Oldest living Animal on this Planet !!

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Last time I went to Meerut it was on Diwali for a day, After Pooja I placed Diyas in and outside my home. Instead of going for burning Fire Crackers and stuff I went inside my home. As I had to leave early morning next day I packed my bag and had chatted with my Cousin. Then at around 10:30 my friends came looking after me, I had to go outside now by this time they already had finished Diwali Celebrations. As we were having discussions about our life outside house of one of my Friend I suddenly asked about his Dog "Roger" as I couldn't see it today, other friend told me he is no more.

Roger must have been 13 years old, he was of Bhutani  breed with long and bushy hair. I remember when I first saw him in 2003 he was very young and agile, infact before him I was very skeptical and afraid of Dogs but then as you spend time with them you get to know how harmless they are. In 2011 I  remembered one of his eyes became non functional and he looked pretty old at that time. Its quite ironic how in 12 years of age a Dog becomes Old and a men of his age is still in his Childhood.

Having a curious mind I started thinking about how long a living creature could live, have heard lots of stories about Tortoises that they can live for generations. So I started googling about the Oldest animal on this planet and soon I zeroed in on Jonathan the Tortoise.

Jonathan is about staggering 180 years in age at present, imagine he was born before Mahatma Gandhi and still living. My GrandFather was born in 1931 and he is no more now[sadly]. 

Jonathan lives in Saint Helena island and it is known that he was born in Seychelles from where he was brought to Saint Helena islands in 1882 when he was already 50 years in age. It is known that Napoleon was exiled here at Saint Helena Island in 1815.

 
In above picture a Boer war prisoner is standing alongside a Tortoise in Saint Helena Island and picture was clicked around 1900. This picture came into light when someone got it from Boer war picture archives, after some examination it was confirmed that the Tortoise in this picture was Jonathan. As the picture was clicked in 1900 so it could be made that he is around 180 years in age at present making him the oldest living animal on planet earth.

Having lived so long it is said Jonathan is still active however one of his eyes have stopped working. He still regularly mates with three female Tortoise present on the island. Being the oldest animal in world he gets a celebrity status on the Island. There have been counts that Tortoises more than the age of Jonathan have lived before,some say Tortoise could live around 250 years ,that is some figure I must say.

Now another questions arises why Tortoise live for so long about double the age of a human being. We all know they are very slow moving animal and answer to this question somewhat lies in this very fact. Scientists say lower the metabolism rate higher would be the living age. At higher metabolic rate you need to burn more amount of energy to maintain the activity which transponds to lower age. Hence if you have lower metabolic rate you will waste less amount of energy and your longevity increases so is the case with Tortoises.

Now you know what to do if one wants to live long - be a lazy person and conserve your energy haha :)

Sources:-
The Telegraph 
Wikipedia 
Dailymail 
The Guardian 

Pictures courtesy Tripadvisor and Dailymail .

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My View on Indian Political System

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Its a long pending request from my Best Friend Manish to write a post about my thoughts on Politics in India but I was ducking it as I have not  written much about Politics on my Blog yet. Me and Manish had lots of differences on this issue and in past had many altercations too but everytime we have agreed to disagree.

In my view Politics is not a profession but a service towards your nation. Anyone who is active in politics should work for the benefit of people and must not expect anything for him/herself from it. Over the period of times we have seen some very committed Politicians but as time have passed such Politicians have become a rarity.

Although we have thousands of Political parities in nation but in mainstream Politics only two Political Parties have the Capability to rule the nation - Congress and BJP, I write " rule " as this is what is actually happening to us. 

