Your savings account to earn more from April 1

Here's some good news for savings account holders. The Reserve Bank has asked banks to start calculating interest rates on savings accounts on a daily basis from April 1.

This move will enable saving bank account holders to earn higher interest rates.

Currently, banks calculate interest (3.5 per cent per annum) on these accounts on the lowest available balance, between 11th and the last date of a month.

The new system would help saving account holders earn 16-18 per cent more from their deposits. According to bankers, the new system will amount to higher interest payouts and may even result in a slight rise in the cost of funds.

The RBI had announced this in the April 2009 and had given time to all banks to get their IT infrastructure in place for a smooth transition to the new system.

"We advise that payment of interest on savings accounts may be made by banks on a daily product basis with effect from April 1," RBI said in a notification, which also asked banks to ensure a smooth transition and work out the modalities in this regard.

Currently, interest rates on saving accounts are de-regulated, barring up to Rs 200,000. The RBI only administer interest rates on saving bank deposits up to Rs 200,000, and for the deposits above this amount, banks are free to give any interest rates.

A personal budget is a must!

Getting married? Starting a job? Getting further education? Starting your own family? Have you planned for these important phases in your life? Good control over your personal finances will help you achieve the goals you have set for yourself and cope with changes in your life. How can you achieve that? The answer is having your own personalized budget.

How do you draw a budget that suits your need? Say, you are interested in taking an educational course and are thinking of taking a student loan. How will you accommodate this additional expense? To begin with, you need to draw your personal budget.

a) The first step is to calculate your monthly income. Consider income from all sources including income from your investments. -----A

b) Next, make a list of your monthly expenses. For example, if you are a salaried employee, list your routine expenses like expenses on commute, food expenses, utilities, clothes, charities etc. Then think of any extraordinary expenses that you may have to incur during the budgeted period, such as home improvement projects or purchasing a car. -----B

c) It is a good idea to categorize your payments under different headings like daily living expenses, entertainment and vacation, health etc. This will give you a fair idea of how much you spend on different categories. It is easier to keep track and also control your expenses once you know how much portion of your earnings goes into each expense.

Calculate the difference (A - B = C).

d) The next step is to redraft your personal budget to include expenses related to the educational course like interest and principal payment, course fees, expenses on tuitions and books, loss of wages etc. If you still have a comfortable surplus of cash (C), you can finalize this budget. If not, consider the expenses that you can avoid and reconsider the amount of loan. Once you reach a bottom line that you are comfortable with, finalize your budget.

e) When you decide the cash surplus / short you will be comfortable with, you should also think of the percentage of income you would ideally like to save for your future. Think of short term as well as long term or retirement savings.

You may compile your budget into an excel sheet or use a physical book or diary. Alternatively, there are several free softwares available online for the taking.

Here are a few tips of a working budget:

Keep your working sheet as simple as possible and keep it clean. Each item and category should be clearly defined.

It is a good idea to create a flexible spreadsheet or if you have a hand written budget in mind, leave - enough space to add items of income or expenses in the existing budget.

Maintain budgets on a continuous basis. Ideally, one should have a monthly budget rolling into an annual budget. The annual budget should also be in line with the long-term budget.

An important part of budgeting is keeping track of actual income and expenses and calculating variances. If variances are beyond acceptable limits, then it is time to revisit your budget and make necessary changes.

If you have a long list of income or expenses, it is advantageous to use excel or other computer softwares. For example, by using excel you can add comments, format your sheet, create reports using certain information from the excel sheet. 

Doctors no longer advise women to eat for two during their pregnancies

Doctors no longer advise women to eat for two during their pregnancies as new research shows that overeating during this time can impact the health of their babies adversely.

Only a pregnant woman knows what it's like to be told repeatedly by both her mother and mother-in-law to eat "enough for two." It turns out that this advice may be wrong after all: New studies have shown that a high calorie diet could affect the gender, and more importantly, the health of the baby. According to this study, the high fat, high carbohydrate diet of pregnant mice impacted almost 2,000 genes in the developing offspring, including those involved in kidney function and smell.

Doctors in the city agree that a pregnant woman who overeats can harm her unborn child by exposing it to a host of health problems. "Pregnancy is the time when a women needs to exercise control on her diet and eat judiciously. The first three months is the time to have extra folic acid along with a balanced diet and a diet rich in calcium and iron is recommended for the rest of the pregnancy. But most women these days eat fatty foods which leads to all sorts of problems," says Dr Mala Srivastava, consultant gynaecologist, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.

According to experts, the offspring of mothers who overeat are at risk for liver and pancreas damage, both of which can contribute to early onset obesity and diabetes. Another study by Rockefeller University scientists reported in The Journal of Neuroscience says that short-term exposure to a high-fat diet in utero produces permanent neurons in the foetal brain that later increase the appetite for fat. "A diabetic mother can pass on her health condition to the child. However, there are no established clinical studies which say that children of obese mothers run at a risk of early onset of obesity. Though mothers do pass on their unhealthy eating habits to their children and such children take after their parents," says Dr Mala.

