Monday, March 9, 2009

Pakistan

 i
Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located in South Asia and borders Central Asia and the Middle East. It has a 1,046 kilometre (650 mile) coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. Tajikistan also lies adjacent to Pakistan but is separated by the narrow Wakhan Corridor. In recent times, Pakistan has been called part of the Greater Middle East.

The region forming modern Pakistan was home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and then, successively, recipient of ancient Vedic, Persian, Indo-Greek and Islamic cultures. The area has witnessed invasions and/or settlement by the Aryans, Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Turks, Afghans, Mongols and the British. It was a part of British India during the British Raj from 1858 to 1947, when the Pakistan Movement for a state for Muslims, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League resulted in the independence and creation of the state of Pakistan, that comprised the provinces of Sindh, North-West Frontier Province, West Punjab, Balochistan and East Bengal. With the adoption of its constitution in 1956, Pakistan became an Islamic republic. In 1971, a civil war in East Pakistan resulted in the independence of Bangladesh. Pakistan's history has been characterized by periods of economic growth, military rule and political instability.

Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world and has the second largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia. The country is listed among the "Next Eleven" economies. Pakistan is a founding member of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, Developing 8 Countries, G20 developing nations and the Economic Cooperation Organisation. It is also a member of the United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, World Trade Organisation, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, G33 developing countries, Group of 77 developing nations, major non-NATO ally of the United States and is a nuclear state.

Allah


Allah is the standard Arabic word for God.[1] While the term is best known in the West for its use by Muslims as a reference to God, it is used by Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, in reference to "God". The term was also used by pagan Meccans as a reference to the creator-god, possibly the supreme deity in pre-Islamic Arabia.

The concepts associated with the term Allah (as a deity) differ among the traditions. In pre-Islamic Arabia amongst pagan Arabs, Allah was not the sole divinity, having associates and companions, sons and daughters, a concept strongly opposed by Islam. In Islam, the name Allah is the supreme and all-comprehensive divine name. All other divine names are believed to refer back to Allah. Allah is unique, the only Deity, creator of the universe and omnipotent. Arab Christians today, having no other word for 'God' than Allah,  use terms such as Allāh al-ʼAb ( الله الأب) "God the Father". There are both similarities and differences between the concept of God as portrayed in the Qur'an and the Hebrew Bible.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Birds


Birds are winged, vertebrate animals that lay eggs. There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Birds range in size from the 5 cm (2 in) Bee Hummingbird to the 2.7 m (8 ft 10 in) Ostrich. The fossil record indicates that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs during the Jurassic period, around 150–200 Ma (million years ago), and the earliest known bird is the Late Jurassic Archaeopteryx, c 155–150 Ma.

Modern birds are characterised by feathers, a beak with no teeth, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a lightweight but strong skeleton. All birds have forelimbs modified as wings and most can fly, with some exceptions including ratites, penguins, and a number of diverse endemic island species. Some birds, especially corvids and parrots, are among the most intelligent animal species; a number of bird species have been observed manufacturing and using tools, and many social species exhibit cultural transmission of knowledge across generations.

Many species undertake long distance annual migrations, and many more perform shorter irregular movements. Birds are social; they communicate using visual signals and through calls and songs, and participate in social behaviours including cooperative breeding and hunting, flocking, and mobbing of predators.

Many species are of economic importance, mostly as sources of food acquired through hunting or farming. Some species, particularly songbirds and parrots, are popular as pets. Other uses include the harvesting of guano (droppings) for use as a fertiliser. Birds figure prominently in all aspects of human culture from religion to poetry to popular music. About 120–130 species have become extinct as a result of human activity since the 17th century, and hundreds more before then. Currently about 1,200 species of birds are threatened with extinction by human activities, though efforts are underway to protect them.

kites


A kite is a flying tethered aircraft that depends upon the tension of a tethering system. The necessary lift that makes the kite wing fly is generated when air (or in some cases water) flows over and under the kite's wing, producing low pressure above the wing and high pressure below it. This deflection also generates horizontal drag along the direction of the wind. The resultant force vector from the lift and drag force components is opposed by the tension of the one or more lines or tethers. The anchor point of the kite line may be static or moving (e.g., the towing of a kite by a running person, boat,or vehicle).

