India's Best Trains

India's luxury trains are among the world's best. They are truly 'palaces on wheels'. Take a look at India's most stunning trains....

The Palace on Wheels

The Palace on Wheels has been rated among the top ten luxury trains of the world. A majestic train, it has 14 fully air-conditioned deluxe saloons, equipped with world class amenities

Each saloon has a mini pantry for refreshments and a place to relax. 

The 4-twin bedded chambers have channel music, intercom, attached toilets, running hot and cold water, shower, wall to wall carpeting and other amenities.

The furniture with its inlaid motifs has been specially created for the Palace on Wheels. 

The train has two restaurants with a Rajasthani ambience serving Continental, Chinese, India and Rajasthani cuisines.

Royal Rajasthan on Wheels

This magnificent train offers a taste of royalty onboard. A trip through Varanasi and Khajuraho, Jaipur, Udaipur and Agra offers a glimpse of India's rich cultural heritage.

There are 3 itineraries to choose from. The train has hi-tech facilities which includes Internet, Wi-Fi system exclusive restro lounges, provision to regulate air conditioning in the super deluxe room, and pantry in each sleeper car.

This train is newly built and designed in a contemporary royal style with magnificent interiors, sumptuous meals, expensive wines, and personalised service.

Golden Chariot

The Golden Chariot is named after the famous Stone Chariot in Hampi, a world heritage site, in Southern India.
The trip takes you through historical heritage sites, palaces, wildlife and beaches.

The train has fully air-conditioned cabins, 26 twin beds, 17 double bed cabins and 1 cabin for the physically challenged. 

Why bosses like 'unhappy' employees

A few years back I asked Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, how does it feel to be "even" referred to as a management guru these days: "ironic", was his one word answer! 

Cartoonists and comic strip writers are usually men of few words. So I guess Adams was just being modest, for I have learnt more about how organisations "really" work, by reading the Dilbert comic strip, than all the tomes that made me fall asleep at the business school


 
One of the things that Adams keeps harping on is that employee morale is a risky thing. 

In The Dilbert Principle he writes: "Happy employees will work harder without asking for extra pay. But if they get too happy, endorphins kick in, egos expand, and everybody starts whining about the fact that with their current pay they'll have to live in a dumpster after retirement."

So what is the way out? "The best balance of morale for employee productivity can be described this way: happy but with low self-esteem," explains Adams.

People who understand this best are managers (the real ones, not just the o

s Satyajit Das explains in Extreme Money: Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk "If a manager has ten people in their department, then reducing each person's bonus by $100,000 increases the manager's own share by $1million," he writes.

And how does this help? It helps precisely in the way that Adams explained it earlier.

"Happy employees mean that you have paid them too much. Disgusted employees mean that you have paid them so little that they will leave. The optimal point is between satisfied and dissatisfied – enough to keep you but not enough to make you complacent or diminish the manager's own bonus," explains Das.

A simple way of keeping employees happy but with low self esteem is to create some self doubt in their minds. 
So if your boss often asks questions like, are you sure this is the way we should proceed, or keeps your KRAs a little vague, or doesn't bother to find out your entire skill-set, or keeps reminding you of how hard he had to fight to get you that bonus you got, or there is no opportunity for any new thinking and it is either his way (the boss' way) or the highway, you know what he is up to

There is also an old fashioned way of creating self doubt. As Adams explains, "One of the most effective ways...used by managers is to practice ignoring an underling...this sends a message that the employee has no human presence."
All this ensures that enough self doubt is created in the mind of the employee. And he doesn't look for a very high raise, and at the same time starts to think that "Thank god, I at least have this job!"

Also, it helps managers hide their incompetence. Laurence J Peter came up with The Peter Principle which states that in a hierarchy every person rises to his or her level of incompetence. So all good salesperson do not make for good managers. 

All good teachers don't make for good principals. All good derivative traders don't make for good CEOs.
In my profession, all good reporters do not make for good editors primarily because the skill set required for both the jobs are "very" different.

So if a boss or a manager has reached his level of incompetence then by creating self doubt in the minds of his underlings and reportees he can continue shielding his incompetence.

These days one grows higher in the hierarchy there is an inherent need to understand more and more things. 

The specialisation that is encouraged at lower levels thus becomes a handicap. As Das writes in Extreme Money" few senior bankers understood transactions outside their expertise. 

Even then, their knowledge was frequently dated. Today, a 55-year-old rarely understands a 25-year-old. In banking, the rapid rate of innovation and change meant that a 35-year-old did not understand a 30-year old." 