FRAUGHT WITH PROBLEMS

For an obese woman, the experience of pregnancy - starting right from the time of conception to labour is fraught with problems. Even a simple ultrasound scan becomes a tedious affair for an obese mother as the excessive layer of fat makes it difficult to detect the foetus and monitor the heart rate.

Last year a country-wide study conducted on 4,621 women above the age of 35, in areas like cities such as Kolkata, Kochi and Jaipur reported high prevalence of obesity in this group. The study showed that the prevalence of overweight women is 64 per cent in urban areas and 36 per cent in rural areas. "Nowadays, most of the overweight women in urban cities find it difficult to conceive. This is because fat affect the production of hormone estrogen in women and therefore disturbs ovulation due to which conception becomes difficult. But I have commonly seen that the same women fall pregnant naturally the time they lose 5 to 6 kg," says Dr Asha Sharma, gynaecologist, Rockland Hospital.

Obese women who do conceive are more susceptible to complications during the pregnancy, and run a higher risk of miscarriage. This is because such women are usually at a risk of high blood pressure and gestational diabetes. "In a normal pregnancy a woman develops a mild form of insulin resistance. If a woman is obese, she is already insulin resistant, which induces gestational diabetes" says Dr H Pai, infertility expert, Fortis La Femme Centre for Women. Also, the incidence of Preeclampsia (elevated blood pressure in pregnancy) is about 4 to 5 times higher among pregnant obese women. Several complications due to obesity also lead to induced birth and caesarean. Stillbirth is also very common among obese women with the risk being 2 to 3 times higher than in normal weight women.

BABY AT RISK TOO

Researchers say overweight mothers not just put their own lives at stake, but that of their children too. Such babies are more susceptible to metabolic disorders and infections and require more care. And, in case of induced birth due to complications associated with high blood pressure and other factors, such women give birth to underweight babies, whose growth could be severely restricted. A study done at Newcastle University in Britain and recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association compared women with a BMI 18.5 and 26 with obese women before pregnancy having a BMI of 29 or greater. The study found that obese women are more than twice as likely to give birth to children with spina bifida and more vulnerable to giving birth to babies with heart problems, cleft palate or cleft lip, abnormal rectum or anus development, and hydrocephaly, a condition in which excess spinal fluid builds up in the brain.

Another recent study by researchers from Duke University found that obesity in mothers causes cellular programming in utero that predisposes offspring to inflammation-related disorders such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease. "Obesity in mother causes a major risk to foetus. But it's not the extra fat which harms the baby but the health conditions caused by obesity. For instance, hypothyroidism, which is common among obese women, can cause Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR) in which the foetus is smaller than expected for the number of weeks of pregnancy. Similarly, if the mother transmits her diabetes to the foetus, it can have brain problems or spina bifida," explains Dr Sharma.

TOO FAT TO BE FERTILE

Four years ago there was a call for ban on fertility treatment for obese women in the UK. The British Fertility Society said free treatment should be limited to slim women, because obesity can reduce the success rate and lead to problems for both mother and baby. "The treatment of infertility using IVF techniques is more challenging in obese women. For instance, the pregnancy rates with IVF are lower in obese women than in women with normal weight as many obese women do not fully respond to the medications, and also because of the higher percentage of immature eggs in such women," says Pai.

Thinking job change?

First rule of job hunt: Be sure of why you want to leave a job. HR experts caution against any desperation to leave the current job and take up any offer that might come up your way. Just because you're unhappy in your current job isn't reason enough to change your job. Carefully analyse what exactly the problem is in your current job: does the issue lie with your role, your boss or your stagnant career?

Caution Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams, Associate Professor and Research Associate respectively at the Harvard Business School: "Candidates not only skimp on research in the belief that the grass has to be greener elsewhere but also fail to look strategically at their current companies for opportunities that might exist for them."

Plan your job moves as meticulously as you do your finances. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder-CEO, Info Edge India, which runs popular job portal Naukri.com, likens career to financial investment. "The biggest mistake at the time of job hunting is that people look for returns whereas they should understand the risks involved." This is more true of entry-level executives who are not well informed about their job choice. Bikhchandani terms it as "snacking on jobs". "Young executives, mostly from not-so-good B schools, at the beginning of their careers try a few jobs before figuring out what works for them." Your job hunt will be only as good as your research. Be well informed about the financial stability of the company you are planning to work for and examine the role being offered carefully-the job title itself could be misleading.

Ask yourself if there is a clearly defined career path for you when you move into this role. HR experts cite instances of coveted roles in organisations getting redundant during last year's downturn. A careful assessment of risks involved will help you avoid setbacks. Carry out research about the culture of an organisation and decipher whether you will be a cultural fit. Eventually, your research will help you decode what you are good at, what you are interested in and where the opportunities are.

Groysberg and Abrahams, who recently conducted a research on the most common missteps of job hunters, put it in their research published in Harvard Business Review: "A hasty job change, made with insufficient information, is inherently compromised. When under time pressure, people tend to make certain predictable mistakes. They focus on readily available details like salary and job title instead of raising deeper questions, and they set their sights on the immediate future, either discounting or misreading the long term." What if you have taken up the wrong job? Cut your losses and move on, suggest Groysberg and Abrahams. "Don't hesitate to go down another road if it becomes evident that a certain kind of change won't be right."