This is the second term of Congress led UPA govt. which we obviously had chosen. We have a silent PM who is representing us to the whole world, as the leader of this country we expect majority of decisions to be taken by him but it doesn't seems so. If you'll look at the leaders of some developed countries like US,UK,France,Germany or any other for the record most of them have not yet crossed 60 in their age and here we have an 80 year old. Our New Foreign Affair minister was elected at a time when he was facing some grave corruption charges. Minister of Communication has been very critical of our right to speech. One exception was our last Petroleum Minister who by many was considered cleanest of the politicians but then he was demoted to a lower ministry as he was critical of working of a big Petroleum giant of our Country. What I am trying to highlight is first we have been ruled by not so able politicians and if someone is there who is honest and committed to his work their wings are curtailed if they try to stop any wrong doing.

I personally like Politicians who criticizes less about other parties and concentrate on their work more. When elections comes rather stating what they will do most of the Politicians will point out what the other party/leader has not done, for example in the last UP state elections Rahul Gandhi was very critical of other parties, as he came on the stage from its start to end the summary of the speech would be negativity about other parties and I was not surprised by the result after the elections.

As most of us are fed up of the current govt. we look for an alternative and only one that comes to our mind is BJP. It has some clean leaders[I think so] like Arun Jaitley,Sushma Swaraj in its lot and may lead us in better way. Present president of the Party looks like will get second consecutive term as president which was not in their constitution but have heard they will amend it for him. More than a politician he looks like a corporate Businessmen to me. There have been some serious charges on him but party is supporting him, those who are coming out against him from the party are being suspended by the party.What they are not aware of is that it will not do any good to them in coming general elections. Last time in general elections BJP won few hundred seats but to make govt. they will need to get double of that count[not sure how they will achieve it]. 

Present world is a global world, you need to work together. As we don't have everything with ourselves to serve us we import many things from outside same ways we export to other countries what they don't have. More people/Companies of our Country work in outside world at this time compared to past. BJP has out and out criticized govt. for their decision on FDI in retail which in past they had supported. I am afraid if you'll not allow the world to come here they'll not allow us to go there. Now if BJP comes to power in next elections it would be interesting to know their take on FDI.

We are the biggest nation in the Subcontinent and is surrounded by many small poor nations who looks on us but we have thoroughly neglected them. Its a say if you want to live peacefully you must have good relations with your neighbors. We have been looking east,towards Africa but not towards our neighbors. Nepal,Bangladesh,Pakistan,Sri Lanka, Myanmar,Bhutan are our nearest neighbors. Except Bhutan we are not friendly with anyone. China who is our biggest rival is looking into this and will do anything to destabilize us. This is what foreign policy of our govt. is to which I think it needs to look into it soon.

Besides Congress and BJP their is possibility of third front which could comprise parities like SP,TMC,BSP and left but history has shown it could be disastrous for the country if third front comes to power. But if Congress or BJP could not form govt. third front will have a chance which will bring instability to the nation. I Just pray no such kinda condition arises in future.

In between all this dull moments there is a small ray of hope. A small committed group of people who are not politicians but common people like us have stepped in the field of Politics to bring a change. Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) has just came in the foray of Politics which boast of bringing a change. I personally is excited about it. But I know it will not be easy for them, when Congress and BJP were formed they also had honest politicians but then we know what happened to both parties. I would not be surprised if they fall out and end up nowhere, but still we need to give them a Chance. Also to us we should not expect them to win next general elections right away, what AAP should do is to first make their presence felt in the grass roots of this system. Start working from the root level and then make their way upwards in political system. They have shown us a parallel Political system and I wish in long term they'll become successful in bringing such a system, but the journey would be very difficult for them.

           Be the Change that you wish to see in the World  
                                                            - Mahatma Gandhi

Lastly I would like to end with the above thought of Mahatma Gandhi, the society we have is the very reflection  of us. No Country is better than the citizens resides in it. We can curse our political system but till the time we do not become disciplined,honest and change ourselves and start following rules we should not expect any change.


 

 

 

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Some Changes in my Life

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I have been trying from sometime to live a disciplined life, on some accounts I have been doing OK but on most I have failed but still from time to time I try to add something or the other to make my living more clean.