Kites are usually heavier-than-air, but there is a second category of lighter-than-air kite called a helikite which will fly with or without wind. Helikites work on a different stability principle to normal kites as helikites are helium-stabilised as well as wind stabilised. They are a stable combination of a helium balloon and kite-sail to create a single aerodynamically sound kite. When flown in wind a helikite will lift far more than its helium alone, and it will fly very well if weighted down to be considerably heavier than air.

Kites may be flown for recreation, art or other practical uses. Sport kites can be flown in aerial ballet, sometimes as part of a competition. Power kites are multi-line steerable kites designed to generate large forces which can be used to power activities such as kite surfing, kite landboarding or kite buggying. Kites towed behind boats can lift passengers which has had useful military applications in the past.

Mobile Phones


A mobile phone (also known as a handphone, wireless phone, cell phone, cellular phone, cellular telephone or cell telephone) is a long-range, electronic device used for mobile voice or data communication over a network of specialized base stations known as cell sites. In addition to the standard voice function of a mobile phone, telephone, current mobile phones may support many additional services, and accessories, such as SMS for text messaging, email, packet switching for access to the Internet, gaming, Bluetooth, infrared, camera with video recorder and MMS for sending and receiving photos and video, MP3 player, radio and GPS. Most current mobile phones connect to a cellular network of base stations (cell sites), which is in turn interconnected to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) (the exception is satellite phones).

A mobile phone proper typically has a telephone keypad, more advanced devices have a separate key for each letter. Some mobile phones have a touchscreen.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Love


Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection and attachment. The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure to intense interpersonal attraction. The word love is both a verb and a noun. Love is not a single feeling but an emotion built from two or more feelings. Anything vital to us creates more than one feeling, and we also have feelings about our feelings (and thoughts about our feelings). This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even compared to other emotional states.

As an abstract concept, love usually refers to a deep, ineffable feeling of tenderly caring for another person. Even this limited conception of love, however, encompasses a wealth of different feelings, from the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love to the nonsexual emotional closeness of familial and platonic love to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love. Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts.

Street racing


Street racing  is a form of unsanctioned and illegal auto racing which takes place on public roads. Street racing can either be spontaneous or well-planned and coordinated. Well coordinated races, in comparison, are planned in advance and often have people communicating via 2-way radio/citizens' band radio and using police scanners and GPS units to mark locations of local police hot spots. Street racing is reported to have originated prior to the 1930s due to alcohol prohibition in some parts of the United States. At the time smugglers of unrefined and illegal alcohol would try to find ways to make more power and achieve better handling from their engine and suspension.

Street racing's heyday was the late 1940s and early 1950s, at just the time organized stock-car racing and drag racing were becoming commercial spectator sports. All across the country, every city and town had semi-formalized street-racing, with matches typically being arranged in the parking lot of a local drive-in restaurant, and the races themselves being run on a deserted road on the edge of town. Typical was the medium-sized city of Pasadena, California, where the "staging area" was the Rite Spot drive-in on the western city limits, and the races themselves often took place on a road that gave access to the Rose Bowl but had virtually no traffic most of the time. One of the most successful Pasadena street racers was Peter Joseph Massett (1936-2002), whose recollections were used by Robert Post to write a book about the culture and technology of drag racing from 1950 to 2000. Opponents to street racing cite a lack of safety relative to sanctioned racing events, as well as legal repercussions arising from incidents, among street racing's drawbacks.

Largest shopping malls



Two of the largest malls are in China, South China Mall and Jin Yuan. Dubai Mall is the largest mall in Middle East and Europe, currently ranked seventh in the world. Previously, the title of the largest enclosed shopping mall was with the West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada from 1986–2004. It is now the fifth largest mall.