Hence the rate at which an individual rises to his level of incompetence has become faster now. So there is a greater need to create a level of self-doubt among his reportees. 

What works for bosses and managers also works for companies because the days when Henry Ford doubled pay overnight are long gone.

"Facing low worker morale and high turnover on the production line in January 1914 Henry Ford raised wages to five dollars a day, doubling at a stroke most workers' pay," writes Eduardo Porter in The Price of Everything. "It worked...after the pay hike Ford was churning out 15% more cars per day with 14% fewer workers."

But Ford could double salary overnight primarily because the company enjoyed a near monopoly with very little competition.

"Ford...enjoyed fat profits unheard of it in the cutthroat competitive environment of today. Today, multinational companies scour the globe of seeking cheap labour and low taxes, abundant raw materials, and proximity to consumers. And competition is ruthless," writes Porter.

The days of monopoly profits are long gone. So in this day and age companies cannot afford to have employees with high morale who would want to be paid very well.

Costs have to be kept under control. And extremely happy employees with high morale are not the best way to go about doing it. 

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The writer can be reached at vivek.kaul@gmail.com

tiger

foolish pictures

Mysteries of Bermuda Triangle

Bermuda Triangle
Famous incidents of disappearances

 

Here are some famous incidents of Bermuda Triangle disappearances that have defied proper explanation and have remained as some of the greatest mysteries. 

 

Flight 19 were training aircrafts of TBM Avenger bombers of US Navy that went missing on Dec 5, 1945 while flying over the Atlantic.    They were scheduled to go due east from Florida Naval base for 120 miles, then north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 120-mile route that would return them to the naval base. But strangely they never came back.    Adding to the mystery, two rescue Martin Mariner aircraft with 13-man crew were sent to search for the missing flights. But one of the Martin Mariners itself did not return and was never traced again.    Find out the details here: Flight 19    Photo: US Navy Grumman Avenger flight, similar to Flight 19. This photo had been used by various Triangle authors to illustrate Flight 19 itself (US Navy).

 

Mary Celeste: Known as one of the ghost ships of Bermuda Triangle, Mary Celeste had many misadventures even before her mystery voyage in 1872. Find out the full story. 

 

The Ellen Austin on its voyage in 1881 came across another ship that was sailing without a single soul on board. Ellen Austin transferred some of its crew onto the other ship and attempted to sail with it to New York. The other ship suddenly disappeared. Later it re-appeared, but again without a person on board. Then it again disappeared without trace.    USS Cyclops: This navy ship disappearance resulted in the single largest loss of life in the history of the US Navy. It went missing without a trace with a crew of 309, sometime after March 4th 1918 and after departing the island of Barbados.

 

PBM Martin Mariner: Two Martin Mariner planes were sent on the 5th of December 1945 to search for the Flight-19. One did not return. Find out the full story. 

 

USS Scorpion: USS Scorpion (SSN-589) was a Nuclear powered submarine of United States Navy that disappeared in Bermuda Triangle in May 1968. 

 

Tudor Star Tiger Aircraft Mystery 

Star Tiger, a Tudor Mark IV aircraft disappeared in Bermuda Triangle shortly before it was to land in Bermuda airport. 

 

Fight DC-3 Disappearance 

The flight Douglas DC-3 NC16002 disappeared in Bermuda Triangle when it was only 50 miles south of Florida and about to land in Miami on December 28, 1948. 

 

Flight 441 Disappearance in Bermuda Triangle 

The flight 441, a Super Constellation Naval Airliner, disappeared in Bermuda Triangle on October 30, 1954 

 

C-54 in Bermuda Triangle: Apparently it would seem to be sudden thunderstorm that would have disintegrated the C-54 plane. But there was more to the story. 

 

Witchcraft - Witchcraft, a 23-foot cabin cruiser went missing for ever in Bermuda Triangle area on the night of December 22, 1967. The owner took it offshore only to watch the lights of Miami shoreline. 

 

Theodosia Burr Alston was the daughter of former United States Vice President Aaron Burr. Her disappearance has been cited at least once in relation to the Triangle. She was a passenger on board the Patriot, which sailed from Charleston, South Carolina to New York City on December 30, 1812, and was never heard from again. 

 

S.V. Spray was a derelict fishing boat refitted as an ocean cruiser by Joshua Slocum and used by him to complete the first ever single-handed circumnavigation of the world, between 1895 and 1898.In 1909, Slocum set sail from Vineyard Haven bound for Venezuela. Neither he norSpray were ever seen again. 

