Obama, you cannot print money.

7. Make a budget and stick to it: This is really a tough job and it requires a lot of discipline to do it. However if you want to improve at anything – running, fitness or money management, budgeting, recording and comparing the actual with the budgeted is ABSOLUTELY essential. You must do it. Worth the effort. Honestly.

8. Do not rush into a relationship like marriage if you have problems having a conversation regarding money.

9. Do not quit your job without a job on your hand: It is not easy to find a job when you do not have a job. However unhappy you are at your current job, and however frustrated, do not leave your current job. Many people are unhappy or sad with their jobs. However if you have a house to run, an EMI to pay, a promise to keep, find a job first. The quitting can wait.

Tuesday 29 January 2013

Brazil detains band, club owners after deadly nightclub fire

Brazilian police investigating a nightclub fire that killed 231 people detained on Monday the owners of the club and two band members whose pyrotechnics show authorities say triggered the blaze.

No charges were filed against the four men, but prosecutors said they could be held for up to five days as police press them for clues as to how the fire early Sunday morning could have caused so many deaths.

Stunned residents in the southern city of Santa Maria attended a marathon of funerals beginning in the pre-dawn hours. After sunset, thousands joined a procession through the streets of the city, dressed in white and wearing black arm bands.

Some mourners demanded answers about the safety measures at the nightclub, where hundreds were trapped after the ceiling became engulfed in flames.

"Why the regulations? Why pay taxes? What is the government doing?" read a banner carried by university students who had lost friends in the fire.

The tragedy comes as Brazil prepares to host the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament and 2016 Olympics, putting its safety standards and emergency response capabilities in the international spotlight.

President Dilma Rousseff, who cut short a visit to Chile to fly to the scene of the disaster on Sunday, called for a minute of silence before addressing a meeting of newly elected mayors in the capital, Brasilia.

"The pain I saw in Santa Maria was indescribable," Rousseff said. "Faced with this tragedy, it is our duty to make sure it never happens again."

Most of the dead were suffocated by toxic fumes that rapidly filled the Kiss nightclub after the band set off a flare at about 2:30 a.m. on Sunday, authorities said.

The club's operating license was under review for renewal after expiring last year. Witnesses said bouncers initially blocked the only functioning exit because they believed fleeing customers were trying to skip out on their bar tabs.

Tarso Genro, governor of the prosperous southern state of Rio Grande do Sul where the disaster occurred, said authorities had shifted their focus from rescue and taking care of the wounded to investigating the scene.

"We're going to find out who was responsible," he vowed.

The death toll was revised down to 231 from 233 as officials said some names had been counted twice. By Monday night, 129 people were still hospitalized, 76 of them in serious condition, according to state health services.

Mourning throughout Brazil was mixed with frustration at a culture of lax regulation blamed for putting lives at risk.

"So many young ones with all of their lives ahead of them," Brazilian soccer legend Pele wrote on Twitter. "The government has to make a priority of event security in this country!"

SAFETY ENFORCEMENT UNEVEN

Relatives and friends of the dead demanded accountability, signaling the start of a wave of police probes, lawsuits and recriminations that could drag on for months or even years.

Based on testimony from more than 20 witnesses, investigators are now certain that the band's pyrotechnics show triggered the blaze, police official Sandro Meinerz said.

"I really didn't like those fireworks. The smell made me nauseous," the band's guitarist, Rodrigo Lemos Martins, told television network Globo in a joint interview with the drummer. "But we were just hired by the band, so it was the owners who were in charge."

The band's accordion player, Danilo Jaques, 30, was among those killed, but the other five members survived. The band's vocalist and production engineer were detained by police investigating who was responsible for firing the flare, according to Brazilian media.

It seems certain others will share the blame for Brazil's second-deadliest fire ever. The use of a flare inside the club was a clear breach of safety regulations, fire officials said.

Some details may never be known. Meinerz said the club owner told authorities that the club's internal video surveillance system had stopped working three months ago.

Clubs and restaurants in Brazil are generally subject to a web of overlapping safety regulations, but enforcement is uneven and owners sometimes pay bribes to continue operating.

The investigation of the Kiss fire could drag on for years. After a similar fire at an Argentine nightclub in 2004 killed 194 people, more than six years passed before a court found members of a band criminally responsible for starting the blaze and causing the deaths.

That tragedy also provoked a massive backlash against politicians and led to the removal of the mayor of Buenos Aires.

Civil lawsuits stemming from the Brazil fire are likely to be directed at the government because the owners of the nightclub probably don't have much money, said Claudio Castello de Campos, a Brazilian lawyer who has handled big cases including the crash of a TAM Airlines jet in Sao Paulo in 2007.

Castello de Campos disputed some statements by local officials that the Kiss nightclub could have continued operating legally while it waited for its license to be renewed. "If the license was expired, that's an irregular situation," he said.

Valdeci Oliveira, a legislator in Rio Grande do Sul state, said he and his colleagues would seek to ban pyrotechnics displays in closed spaces such as nightclubs.

"It won't bring anybody back, but we're going to introduce the bill," Oliveira said on his Twitter feed.

The Brazil fire is the worst to hit an entertainment venue since a fire on Christmas Day in 2000 engulfed a mall in Luoyang, China, killing 309 people.