Beijing's (Peking) Golden Resources Mall, which opened in October 2004, is the world's second largest mall, at 600,000 m² (approximately 6 million square ft). Berjaya Times Square in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is advertised at 700,000 square metres (7,530,000 sq ft). SM City North EDSA in the Philippines, which opened in November 1985, is the world's third largest at 460,000 square metres (4,951,400 sq ft) of gross floor area, and SM Mall of Asia in the Philippines, opened in May 2006, is the world's fourth largest at 386,000 square metres (4,154,900 sq ft) of gross floor area.

One of the world's largest shopping complexes in one location is the two-mall agglomeration of the Plaza at King of Prussia and the Court at King of Prussia in the Philadelphia suburb of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, United States. The King of Prussia mall has the most shopping per square foot in the U.S.

The most visited shopping mall in the world and largest mall in the United States is the Mall of America, located near the Twin Cities in Bloomington, Minnesota. However, several Asian malls are advertised as having more visitors, including Mal Taman Anggrek, Kelapa Gading Mall and Megamal Pluit, all in Jakarta-Indonesia, Berjaya Times Square in Malaysia and SM Megamall in the Philippines. The largest mall in South Asia, and twelfth largest in the world, is Bashundhara City in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

The Indian Premier League



The Indian Premier League
 (also known as the "DLF Indian Premier League" and often abbreviated as IPL), is a Twenty20 cricket competition created by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and chaired by the Chairman & Commissioner IPL, BCCI Vice President Lalit Modi. The first season of the Indian Premier League commenced on 18 April 2008, and ended on 1 June 2008 with the victory of the Rajasthan Royals in the final at the DY Patil Stadium, Navi Mumbai. The second season begins on 10 April 2009.

The Indian Cricket League (ICL)


The Indian Cricket League (ICL), is a private cricket league that runs parallel to the Indian Premier League (IPL) managed by Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The biggest tournaments with international players follow the Twenty20 format, while there is also a domestic 50-over tournament Matches were initially held at Tau Devi Lal stadium in Panchkula, near Chandigarh, Lal Bahadur Stadium in Hyderabad, and at Tau Devi Lal Stadium in Gurgaon, near New Delhi. However, since 2008 games are played at more venues across India.

The first edition had 6 teams, which expanded to 8 in early 2008 and added one more in the second half of the same year. Players participating in this league have been banned by the cricket boards of their respective countries as the IOCl is regarded by them as unsanctioned rebel league.

Imran Nazir


Imran Nazir played his 8 Test matches between 1999 and 2002 during which time he was a regular in the ODI side. Since 2002 he played the occasional one day game for Pakistan but could never cement his spot in the side. The emergence of opening batsman such as Mohammad Hafeez, Yasir Hameed, Taufeeq Umar and Salman Butt has kept him out of the national side but with consistent performances in domestic cricket he has remained on the fringes.

Nazir made his return to the side in the 2nd ODI against South Africa in February 2007 during Pakistan's tour of South Africa. He impressed with 57 off just 39 deliveries and despite struggling for the rest of the series.

Nazir was named in Pakistan's squad for the 2007 World Cup. He smashed 160 against Zimbabwe in Pakistan's last match for the 2007 World cup after being knocked out by Ireland. It was the highest ever score by a Pakistani batsman and the eighth-highest by any batsman in World Cup history and his 8 sixes equalled the World Cup record of Ricky Ponting. It was also the highest List A score ever made in the West Indies.

In the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 2007 held in South Africa, Nazir played for Pakistan in the final.

In 2008, Nazir signed for the unofficial Indian Cricket League and has played for the Lahore Badshahs. After having signed up for the ICL his chances of ever playing for Pakistan again looked slim. His chances to return to Pakistani cricket improved on February 2, 2009 when a Pakistani court suspended the ban on ICL players.

Nazir is an aggressive batsman though his technique has been found wanting on several occasions, putting unnecessary pressure on Pakistan's enviable middle order to rescue the team out of a crisis. An accurate timer of the ball, he has the ability to carry out his natural game regardless of the match situation but is quite liable to get out quicker as the pressure builds upon him. A meagre average of 25 in one day cricket suggests that Imran has been unable to make the step up to international, despite being given numerous chances by the Pakistani selectors. He is also an orthodox leg spinner but very rarely does he have the opportunity to bowl, or maybe he is not tempted by the prospect of bowling. Imran Nazir is included in Pakistan's squad for the Scotland tour.