 

Here are some more incidents at Bermuda triangle: 

 

1492 - Christopher Columbus reported strange lights and strange compass readings. 

 

1609 - The Sea Venture got wrecked during the first attempt to colonize Bermuda. 

 

1814 - The USS Epervier and her crew disappeared while carrying the peace treaty to end the war between America and the North African Barbary States. 

 

1855 - The schooner James B. Chester was found floating in the ocean. The crew was missing but there was no sign of struggle, and the lifeboats were still in place. 

 

1941 - The USS Proteus and the USS Nereus vanished, just as their sister ship the USS Cyclops previously did along the same route. 

 

1963 - Marine Sulphur Queen: This 524-foot carrier of molten sulphur started sail Feb 2, 1963 from Beaumont, Texas with 39 crew. It was reported lost in Florida Straits on Feb 4. 

 

1971 - Sting-27, a USAF Phantom jet, vanished completely without a trace. Official reports indicated it may have suffered an impact, but the details were never revealed. 

 

1976 - The Sylvia L. Ossa, a 590-foot ore carrier with a crew of 37 disappeared 140 miles from Bermuda. 

 

1991 - The pilot of a Grumman Cougar jet made a routine radio request to increase altitude. While ascending, the aircraft gradually faded from radar and vanished. 

 

1999 - The cargo freighter Genesis sent a radio signal to a nearby vessel, indicating a problem with the bilge pump. Despite extensive searches by the Coast Guard, the ship and crew were never seen or heard from again.  

 

Top 10 Moments in Space History

Top 10 Moments in Space History

The history of space travel dates back only a few decades, however, a lot has happened. There have been both highs and lows. As more nations enter the space race and a new era of space tourism begins, the world of space flight as we know it is changing vastly. Extraordinary events of the past such as the landing on the Moon to the multi-national efforts to launch the International Space Station captured the attention of the entire world, and it is only a matter of time before new events and technological advances make an even greater impact.

1. Landing on the Moon
   One giant leap for mankind. On July 20, 1969 Americans Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, Jr. make the first manned soft landing on the Moon, and the first moonwalk, using Apollo 11.
2. First Man in Space
   Cosmonaut Yuri Gargarin becomes the first man in space on April 12, 1961. Gargarin orbits the earth one time on the Vostok 1 spacecraft before returning to the ground.
3. The First Space Tourist
   On April 28, 2001, the Soyuz spacecraft TM-32 flies to the International Space Station with the first space tourist Dennis Tito, who pays the Russians $20 million.
4. Space station Mir is Launched
   On February 20, 1986 the core unit of Soviet space station Mir is launched.
5. Launch of the International Space Station
   The first component of the International Space Station, Zarya, is launched on a Russian rocket on November 20, 1998.
6. Launch of Spaceship One
   On June 21, 2004, Spaceship One became the first private-venture craft to leave the earth’s atmosphere and enter space. Thus, a new-era in space travel began.
7. First Man Made Object to Orbit the Earth
   On October 4, 1957, the USSR launches Sputnik 1, the first man made object to orbit the earth.
8. First American in Orbit
   The small Mercury Friendship 7 spacecraft carries John H. Glenn, Jr., the first American in orbit, and orbits the Earth three times on February 20, 1962.
9. First Man Made Object to Make Contact with the Moon
   The Soviet launched Luna 2 on September 12, 1959, which became the first man made object to hit the moon a year later.
10. First Space Walk
    On March 18, 1965 the first space walk is made by Soviet Alexei A. Leonov on the Voskhod 2 and lasts a mere 12 minutes.

Tortoise with two heads....

Magdalena is not just a normal tortoise, the animal has two heads and five legs.

The reptile belongs to Roman Gresak from Zilina in Slovakia, who thought of a fitting name, “We call her Magdalena: one head is Magda and the second one is Lena”, Mr Gresak explained.

According to zoologists Magdalena’s unique case is comparable to the case of Siamese twins. During the pregnancy the embryos didn’t separate correctly.

Each of the heads has its own nerve system and the tortoise has got two brains, which work independently from each other. The question remains how the systems are connected within the body and which functions they share.

The tortoise would hardly survive in the wild though because other tortoises would exclude her from their collective.

Having two heads and five legs can also sometimes be a burden. “The second head sometimes doesn’t allow the tortoise to know where to go,” Mr Gresak said.

But one direction is already clear for Magdalena, the tortoise is heading for stardom. The Slovak press has announced that, similar to Paul the Octopus which predicted the Spanish win in soccer World Cup, Magdalena has been chosen to tip off the Ice Hockey championships, which take place in Slovakia this year.