ASK YOURSELF

1. What does this job involve and are the tasks to your liking?

2. Do you have the requisite skills to be a top employee in this job?

3. Are these the kind of people you would be comfortable working with?

4. What makes you different from other people vying for the same job?

5. Can you persuade the potential employer to hire you at a salary you need or want?

MUST DOs OF JOB-SWITCH

* Do homework on your industry or function.

* Pay attention to a potential employer's financial stability.

* Don't leave a job only for an increase in compensation.

* Make realistic assessment of your skills.

* Assess how the job will fit into your career plan.

Indian military to weaponize world's hottest chili

 GAUHATI, India (AP) The Indian military has a new weapon against terrorism: the world's hottest chili. After conducting tests, the military has decided to use the thumb-sized "bhut jolokia," or "ghost chili," to make tear gas-like hand grenades to immobilize suspects, defense officials said Tuesday.

The bhut jolokia was accepted by Guinness World Records in 2007 as the world's spiciest chili. It is grown and eaten in India's northeast for its taste, as a cure for stomach troubles and a way to fight the crippling summer heat.

It has more than 1,000,000 Scoville units, the scientific measurement of a chili's spiciness. Classic Tabasco sauce ranges from 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units, while jalapeno peppers measure anywhere from 2,500 to 8,000.

"The chili grenade has been found fit for use after trials in Indian defense laboratories, a fact confirmed by scientists at the Defense Research and Development Organization," Col. R. Kalia, a defense spokesman in the northeastern state of Assam, told The Associated Press. "This is definitely going to be an effective nontoxic weapon because its pungent smell can choke terrorists and force them out of their hide-outs," R. B. Srivastava, the director of the Life Sciences Department at the New Delhi headquarters of the DRDO said.

Srivastava, who led a defense research laboratory in Assam, said trials are also on to produce bhut jolokia-based aerosol sprays to be used by women against attackers and for the police to control and disperse mobs.

Here's the science behind quakes

Washington, March 21 (ANI): In a new study, Northeastern earth and environmental sciences Professor Jennifer Cole has discussed what causes earthquakes and how one natural disaster can lead to another.

As to what causes earthquakes, Cole says that they result from the movement of tectonic plates.

As tectonic plates slide past each other, energy builds up in the rocks until they can no longer hold the stress.
This causes failure in the form of breaking rocks, sending energy waves outward.

The earthquakes in Haiti, China, Japan, and Chile all happened because of this series of events.
Glaciers may also cause earthquakes.

During the last glacial period, the ice sheet was up to 2.5 miles thick. This pushed down on the Earth's crust, causing a depression.

When the weight was lifted due to glacial melting, the depressed crust began to stick-slip on its way back to the pre-depressed elevation.

In addition, humans can cause earthquakes by damming rivers, creating a reservoir heavy enough to cause a depression in the earth's crust.

A massive earthquake is usually followed by a sequence of aftershocks, landslides and tsunamis.
Earthquakes are capable of causing tsunamis.

In the unique case when an earthquake occurs on the ocean floor, a rock is forced up, causing a disturbance in the water column that extends to the ocean surface.

Waves then travel outward in a series of concentric circles at a rapid rate, up to 550 miles per hour, or as fast as a jet airplane travels.

When tsunamis reach shallow water, they slow down and grow taller, forming massive waves.

These waves travel inland and cause flooding and increase the potential of coastal landslides.

Some scientists are making the case that global warming is contributing to an increase in earthquake activity by making the ocean water warmer, and therefore, heavier.

Additionally, melting glaciers take weight off of tectonic plates, which can cause them to pop upwards in those areas, resulting in earthquakes.

Why foreign institutes dig Indian market

For foreign universities, which haven't yet recovered fully from the aftershocks of the worldwide recession, India presents, to quote a word re-introduced into the English vocabulary by Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland , a 'frabjous' opportunity.

More than 100,000 students leave Indian shores annually to study at universities abroad. Their presence has made foreign universities wake up to the incontrovertible fact that there's another 'creamy layer' below these students abroad whose families are prepared to pay upwards of Rs 2.5 lakh a year for quality education.

Profs debate Foreign Univ Bill

What foreign universities Bill can't do

International students are the economic mainstay of foreign universities, but these institutions are not in a position to meet the demand for the education they provide on their own campuses back home. This untapped market makes the business of overseas campuses that much more lucrative.

For over a decade, foreign universities have been lobbying hard for the passage of the Foreign Education Providers Bill, which has been a pet project of HRD minister Kapil Sibal. The most recent of these exploratory visits was that of Robert A. Brown, president of Boston University, who was in the Capital in January to plan collaborations with leading universities here.

He said there was an insatiable appetite for quality education in India and collaborations would mutually benefit both countries. US's Georgia Institute of Technology announced its plan to set up campuses in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam as soon as the Bill gets Parliament nod.

Central Michigan University, meanwhile, has taken another route to plant its flag in India. It has been offering a collaborative MBA programme with the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, for the past five years.