Angelina Jolie


Angelina Jolie (born Angelina Jolie Voight on June 4, 1975) is an American film actor and a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency. She has been cited as one of the world's most beautiful women and her off-screen life is widely reported. Jolie has received three Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and an Academy Award.

Though she made her screen debut as a child alongside her father Jon Voight in the 1982 film Lookin' to Get Out, Jolie's acting career began in earnest a decade later with the low-budget production Cyborg 2 (1993). Her first leading role in a major film was in Hackers (1995). She starred in the critically acclaimed biographical films George Wallace (1997) and Gia (1998), and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama Girl, Interrupted (1999). Jolie achieved international fame as a result of her portrayal of video game heroine Lara Croft in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), and since then has established herself as one of the best-known and highest-paid actresses in Hollywood. She has had her biggest commercial successes with the action-comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) and the animated film Kung Fu Panda (2008).

Divorced from actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie currently lives with actor Brad Pitt, in a relationship that has attracted worldwide media attention. Jolie and Pitt have three adopted children, Maddox, Pax, and Zahara, as well as three biological children, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne. Jolie has promoted humanitarian causes throughout the world, and is noted for her work with refugees through UNHCR

Friday, February 20, 2009

The Lion King


The Lion King is a 1994 American animated feature film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, released in theaters on June 15, 1994 by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 32nd film in the Disney animated feature canon. The story, which was strongly influenced by the Shakespearean play Hamlet, takes place in a kingdom of anthropomorphic animals in Africa. The film was the highest grossing animated film of all time until the release of Finding Nemo (a Disney/Pixar computer-animated film). The Lion King still holds the record as the highest grossing traditionally animated film in history and belongs to an era known as the Disney Renaissance.

The Lion King is regarded as a landmark in animation, and received positive reviews from critics, who praised the film for its music and story. During its release in 1994, the film grossed more than $783 million worldwide, becoming the most successful film released that year, and it is currently the twenty-fourth highest-grossing feature film.

A musical film, The Lion King garnered two Academy Awards for its achievement in music and the Golden Globe award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy. Songs were written by composer Elton John and lyricist Tim Rice, with an original score by Hans Zimmer. Disney later produced two related movies: a sequel, The Lion King II: Simba's Pride; and a part prequel-part parallel, The Lion King 1½.



Aamir Khan


Aamir Khan (born Aamir Hussain Khan on March 14, 1965) is an Indian film actor, director and producer. Khan worked in a number of commercially successful films and has established himself as one of the leading actors of Hindi cinema, delivering a number of highly acclaimed performances.

Appearing as a child actor in his uncle Nasir Hussain's film Yaadon Ki Baaraat (1973), Khan began his professional career eleven years later, with the film, Holi (1984). He received his first commercial success with his cousin Mansoor Khan's film Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988) and won a Filmfare Best Male Debut Award for his performance in the film. After six previous nominations during the 1980s and 1990s, Khan received his first Filmfare Best Actor Award for his performance in Raja Hindustani (1996), his biggest commercial success so far.

In 2001, he made his debut as a film producer with Lagaan, which was nominated an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and won the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment, an award shared between Khan and the film's director Ashutosh Gowarikar. Khan also played the lead role in the film and earned his second Filmfare Best Actor Award for his performance. After a four-year break from acting, Khan made his comeback with Ketan Mehta's The Rising (2005), and later won a Filmfare Critics Award for Best Performance for his role in Rang De Basanti (2006). In 2007, he made his directorial debut with Taare Zameen Par, for which he received a Filmfare Best Director Award.

Cristiano Ronaldo


Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro, OIH (born 5 February 1985) is a Portuguese footballer who plays as a winger for English Premier League club Manchester United F.C. and the Portuguese national team.

