Today is the birthday of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the founder of USSR, the first socialist state in the world.

Generation of Indian people have learned to fight for peoples causes and die for the cause. The inspiration was always Lenin.

Millions of people who has never seen Lenin or the country he founded or the system he defended, always lived with name of Lenin in their heart.

I have lived in USSR for 12 years while studying. There was peace all around. A stable country with almost zero law and order problem.
Health was for all, so was education. They had access to art galleries, museums, theatres, ballet, drama, circus. In short all the doors were open to them. They need not worry about their future. This was Soviet Union. And today is the birthday of its founder Lenin.



I consider him as one of the finest revolutionaries of the world who has kept a legacy which will remain forever.


Read more about him in wikipedia

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Ле́нин), born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Улья́нов), and also known by the pseudonyms Nikolai Lenin and N. Lenin, (April 10, 1870 OS[1] – January 21, 1924), was a Russian revolutionary, a communist politician, the main leader of the October Revolution, the first head of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic and from 1922, the first de facto leader of the Soviet Union. His contributions to Marxist theory are commonly referred to as Leninism.

Read more about him in wikipedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin)

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Photo Credit mikahiironniemi

Where are you Seyum, my friend from Eritria?

I still remember him a tall shy boy, always standing in a bending position also while moving . He was with me in the physical chemistry group. We had common teachers, common classes. He said he is from eritria.
In those days I did not know where eritria was located. It was seventies and the country where we studied was USSR.

Evrybody whom the soviet union supported was taken by us, the foreign as something very natural to support for. Soviet union would support only genuine movements. We knew Ethiopia had its monarch Haile Selasi removed and a new revolutionary leader Mengistu Haile Merium has taken over.

To be a supporter of Ethipia and its leader Mengistu Haile Merium was something fashionable and very natural and I would say on hindsight, very safe, those days in Moscow.

For the Soviet government Ethipia was fighing a sessionary movement. Later I came to know that they are also Marxist in their outlook.

I saw Ethipians and I saw eritrians. There was difference. The eritrians were calm and quite and sober.

Those days, Eritrians in Moscow could not openly argue their cases, they were not supported by the USSR. They kept very low profile, studied hard and waited for their turn.

Seuym was my friend. I feel sad that in those days I did not spend more time with him. Language was a problem. He spoke English with his accent. I had difficulty to understand. He said there are many Indian teachers in Eritria. He studied under one such teacher and till date remembers him as a real teacher. He had very high opinion about Indian teachers.
My interest in Eritrea was rekindled this week when I read a book by an ENglish author Justin Hill - "Ciao Asmara". Justin as an young man visited Eritrea as an English teacher. His views are very passionately expressed in this book. It shows that he loves Eritrea and it people.

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Just watch a BBC TV program and also got this information from internet.

An interesting story.

Source:http://warpeaceuncensored.multiply.com/journal/item/32/Out_of_hiding_The_engineer_whose_evidence_led_to_war_in_Iraq


An Iraqi engineer who provided the information that became one of the key planks in the Bush administration's case justifying the invasion of Iraq has been tracked down by undercover reporters to a drab residential block in southern Germany.


Rafid Ahmed Alwan, code-named Curveball (a baseball term for deception), has been in hiding since the invasion five years ago, and lives under an assumed name. He was questioned by German intelligence in the late 1990s when seeking asylum in Germany and told them that he had witnessed a biological weapons programme in Iraq. His "evidence" was made public in a compelling speech to the UN security council by US secretary of state, Colin Powell on 5 February 2003, when he said that Iraq possessed stockpiles of biological weapons that threatened the world and the mobile weapons laboratories to produce them.

Although German intelligence officials had warned the CIA that Curveball's claims were unreliable, and UN inspectors had failed to corroborate them, the Bush administration promoted the existence of such mobile labs for months after the invasion.

Read more in http://warpeaceuncensored.multiply.com/journal/item/32/Out_of_hiding_The_engineer_whose_evidence_led_to_war_in_Iraq

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My friend sent this piece for me.