Experts associated with these universities explain the economic logic of their plans for India: the proliferation of private institutions in the country-especially in engineering, medicine, management and law - that charged fees upwards of Rs 2.5 lakh a year was evidence of the vast market waiting to be tapped.

These institutions attract the second layer of the country's higher education market. These are students whose families can't afford foreign education (upwards of Rs 15 lakh a year), but want to be in the top four favourite streams.

India, according the now-defunct National Knowledge Commission, needs 1,500 universities, compared with about 350 now, to raise the enrollment numbers from 7 per cent of the population aged 18-25 to developed country averages.

But even before the Bill got the cabinet's nod, Indian universities had initiated the process of collaborating with their international peers to offer degrees or diplomas. A National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NEPA) report in 2008 pegged the number of these institutions at more than 130.

For Bangalore University vice- chancellor A. N. Prabhu Deva, collaboration is the way forward.

"It will help a higher education institution rise to the standards of its foreign partner," he says. But for this collaboration to become meaningful, says R. Govinda, NEPA V-C, teaching must go hand in hand with research. "Only then will quality education and foreign collaborations be meaningful," he says.

Either way, for foreign universities, this is a winwin situation. Narayanan Ramaswamy, executive director of the management consultancy KPMG, points to the "massive demand supply gap" driving the international higher education market.

Thanks for : Reproduced From Mail Today. Copyright 2010. MTNPL. All rights reserved.

Ways to avoid getting duped at a petrol station

Fuel prices are getting dearer by the day but are we getting every drop of fuel paid for? Well, if the outpouring of woes online is any indicator, then no, we have a long way to go to prevent being cheated at fuel stations.

These are some who have realized the bluff, though may not have taken the outlet to task - but there are many others who aren't aware of such nefarious deeds. Hence the possibility of them getting duped is even more likely, and often repeatedly.

So as customers, how can we ensure we aren't at the receiving end of this trickery? What are the precautions that need to be taken and how do we get our grievances addressed? Here's more-

Precautions

• Keep a keen eye on YOUR fuel pump - especially in the beginning and just before the end of the fill. Avoid all distractions - it's indeed a blessing that cell phones aren't allowed in fuel stations. Other distractions like your car stereo or balancing your 2-wheeher can be avoided too.

• Make sure the fuel attendant has heard the amount right. To be doubly sure, ask the attendant to repeat, just as you in restaurants, though this should be a lot easier for him.

• Pay the amount ONLY AFTER the filling is complete. In most cases, either due to our overzealousness or simply being told by the attendant, we often end-up fiddling our pockets or wallets, in the process neglecting the fill.

• Keep track of your fuel indicator during every refill, for this reading can be good source of verification. If your 2-wheeler fuel indicator takes that little longer to reflect, do wait by the side until it shows up. You really wouldn't want to find out being duped in the middle of traffic.

• Also, it's a misplaced notion that meters in fuel pumps are tamper-proof. While meter tampering is a grave issue, it can only be checked by specialists. However, this can be checked by informing the concerned fuel company.

In spite of these precautions, if you still get duped, it's best to file a complaint. Take my word, the process isn't as cumbersome as one may imagine, in fact it is a lot more effective than creating a ruckus at the petrol station.

You can share your complaint at the 'Indian Consumer Complaints Forum' or even better - register it directly with the respective fuel company. Their websites have contact details of various regional offices that you can directly walk-in to as well as an online complaint form and even a toll-free number.

And if you're wondering if they do ever respond, well, in our case the field-officer from one of the regional offices promptly called to enquire, and ensured that the grievance was addressed. Nevertheless, we could have avoided all this, had we practiced what we just preached :)

Drug from bananas to prevent HIV infection

A potent new drug derived from bananas may open the door to new ways to prevent sexual transmission of HIV. Scientists have found that lectins - a set of naturally occurring chemicals in plants - can halt the chain of reaction that leads to a variety of infections.

In lab tests, BanLec, the lectin found in bananas, was found to be as potent as two current anti-HIV drugs. It may become a less expensive new component of applied vaginal microbicides, according to new findings published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry . Scientists have been looking for new ways of stopping the spread of HIV. The rate of new infections is outpacing the rate of new individuals getting anti-retroviral drugs, scientists said. It appears an effective vaccine could still be years away.

Although condom use is effective, they are most successful in preventing infection if used consistently and correctly, which is often not the case. "In settings where women have limited control over sexual matters, a long lasting, self-applied microbicide can be very attractive," said David Marvovitz of the University of Michigan Medical School and lead author of the paper.

Some of the most promising compounds for inhibiting vaginal and rectal HIV transmission are agents that block HIV prior to integration into its target cell.

The new research describes the complex actions of lectins and their ability to outsmart HIV. Lectins are sugar- binding proteins and can identify foreign invaders, like a virus, and attach themselves to the pathogen, thus blocking its entry into the human body. The team has developed a way to isolate BanLec from bananas.

