These pastors were left in the lurch by the Gospel Asia or BCI Church

Chennai, July 23: Over hundred pastors held protest against Believers Church of India (BCI) in suburban Padappai on Thursday. The pastors accused the Church of amassing wealth and letting them in the lurch. The pastors who had worked with the Church for more than a decade said they left the Church as it was “exploiting” them. However, BCI’s Tamil Nadu Diocesan secretary Mr Johny George refuted the charges leveled by the pastors.
Pastors from different parts of Tamil Nadu who were either sacked or left from the BCI assembled near the state headquarters of the BCI at Padappai and raised slogans against the Church. But the police removed the protestors from the venue and advised them to protest elsewhere. The protestors then went to the office of the Superintendent of Police and handed over complaints seeking action against the Church.
“Nearly 1,400 pastors worked for the BCI across the state for more than 10 years. But the church did not keep the promises it had given when we were inducted into the church. They stopped even the monthly support they provided without prior notice,” said Christu Paul Ravi, one of the pastors who was sacked by the church.
“We were given a lot of promises such as helping the education of our children. They did not keep the promises. When we asked them why they did not keep their promises, we were insulted and even threatened with false cases,” said Simion, a pastor from Theni who was sacked by the church.
However, BCI’s Tamil Nadu Diocesan secretary Mr Johny George told this journalist that the charges were baseless. “The Church has a Constitution. If anyone disobeys the Constitution, they would be dealt with seriously. We train thousands of pastors and don’t compel them to be with us,” he clarified.

A solution to y2k38 in sight?

Chennai, July 9: Harish Bharadwaj (27), a Chennai-born M.S student in software, has developed a software programme that will solve the y2k38 problem in computers, a problem similar to y2k which will occur before or in the year 2038. Times beyond 03:14:07 on January 19, 2038 will ‘wrap around’ and be stored as a negative number, which the systems would interpret as a date in 1901 rather than 2038.
Software application design giants including Microsoft had spent over 300 billion US dollars on solving the y2k problem when the computers faced the millennium roll-over problem in 2000. When the date became 01.01.00, the system thought it was January 1, 1900. Some patch works were created to upgrade the hardwares then to support four-digit years to tide over the crisis.
Popularly called time complexity management, IT giants have been trying to tackle this problem all these years. Chennai-based Harish Bharadwaj was discussing this problem with his mother Lakshmi who was a professor of mathematics then. After his graduation in computer engineering from UK, he dedicated more than four years on the subject and adopted a multi-disciplinary approach employing mathematics, geometry, astronomy, electronics and computer science to develop a programme.
The existing programming method is about dumping enormous data of Gregorian calendar and extracting year, month, date details. “The dumping of data fills the entire width or the memory size. I have developed a programme which takes into account the limitations of computers’ memory and helps systems run through one billion years with 13-digit fractional precision,” said Harish Bharadwaj demonstrating how the programme works to this journalist and a senior computer science professor in the city.
“If Harish’s work is recognized worldwide, it will not only solve the time complexity problem in the computers, it will also etch India’s name in the annals of world IT history,” said the professor from Anna University who first published Harish’s research paper in CSI Digest, a scientific journal run by Computer Society of India (CSI).


Existing ways of computing time

Dumps enormous data of Gregorian calendar and extracts year, month, date details.

Buffer overrun occurs as the dumped data exceeds memory size.

Cannot roll-over centuries, millenniums.

Harish’s way of computing time

Programmes the knowledge of Gregorian calendars with knowledge of planetary systems.

Applies method and logic drawn from traditional knowledge systems and helps years, centuries, millenniums to run over to the next time period without any problem.

Can run through centuries and millenniums for a billion years.