It is about prices of several commodities of daily use and comparison of their prices with petrol.

Indian readers will identify with this problem.

For overseas readers- petrol or gasoline is becoming costlier. India imports 70% of her petroleum requirement from abroad. And with economy rising @ 6-9%, we need energy.

Read and keep your comments.


I filled up my car's fuel tank, and I thought fuel has become really

expensive after the recent price hike.

But then I compared it with other common liquids and did some quick
calculations, and I felt a little better.

To know why, see the results below - you'll be surprised at how
outrageous
some other prices are !

Diesel (regular) in Mumbai : Rs.36.08 per litre

Petrol (speed) in Mumbai : Rs.52 per litre

Coca Cola 330 ml can : Rs.20 = Rs.61 per litre

Dettol antiseptic 100 ml Rs.20 = Rs.200 per litre

Radiator coolant 500 ml Rs.160 = Rs.320 per litre

Pantene conditioner 400 ml Rs.165 = Rs.413 per litre

Medicinal mouthwash like Listerine 100 ml Rs.45 = Rs. 450 per litre

Red Bull 150 ml can : Rs.75 = Rs.500 per litre

Corex cough syrup 100 ml Rs.57 = Rs. 570 per litre

Evian water 500 ml Rs. 330 = Rs. 660 per litre Rs. 660 for a litre of
WATER???!!! And the buyers don't even know the source (Evian spelled
backwards is Naive.)

Kores whiteout 15 ml Rs. 15 = Rs. 1000 per litre

Cup of coffee at any decent business hotel 100 ml Rs. 50 = Rs. 500 per
litre

Old Spice after shave lotion 100 ml Rs. 175 = Rs. 1750 per litre

Pure almond oil 25 ml Rs. 68 = Rs. 2720 per litre

And this is the REAL KICKER...
HP deskjet colour ink cartridge 21 ml Rs.1900 = Rs. 90476 per litre!!!

Now you know why computer printers are so cheap ? So they have you
hooked for the ink !

So, the next time you're at the pump, don't curse our honorable
Petroleum minister - just be glad your car doesn't run on cough syrup, after
shave, coffee, or God forbid, printer ink !

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I have lived in USSR for 12 years. I visited Russia in 2007 for 2 months after 23 years.
Many often ask me what is the background story of 'bread and salt' - a Russian ceremony of welcome.

Based on what I know and inputs from Internet I have tried to explain the history of this custom.


The "bread and salt" was a traditional Russian ceremony of welcome. It originated as a folk custom in western Russia.

The tradition gave rise to the Russian word that expresses a person's hospitality: "khlebosolny". In general, the word "bread" is associated in Russian culture with hospitality, bread being the most respected food, whereas salt is associated with long friendship, as expressed in a Russian saying "to eat a pood of salt (together with someone)". Also historically the Russian Empire had a high salt tax that made salt a very expensive and prized commodity.


As a sign of hospitality, when the emperor or empress visited their towns, merchants and gentry would present a loaf of bread placed on a round dish covered with an embroidered towel. A cellar of salt was placed on top of the bread or set in a hole cut into the top of the bread. The ceremony also was used prior to the marriage of a landowner when he traveled to each village on his estate, introducing his new bride to the peasants. The ceremony symbolized that the couple would never be without the necessities of life.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, bread and salt were presented to the imperial family. The early platters and cellars and those used by the peasants were predominately carved from wood. Later, the ones used by the nobility were of elaborately gilded silver and enamel.

There also is a traditional Russian greeting "Khleb da sol!" ("Bread and salt!"). The phrase is to be uttered by an arriving guest as an expression of good wish towards the host's household. It was often used by beggars as an implicit hint to be fed, therefore a mocking rhymed response is known: "Khleb da sol!" — "Yem da svoy!" ("Bread and salt!" — "I am eating and it is my own!").

Bread and salt represented the hospitality of folk isolated far from one another in a large country. This hospitality was legendary in Russia.

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