Youth will drive Indian growth story

Harvard prof David Bloom says only proper policies will yield demographic dividend youth power that translates to wealth. The greater the number of earning youth, more the savings, faster the economic growth, higher the per capita income and quicker the reduction of poverty, said David Bloom, professor of economics and demography at Harvard University.

Speaking at the India Today Conclave 2010, he said the lessons learnt from the Chinese and East Asian - Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea - success stories could become the mantra for India's economic growth provided its youth power was properly harnessed.

He told the audience, which included a very attentive Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, that India's growing population, always considered a bane, can be the engine for economic growth that could last a good 30 years.

The Bloom formula to achieve this is to equip the enormous pool of workers - the population in the age group of 15 to 65 - available in India, by providing them employment to 'catalyse growth'. In addition, India had to dramatically improve education and rural healthcare to ensure the kind of growth East Asia saw in the last three decades.

Bloom is the originator of the term 'demographic dividend', used to denote a rise in the rate of economic growth of a country resulting from a large share of working - age people in the population.

Based on this demographic dividend theory, India is considered to be on the threshold of a great opportunity to have extraordinarily high economic growth, as the country has one of the youngest populations in the world. In fact, the average age of the Indian in 2020 is likely to be 29, as against 37 for China and the US, and 48 for Japan.

Bloom predicted, "India is reaping a high demographic dividend. India will reach higher than East Asia's three - decade growth rate if the country's fertility rates are low or medium and be about on par if the fertility rates are high." The theory is that with a higher working - age population and fewer dependents - those who are aged below 15 or above 65 and are not earning - there will be bigger savings and more income per household to power higher economic growth.

Currently, India's dependency ratio - of non-workers vs workers in a household - is 0.6. According to reports, the number of workers in India is 67.2 crore against 40.8 crore non - workers in a total population of 108 crore. India is moving from higher fertility and high mortality to low fertility and low mortality, the Harvard professor said. This is a transitional phase.

Studies show that India's fertility rate, which is the average number of children a woman expects to have, was 3.8 in 1990. It has fallen to 2.7, according to Bloom.

"The extent of growth and reaping of this demographic dividend is not set in stone. It can be magnified in several ways. The number of kids per woman can come down from 2.7 to 2.1 through expansion of family planning and better healthcare through the National Rural Health Mission," he said.

Bloom, however, warned that there was potential for this burgeoning youth population to turn into either a dividend or a disaster.

Against the backdrop of a low mortality rate combined with a baby boom, India had to make sure that its children were healthy and educated and went on to add to India's economic growth.

As Rahul Gandhi listened intently, Bloom stressed the need for policies to improve public health. This would mean vaccination for children, better rural life and education aimed especially at the girl child, to turn this young population into a dividend.

Quoting IT czar Nandan Nilekani, the Harvard professor said India had a great opportunity and should not 'mess it up'.

"Growth depends on an economy's ability to absorb the demographic dividend. Pure demographics suggest that the next three decades will be catch - up time for India (with East Asia) with high per capita incomes," he said.

Bloom explained why those above 65 years should be looked after as well. He said that by 2050, this section of the population would number over 22 crore. The private family networks would not be able to provide them the kind of care they needed. "India will have to evolve pension and healthcare policies for them," he suggested.

He pointed out that 90 per cent do not receive pension and less than 10 per cent have medical insurance. Bloom explained the demographic dividend with the figurative use of 'a pig in a python' concept.

If a python swallows a pig, the bulge in the python's body is taken to represent the population in a particular age group.

The bulge starts at children, moves along the python's body and when the bulge is biggest at the working-age people, that marks the highest period of economic growth for the country.

"The dependency ratio in East Asia of working people vs nonworkers is more than 2.3: 1, while in sub-Saharan Africa, it is 1.2: 1. So in East Asia, there is an extra member in each family for every non-worker, which translates into larger income per household," he explained.

India has reached the stage of reaping the demographic dividend as a result of several factors, according to Bloom. "Since the 1950s, India has seen a 70 per cent decline in infant mortality, added a quite extraordinary 25 years -four - and - a - half years per decade - to life expectancy, reduced fertility from six kids per woman to 2.7, while death and birth rates are on a decline," he said.

India will reach higher than East Asia's three decade growth rate.

TOEFL: 10 tips to take you to the top

The TOEFL test is the most widely accepted English-language assessment used at more than 7,300 institutions in 130 countries including the UK, US and Canada [ Images ]. The test is divided into four sections -- Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking.

Here are some pointers and resources to help you get on your way to score well for the test.

Find something interesting to read and listen to, then practice speaking and writing about it.
Listen to Podcasts, recorded lectures -- check the website of your favourite university. Go to news websites. Read up on your favourite subjects on popular websites such aswikipedia.org. Tell a friend or family member about what you learned.

Work with a speaking partner, preferably with a native speaker of English or try an online video chat! The more opportunity you have to speak the language, the more familiar you will become.

Take on the role of a great journalist: Take good notes and use them to make summaries.

Make vocabulary flash cards and pretend you are a contestant on a vocabulary quiz show. Carry the flash cards with you. They are a great way to make a bus ride go by quickly.

Visit TOEFL-TV (youtube.com/TOEFLtv) for resources and tips from English-language instructors and students that have taken the TOEFL test.