My Family knows about this and do not interfere much with my lifestyle although they do not follow it much themselves, like if we are out for IceCream I through the wrapper in the dustbin and if it is not available I'll put it in my pocket and throw it back in dustbin at home similarly when I see someone from my family just throwing the wrapper in open I pick it up[thinking next time they would not do but it doesn't happen]. 

Since many days or I should say years I have been downloading lots of pirated music and stuffs[which most of us do] and few months back a twitter friend of mine posted a tweet about him being against using pirated products which made my eyes roll. Intentionally or unintentionally we daily use lots of non genuine or pirated stuffs which makes quite a big hole in owners pockets. So I decided to stop using such things.

Its a difficult task to follow I know and I may end up using such pirated items by mistake but I think gradually I can improve on it.

Now what things I have stopped using from now on ?

During my daily #delhimetro travel I used to pass my time by listening to music which I had stored on my phone, I had only once in my life purchased genuine music online and that too some songs that I didn't liked much. So I had deleted all the songs that were stored in my phone and now I don't have anything to listen to. Now to overcome it I need to purchase music I had sought some options like purchasing a particular song[which I really like] through Flipkart which costs around 5-15 INR or more, a friend of mine has told me to use Nokia Music which lets you download unlimited music at around 100 INR per month but then I don't have a Nokia Phone[my mom has one though].If you know any cheaper source kindly enlighten me on it.

In day to day life we watch latest Bollywood flicks or some Classic Hollywood movies but as most of them are downloaded illegally hence I can not use them also ,I have a huge collection of them in my laptop so they are also getting out from it. My Colleagues were the source of such kinda movies to me and when I told them about my intentions there reactions were like are you Mad ? Some smiled  about it some think I am overreacting and my Sister call me "Sanki"[don't know what you call Sanki in English]. Asked a friend of mine how to manage with this  the suggestion was to purchase movies on rent from libraries. Me being a very lazy person doesn't look like would go to a library to ask for a movie so If a friend of mine who is having original dvd of some flick can only help me here. If you have anything to help kindly share to me.

Last year I had purchased my Cellphone and I have over explored it I guess and have been quite instrumental to use applications which are paid on the market by downloading them illegally and also have spread them on to many of my friends too. All such applications and their setups are now out of my Phone. Now how should I cope with it ? If there is a certain paid app which I want I could try a similar non paid app or a free version of that app[if there is one] or may be purchase it, I tried once to purhchase an app from Google Play store but was not successful[they told my Card was not valid].

Now the hardest of the thing - is to speak truth. I know I can cope with the things I mentioned above but this one is bit tough for me. Although I don't lie much but then I have some tendency to lie when someone ask me where are you / would you do this / can you help me in this / do you know how to do this / are you free on that day ? I tend to make false statement when such kinda things are asked to me If I am not open to such questions, then for escaping from one false statement I have to make another one and I end up nowhere. Now what I am doing about it ? Everytime such things comes up I try to think about the result, am I doing a good thing by fooling someone I ask this to myself, it helps a little but there are things which becomes habit and takes time to go off. Again if you have any advice throw it towards me.

Now what could be the implications of such lifestyle on my life ? Whats foremost coming to my mind is what I would say to my Sister when she returns to home later next year as I know she will ask for movies that were in my laptop and music in my phone which she enjoys quite a lot. She would be rude to me but then I don't have any choice, I could spend a little money on it which would not do, may be she would second my thinking [no chance of it]. Another implication which could happen in coming years is when I get married, the lady would think this guy is completely out of his mind[she would actually] may be she would change me and I would be back to square one ? Who knows this might  happen they can do anything.

After reading this much please do not think I am a perfect person and very sane one, infact If I start searching for a single limitation in me I would end up finding many. I don't have any intention or want to force anyone to start following what I have written here in their own lives. There are possibilities that instead of doing anything good in your life it might badly hurt you. 

In future if I found anything other than these things[ I would certainly] which I should start following or prohibit myself from I would definitely go for them and If you have any suggestion what I should or should not do please tell me I would like to encorporate them in my life too.
   

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