Ronaldo began his career as a youth player at C.D. Nacional and his successes with the team led to a move to Sporting two seasons afterwards. Ronaldo's precocious talent caught the attention of Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson and he signed the 18-year-old for £12.24 million in 2003. The following season, Ronaldo won his first club honour, the FA Cup, and reached the UEFA Euro 2004 final with Portugal, in which he scored his first international goal.

In 2008, Ronaldo won his first UEFA Champions League title, and was named the final's Man of the Match. He was named the FIFPro World Player of the Year and the FIFA World Player of the Year, in addition to becoming Manchester United's first Ballon d'Or winner in 40 years.

Three-time Ballon d'Or winner Johan Cruijff said in an interview on 2 April 2008, "Ronaldo is better than George Best and Denis Law, who were two brilliant and great players in the history of United."

Barack Hussein Obama


Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama was the junior United States Senator from Illinois from January 2005 until November 2008, when he resigned following his election to the presidency.

Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review. He worked as a community organizer in Chicago prior to earning his law degree, and practiced as a civil rights attorney in Chicago before serving three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. He also taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, Obama was elected to the United States Senate in November 2004. Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004.

On November 4, 2008, Barack Obama defeated John McCain in the general election with 365 electoral votes to McCain's 173 and became the first African American to be elected President of the United States. In his victory speech, delivered before a crowd of hundreds of thousands of his supporters in Chicago's Grant Park, Obama proclaimed that "change has come to America". On January 8, 2009, a joint session of the U.S. Congress certified the Electoral College votes, officially declaring that Obama was elected President.

Tom Cruise


Tom Cruise, is an American actor and film producer. Forbes magazine ranked him as the world's most powerful celebrity in 2006. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and won three Golden Globe Awards. His first leading role was the 1983 film Risky Business, which has been described as "A Generation-X classic, and a career-maker" for the actor. After playing the role of a heroic naval pilot in the popular and financially successful 1986 film Top Gun, Cruise continued in this vein, playing a secret agent in a series of Mission: Impossible action films in the 1990s and 2000s. In addition to these heroic roles, he also played other roles, such as the misogynistic male guru in Magnolia (1999) and a cool and calculating sociopathic hitman in the Michael Mann crime-thriller film Collateral (2004).

In 2005, Economist Edward Jay Epstein argued that Cruise is one of the few producers (the others being George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Jerry Bruckheimer) who are able to guarantee the success of a billion-dollar movie franchise. Since 2005, Cruise and Paula Wagner have been in charge of the United Artists film studio, with Cruise as producer and star and Wagner as the chief executive. Cruise is also known for his support of and adherence to the Church of Scientology.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Elton John's


Sir Elton Hercules
 John
CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March 1947) is an English singer-songwriter, composer and pianist.

In his four-decade career, John has been one of the dominant forces in rock and popular music, especially during the 1970s. He has sold over 200 million records, making him one of the most successful artists of all time. He has more than 50 Top 40 hits including seven consecutive No. 1 U.S. albums, 56 Top 40 singles, 16 Top 10, four No. 2 hits, and nine No. 1 hits. He has won five Grammy awards and one Academy Award. His success has had a profound impact on popular music and has contributed to the continued popularity of the piano in rock and roll. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him #49 on their list of the 100 greatest artists of all time.

Some of the characteristics of John's musical talent include an ability to quickly craft melodies for the lyrics of songwriting partner Bernie Taupin, his former rich tenor (now baritone) voice, his classical and gospel-influenced piano, the aggressive orchestral arrangements of Paul Buckmaster among others and the on-stage showmanship, especially evident during the 1970s.

John was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. He has been heavily involved in the fight against AIDS since the late 1980s, and was knighted in 1998. He entered into a civil partnership with David Furnish on 21 December 2005 and continues to be a champion for LGBT social movements. On 9 April 2008, John held a benefit concert for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, raising $2.5 million. In 2008, Billboard magazine released a list on which are present Hot 100's top 100 artists and Elton John reached #3, preceded by Madonna and The Beatles.