Reading tips
Practice summarising and paraphrasing texts. Use charts and outlines to organise the ideas in a text. Practice speed reading techniques. Practice reading (and answering questions) on a computer screen. Expand your vocabulary with daily-use vocabulary cards.

Listening tips
i. Listen for basic information -- did you comprehend the main idea, major points and important details?

ii. Listen for "pragmatic" understanding -- can you recognise a speaker's attitude? What is the purpose of the speech? What is their role? Are they an authority or are they a passive part of the conversation?

iii. Listen for connecting and synthesising -- can you understand the relationship between ideas? Compare and contrast. Determine the cause and effect.

Speaking tips
Read aloud a short article from a newspaper, campus newspaper, magazine, textbook, or the internet. Write down 2-3 questions about the article.

With a speaking partner, answer the questions. Outline the main points of the article. Give a one-minute oral summary of the article. Express your opinion about it. If there is a problem discussed, give the solution.

More tips:

• Work on your pronunciation
• Speak in s-l-o-w motion. You could imitate American or British intonation and rhythm patterns. You could also work on problematic sounds, such as:
• [ t ] and [ d ] - uncurl your tongue
• [ p ], [ t ], and [ k ] - add some air!
• [ p ] and [ b] - close your lips
• [ f ] and [ v ] - lower lip to teeth
• Find an accent reduction coach
• Your pronunciation doesn't have to be perfect, but native speakers should be able to understand you.

Writing tips
Find a writing buddy who can give you feedback. Read an article and find listening material on the same topic. Write a summary of each. Explain the ways they are similar and the ways they are different.

Combine all your skills!
Find listening and reading materials on the same topic from the library or internet (eg news websites). Take notes or create outlines on each. Give a one-minute oral summary of each.

Explain how the two relate in a short written response (150-225 words). Take notes or create outlines on each. Give a one-minute speech about the same.

India Inc leader in global hiring trail

India continues to be the most optimistic nation in terms of hiring plans for the next three months, driven by strong job opportunities across all sectors, including finance and real estate, Manpower India, the Indian arm of the global staffing services firm Manpower Inc, said on Tuesday.

According to the quarterly Employment Outlook Survey, India Inc's hiring outlook for the April-June, 2010 quarter has improved by four percentage points compared to the previous quarter.

With Net Employment Outlook of 39 per cent, Indian employers reported the most optimistic forecast among all 36 countries and territories that participated in the survey, it said.

''Employers remain optimistic on account of strong domestic growth. We are witnessing improved opportunities for job seekers across all industry sectors with employers indicating that hiring in India's services, finance, insurance and real estate sectors will accelerate in the months ahead,'' said Sanjay Pandit, managing director, Manpower India.

India has been reporting the strongest hiring plans globally since the third quarter of 2008.

The survey stated that job seekers in the services industry sectors - finance, insurance, realty, manufacturing, mining and construction - can look forward to the most favourable hiring environment during the April-June timeframe.

Moreover, job prospects in the Asia Pacific region continue to remain strong, with the exception of Japan. Hiring outlook continues to improve modestly in most of the American region.

Employer hiring intentions are strongest in India, Brazil and Taiwan, while in the US these remain unchanged from three months ago period, but are more optimistic compared to last year this time, Manpower said.

'' The growing confidence could be attributed to robust industrial output, a continuous surge in demand in consumer goods, auto sector and bounceback in IT and ITeS sectors,'' Pandit said about India.

Employers in finance, insurance and real estate sectors also report a four percentage point improvement in net employment outlook over the last quarter.

The softest hiring pace in India is reported by employers in the transportation and utilities sector (28 per cent) while employers in the manufacturing sector (38 per cent) have reported substantial improvement in their quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) hiring outlook.

Moreover, companies in all four regions of the country expect year-over-year hiring activity to improve considerably, to 42 per cent in the east, 40 per cent in the west, 37 per cent in the north and 40 per cent in the south.

The survey is conducted on a quarterly basis to measure employers’ intentions to increase or decrease the number of employees in their workforce during the next quarter. According to the survey, globally employers in 27 out of 36 countries and territories expect positive hiring activity in Q2, while those in eight report negative outlook.

The results of the survey are based on interviews with over 5,381 employers in India.

Reproduced From Mail Today. Copyright 2010. MTNPL. All rights reserved.

We tell you how you can de-stress yourself

With stress levels reaching alarming levels, more experts are encouraging people to adopt a healthier lifestyle. Although you may find yourself dealing with stress on an everyday level, there are several ways that you can unwind and de-stress yourself unless you want to head for a nervous breakdown. Here’s how... 

- Too much stress is known to cause headaches, depression, insomnia and digestive problems among others. Put some time aside just for yourself and do something that will relax you. 

- Never bring work back home. It’s bad enough that you’re stressing about assignments during work hours that you carry the stress home as well. If it is really unavoidable, bring it home only once a week. Make a list every morning about what you need to accomplish during the day and stick to it. 