Tamil heroes refused to act in a film penned by 'Tamil Champion'

Chennai, July 5: Prominent young stars of Kollywood turned down the offer for a lead role in the film ‘Neeyindri Naanillai’ for which story and screenplay are penned by Chief minister M.Karunanidhi. Film director Ilavenil admits that the production team approached leading stars in the industry only to be told that they don’t have dates. “They are afraid of being stigmatized if they act in a movie scripted by chief minister,” the director told this journalist.
Chief minister M.Karunanidhi has been working on at least two film scripts currently. Fuelled by the moderate success of Uliyin Osai, his earlier film, at the box office, Mr Karunanidhi has embarked on two ambitious projects. One is Ponnar Sankar, a historical story in which actor Prashanth plays a dual role. Other story which will be filmed soon is ‘Neeyindri Naanillai’, a romantic story that is based on few characters from his novel Suruli Malai written in the 1950s.
The lead role of a forest officer is played by Telugu hero Uday Kiran. The female lead – a local woman - is played by award-winning Meera Jasmine. Another female role is played by actor Karthika. “We discussed the story with the chief minister quite early. But the search for a prominent actor to play the lead role took a while as many actors including Srikanth refused to act as the film would bring them a stigma,” said director Ilavenil, the favourite of the chief minister. He directed Uliyin Osai earlier.
“Many actors here are afraid of being sidelined in the industry if Ms Jayalalithaa returns to power next time,” said the director. However, agents of some of the actors approached by the production team (Nandini Arts) have a different take on the issue. “Many actors don’t want to get entangled in this project as they are not sure of how much control they will have over their role. They are also worried if the film will do well in the box office given the track record of the recent films penned by the chief minister,” said an agent of an actor who was contacted to play the lead role in the film.

An open letter to the Prime Minister of India

Peer Mohamed,
Guindy,
Chennai – 600 032
June 29, 2009

To
Hon’ble Dr. Manmohan Singh
Prime Minister of India,
New Delhi

Dear Mr Prime Minister,

It is an ordinary citizen’s open letter to the man who holds the highest office in the country.

I have been a journalist for ten years. I could see people of power in the media houses trying to treat me as a ‘second class worker’ denying me opportunities as the Indian Establishment does with its Muslim citizens and the poor.

The poor and the Muslims in the country don’t have proportionate space in its Army or in the police forces. They do belong here but are treated like untouchables when it comes to recruitment into the Army or the police forces.

I know of a Muslim boy – Jaffer Sadiq in Tamil Nadu who cleared all the tests for a police selection but not recruited as he is a Muslim. He had to go to the Judiciary (Madurai branch of the Madras High Court) to get a verdict in favour of his recruitment but to no avail.

And the country should be ashamed to fight its own poor with its security forces. The alienation of the poor and the Muslims of the nation should stop for its own good. Muslims and the poor are an equal partners in its struggle for freedom and later in its development process.

The situation obtaining today is the outcome of a historical neglect of the poor in south, north, centre, west and north-east of the country and that of the Muslims across the nation. Justice Rajinder Sachar has pointed out the results of the state’s discrimination on its Muslims.

Gujarats, Kandhamals and Nandigrams have forced the Muslims and the poor to create their own armies and fight injustices and police atrocities against them.

Sikhs had felt alienated in this country at one point of time. I think the government had made amends to correct the flaws as the Sikhs fought aggressively for their rights. Muslims and the poor are scattered across the country and do not have a unified leadership to fight aggressively for their cause.

Please don’t suppress the Muslims and the poor in the name of ‘terrorism.’ Their uprisings are genuine attempts to assert their space in the country of their birth. Please talk to them and understand their issues instead of treating them with suspicion and cruelty.

What is the representation of the largest minority in the country in its Army or its police forces? Can you please come out clean on this?

Affirmative action, Equal Opportunity should not be mere utterances. Such pronouncements should lead to ‘real’ action to make our democracy more inclusive.
Dear Prime Minister, give it a thought and let us free our country of discrimination against its own people. That will make our country a better place to live for everyone.

Sincerely Yours

Peer Mohamed