Thursday, June 30, 2011

Karla MTDC Lonavala

Karla is a nice place but MTDC resort is not, no room service, rain water leaking roofs to room full of ants, non functional Tv, etc, resort facilities like boat rides and water parks are non functional for six months during monsoon, restaurant is ok, limited menu, near by dhabas open only on saturday and sundays, otherwise have to go to Lonavala for food, beware of vegetarian menu only restaurants, commuting also not easy, own car means ok otherwise life is difficult to move around, resort is in a secluded spot, no any events or entertainments, not even a decent reception or sitting room for guests, night time ghosty atmosphere was bad to worse, you can meet other guests in restaurant only.

Though been to Lonavala few times with friends, never been to any tourist attractions apart from water falls so first time had visited bushi dam, few water falls and tiger leap, facilities can be a little better for week end travellers.

Word Play

New word learnt today: Tenet

Pronounced: Ten - net

Definition: To hold a belief to be true.

Meaning: Any opinion, principle, dogma, belief, or doctrine, which a person holds or maintains as true.

In a sentence: You have a tenet that we should work on paper. I say we should change that belief and work in the computer.

Memory trick: Ten - et

Ten reminds of tend or likely to do
Tenet in Latin means "he holds"
So remember "tend" or "he holds" a belief

Nurses and Sisters

Why are nurses called sisters?
In medieval Europe, hospitals were run by monasteries, and monks attended to the patients.

In the sixteenth Century, Henry VIII of England destroyed most of the monasteries in England. This forced nuns (sisters) to attend to the patients and ever since nurses have been called sisters.

Nun, 'ninne' in old English, is derived from Latin 'nunna' or 'nonna' and means 'an old maiden lady'.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Tamil Nadu enjoys maximum economic freedom

Tamil Nadu enjoys maximum economic freedom -- greater wealth and improvement in human development -- among the 20 largest states in the country, a study said on Monday.

As per the Economic Freedom of the States of India 2011 report, which ranked the economic status of the states in 2009, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh were the next most prosperous states.

This is significantly different from 2005, when Tamil Nadu was still on top but Madhya Pradesh came second and followed by Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Gujarat, it said.

The study ranks economic freedom in the 20 biggest Indian states, using a methodology from Fraser Institute' Economic Freedom of World Annual Report.

The bottom three states in 2009 were Bihar, Uttrakhand and Assam, in that order, the study said.

Back in 2005, Bihar was still ranked at the bottom (20th) while Assam was at the 19th position and West Bengal at 18th.

The report said the state with fastest improvement in economic freedom was Andhra Pradesh, moving up from 7th position in 2005 to third position in 2009.

The index score for Andhra Pradesh went up from 0.4 to 0.51 on a scale from zero (no freedom) to 1 (high freedom), an improvement of 27.25 per cent.

The second fastest improvement was in Gujarat, which moved up from the fifth to second position.

Economic freedom is associated with greater wealth, higher growth and improvement in whole range of human development indicators.

"Even as some states improved in economic freedom, others worsened, showing that there is no uniform all India trend," the study said.

As per the study, only two states - Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat -- registered large increases in economic freedom. Haryana, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir registered moderate increases in economic freedom.


States with largest decrease in economic freedom were Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh.

Punjab, once among the best performers, slipped from 6th position in 2005 to 12 position in 2009.

"States with higher level of economic freedom tended to perform better across a range of economic variables. They also had a higher levels of in-migration, while states with least economic freedom had higher level of out-migration," the study said.

Bibek Debroy, Laveesh Bhandari and Swaminathan Aiyar are the authors of the report.