- Even if you can put aside just 20 minutes daily to sit down and read a chapter or two of a book, it helps to put your mind at rest. Find a quiet place in your house where no one will disturb you and read what you want. It could be comics, romance novels or even non fiction. Stay away from depressing or serious books. 

- Music is known to have great healing qualities. Just a few minutes everyday of listening to some soothing music will give you the much needed peace that you crave for. Put on your headphones or stereo and let the music work its way into your system. 

- Reduce clutter in your surroundings. A house that is filled with junk will only overwhelm you. Spend a few minutes before you go to bed every night to clear the room. When you come back home after a long day at work, you’ll have only yourself to thank. 

- Breathing is known to work wonders on people. Deep breathe a few minutes daily. This will clear your head and help you unwind. 

- As strange as it sounds, nothing helps a tired soul relax more than a nice, warm bath. Not only will you have some time for yourself, but having a bath before going to bed will help relieve tension in your muscles and help you relax. Besides giving you better sleep. 

All about changing the rules of eating

Some believe that food combining is the basis of good health. But is there any scientific validity to this idea?

It's our mothers and grandmothers who stopped us from eating fish and dahi at the same time, or cautioned us against drinking milk after we had eaten melon. Old wives' tales apart, various theories about food and eating abound. Some suggest that combining different food groups has an adverse impact on the digestion and health, and even promotes weight gain. The idea of appropriate 'mixing' is reinforced by modern diet theories that stress the right mixing of food and eating of certain foods at certain times of the day.

Some nutritionists and health experts have gone one step further and broadened the definition of a 'balanced' diet to include the appropriate mixing of foods: Trophology is the study of combining food based on its energetic and nutritional properties, and advocates simple principles on mixing foods according to their important constituents. But is there really any scientific basis to the idea of food combining? We decided to find out what experts think and also talked to several people who believe that combining foods appropriately has improved their health.

RAW FOOD CLEANSE

Raw food expert Soorya Kaur is critical of the regular Indian diet of daal- roti , which she calls acidic. Herself a raw food eater, she believes that 'living' food such as fruit, vegetables, sprouted nuts, seeds and grains can keep the body disease free. " Our diets should have 70 percent of alkaline food and 30 percent of other foods whereas most people do it the other way: They eat wheat products, pulses, sugar and drink coffee or tea which are all acidic in nature and cause many health problems," says Soorya, who not just prepares appetising meals from raw foods for her detox programmes but also delivers it at home for those interested.

Kaur's 7- day Raw Food Cleanse programme begins with raw foods along with dishes made with raw foods.

After that it moves on to a day of only green vegetables and fruit. Next, a day of juices only which comprise of 10 different liquids to drink. The remaining days will include a day of fruit only. In the final days you go back to the full spectrum of the foods enjoyed on the first two days. Throughout this process, you are provided with 2 full meals a day, yoga classes and consultation. For those, who might find it difficult to survive on raw foods for long once the programme is finished, Soorya recommends cooking food at 48 . C which preserves the nutrients.

" I tell people never to mix raw foods and cooked food together. Instead they should keep them for separate days or for separate meals and also to eat cooked food minimally," says Soorya. Milk and milk products are avoidable, as she believes them to be genetically modified and impure. " Hormones which are injected to cows and buffalos make the milk unfit for human consumption," says Soorya. She also advocates a 'Detox Juice Cleanse' program aimed at cleansing and detoxing the body. She believes juice allows you to draw the maximum nutrition from fruit and vegetables.

BLAME IT ON MIXING

According to some theories, inappropriate food combinations are to blame for obesity and stomach disorders. Our digestive tract becomes confused when we eat more than one form of concentrated protein or starch at a time, leading to incomplete digestion and toxicity. In fact random food combining is also believed to result in chemical imbalance, the underlying cause for most health problems.

These ideas have led to the formulation of diets that stress keeping food groups separate.

The Fit for Life diet which was hugely popular in the '80' s is the best known in this category. Fit for Life is a diet plan rich in fruit and vegetables and recommends eating fruit from the time you wake up till noon. You are not supposed to mix fruit with any other food. While there is more choice for lunch and dinner, again one should not eat more than one concentrated food at a time so proteins should not be mixed with carbohydrates. And there should be at nearly a break of 3 to 4 hours between meals. This is because both proteins and carbohydrates require secretions of very different digestive juices for complete digestion. And the mix of both the juices in the stomach leads to incomplete digestion of both carbohydrates and protein.

It's believed that the proteins putrefy and the starches ferment due to the continuous presence of bacteria in the digestive tract. Also, they should be accompanied by raw vegetables. The diet asks people to avoid all kinds of dairy products and drinking water with meals as it dilutes stomach digestive juices.

The desi version of Fit for Life is advocated by Mumbaibased Dr Vijaya Venkat, who has been living and creating awareness about eating carefully since the mid 1960s. " Fit for Life is a documentation of principles of natural hygiene which I have been following for ages. The book established the fact that humans are essentially fruitarians. It also encouraged me to tell the world that all this while I have been on the right tract," declares Dr Vijaya Venkat.

Vickie Rai turned to Dr Venkat's diet two years ago when she developed a malignant lump in her breast for the second time. She stopped her medication and began on the diet. Three weeks later, she went for an ultrasound and was delighted to receive a clean chit of health. " First the lump in my breast went but with time my other health problems also reduced. My frequent visits to the homeopath for constant cold and cough problems also declined.

What worked best for me was the lime shot Dr Venkat's advises after every meal," says forty- four- yearold Vickie.

Ayurveda also goes against the mixing of variety of foods.

According to this system, each food has its own taste ( rasa), energy ( virya) and post- digestive effect ( vipak). So, when two or three different foods of different taste, energy and post- digestive effect ( proteins, carbohydrates and fats) are mixed, it disrupts the digestive power ( agni) and hamper the digestion. This results in indigestion, fermentation and gas formation.

On the contrary, if we eat these foods separately at different times of the day they are digested quickly and easily as the agni gets stimulated. " Each individual should eat according to his constitution i. e. vatta, pitta and kapha.

And, equally important is to have an appropriate combination of food as each food substance demands different degree of digestive power to be digested. For instance, water melon is digested relatively much faster than milk. So mixing both can disrupt the digestive power," explains Ayurveda specialist Nilima Jain.

THE COUNTER VIEW

Most doctors and nutritionists rubbish food combining theories, saying that they lack scientific basis. " I am not aware of any clinical study which proves that having carbohydrates with proteins or any two concentrated foods at a time can cause digestive disorders. It's a myth that gastric enzymes change the digestive tone or decreases gastric juices.

Contrarily, eating more of one kind of food sometimes can lower the secretion of other enzymes," says Dr M P Sharma, Head, Internal Medicine & Gastroenterology.

The diet regimes also suggest that an alkaline diet ( fruit and vegetables) rather than acidic diet ( cereals and pulses) can prevent deadly diseases which are an outcome of eating foods that result in an acidic ash residue. An acidic diet is also blamed for causing an imbalance in the pH levels leading to digestive problems. 

However, doctors reject these ideas as halfbaked theories. " It's the internal environment of the stomach that controls the digestion and not food. Moreover, our digestive mechanism is too strong to get disturbed by eating two different kinds of foods together and even if it does, the body rejects such food.

The job of the gastric juices is to neutralise the food we eat, so both acidic and alkaline foods are neutralised by the stomach," Dr S P Thakur, senior consultant, Gastroenterology.

According to Dr Thakur, medicine doesn't recognise acidic or alkaline diet or the argument that pH levels in the body get disturbed by certain kinds of acidic food. And, those who are selling such theories to people are misguiding them. Body's pH levels are affected under certain health conditions such as infections or diabetes or kidney problems and not by the foods. So, to stay healthy it is important to have a balance diet.

Rather than losing yourself in the various ( often contradictory) theories put forth by health experts and doctors, we advise you to trust your own body. You could try some of these diet plans and see if they work as well for you as they did for some of the people we spoke to.

Wait and watch, keeping an eye on how you feel for some weeks before you establish a conclusion. While eating in the ways advocated by these plans is unlikely to harm you, some foods or eating habits may aggravate health conditions so it is always better to discontinue them till the time you feel better. 

Sonia Gandhi, Nooyi in Asia's 8 top power women

Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Pepsico's India-born CEO Indra Nooyi and ICICI Bank chief Chanda Kochhar figure in CNN's list of eight of Asia's top power women.

Taking a 'look at the key women who are shaping Asia's political and economic landscape' on the occasion of 100th International Women's Day, the CNN's list is headed by China's 'Paper Queen' Zhang Yin.

Indra Nooyi, in the second place, 'lords over some 185,000 corporate minions in close to 200 countries', notes CNN. 'Nooyi's hard-as-nails leadership and her sense of fun (one-time lead guitarist in an all-girls rock band still performs regularly at corporate functions) has earned her spots on many 'best leader' lists in the US,' it adds.

'Converted Indian Sonia Gandhi's story reads like a soap opera,' says CNN of the third-placed Italy born president of the Indian National Congress and chairperson of ruling United Progressive Alliance.

'Born Edvige Antonia Albina Maino in Italy, she met future husband and Indian political aristocrat Rajiv Gandhi at Cambridge and tied the knot four years later. Rajiv became India's prime minister but was assassinated in 1991.

'Years later (Sonia) Gandhi entered politics as a primary member of the Congress before rising through the ranks to become party leader in 1998.

'Under her leadership, the Congress become the Lok Sabha's single largest political party.'

Fifth placed 'Chandra Kochhar is no stranger to 'key women' lists,' notes CNN. The head of ICICI Bank -- India's second largest bank -- has frequently been named in Fortune's 'Most Powerful Women in Business' list. Last year she figured among Forbes' 'World's 100 Most Powerful Women'.

'Little wonder, considering how the mother of two is responsible for some 15 million customers in India, which makes up a third of India's retail lending,' it says.

Others on the list are Ho Ching (4), wife of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and CEO of Singapore's government-owned investment company Temasek, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina (6), Hyun Jeong-eun (7), chairwoman of massive South Korean conglomerate Hyundai, and Indonesia's Finance Minister Sri Indrawati (8).