Topic 2

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Topic 1

.................coming soon..................

Motto of Olympics

Speech by Adit:

Importance

·         Olympic Games has got special importance because these Olympic Games are held only once in every four years for all the countries in our world.

·         They are more important and valuable than other world championships, which are often held annually.

·         Many athletes have become celebrities or heroes in the world, after becoming Olympic champions.

Brief History of Olympics

·         The Olympic Games is an international multi-sport event.

·         The original and ancient Olympic Games were first recorded in 776 B.C. in Olympia, Greece and were celebrated until 393 A.D.

·         The international Olympic committee was founded in 1894 on the initiative of a French gentle man, Pierre de Coubertin.

·         People welcomed the august opening of the games. The first modern Olympic Games were the 1896 Olympics, held in Athens, Greece.

Meaning of Olympic Symbol

·         The Olympic Rings are the most widely used symbol. These five intertwined rings represent the unity of the five continents: Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia and Americas (North and South Americas regarded as one continent).

Motto of Olympics:

·         The Olympic motto is Citius, Altius, Fortius, which is Latin for “Swifter, Higher, Stronger”.

·         It means “with the true spirit of the game, we maintain faster, higher and stronger values/standards.

·         The informal motto added by Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games. It is “The most important thing is not to win but to take part!”

Olympic Sports:

·         Currently, the Olympic program consists of 35 different sports, 53 disciplines and more than 400 events.

·         In recent years, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) has added several new sports to the program to attract attention from young spectators. Examples of such sports include snowboarding and beach volleyball.

Highlights of Previous Olympics:

1896 Athens, Greece:

·         Nine sports were on the original Olympic program in 1896:

o   Athletics

o   Cycling

o   Fencing

o   Gymnastics

o   Weightlifting

o   Shooting

o   Swimming

o   Tennis and

o   Wrestling

1904 St. Louis, Missouri, US:

·         First games at which gold, silver and bronze medals were awarded for first, second and third places.

·         Included Boxing to the initial list of 9 sports.

1912 Stockholm, Sweden:

·         In athletics, electronic timing devices were first used

1924 Paris, France:

·         The Olympic motto “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (Faster, Higher, Stronger), was used for the first time.

1936 Berlin, Germany:

·         The Olympic Flame was used in previous Olympic games, but this marked the first time it was brought to the Olympic Town by a torch relay, with the starting point in Olympia, Greece.

·         Basketball and handball made their debut at the Olympics

1984 Los Angeles, California, US:

·         Carl Lewis makes his first of four appearances in the Olympics, and equals the performance of Jesse Owens of 1936 and wins four gold medals in the 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay and the Long Jump.

1996 Atlanta, Georgia, US:

·         A record 197 nations, all current IOC member nations, take part, with a record 79 of them winning at least one medal.

2004 Athens, Greece:

·         202 nations participated in this Olympics

·         Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, concerns about terrorism were much higher. Over all, 2004 Olympics ended with good note.

2008 Beijing, China:

·         XXIX Beijing Olympics were kicked off on 08/08/08 at 08:08:08

·         205 nations participated in this sports festival despite the Tibet issue.

·         The 2008 Olympics have seen the return of 28 sports, and held 302 events.

Olympics Problems:

1.       Violence:

·         1916, 1940, 1944 – No Olympics were held because of World War I and II

·         1972 Munich, West Germany: The Games were marred by what has come to be known as the Munich massacre. On 5^th September, a group of 8 Palestinian terrorists belonging to the Black September organization broke into the Olympic village and took eleven Israeli athletics hostage in their apartment, soon killing two of them in the apartment.

·         1996 Atlanta, US: Bomb blast at Olympic village, which killed one spectator and 11 injured.

2.       Boycott:

·         1956 Melbourne, Australia:

o   Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon announced they wouldn’t participate in the Olympics because of Suez Crisis, in which the British and French’s involvement.

o   The Soviet handling of the Hungarian revolution led to the absence of Spain, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

o   These two instances are starting point for the bad trend of boycott the prestigious Olympic games for their political benefits. Interestingly, the games were nicknamed “the Friendly Games”.

·         1980 Moscow, USSR: Boycott led by the United States followed by 64 other countries in protest of the 1970 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

·         1984 Los Angeles, US: In view of the American-led boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, the Soviet-led boycott of the 1984 Olympics caused 14 Eastern Bloc countries and allies including the Soviet Union, Cuba and East Germany boycott these Olympics.

3.       Doping:

·         1988 Seoul, South Korea: Canadian Ben Johnson wins the 100m in a new world record, but disqualified later he tests positive for stanozolol / steroid.

4.       Politics:

·         1936 Berlin, Germany: Nazi influence on sporting event.

·         1964 Tokyo, Japan: Unfortunately for Japan Olympic Games, the first nuclear test in China took more attention during the Olympics.

Conclusion:

·         Olympic Games should not be a reflection of political views.

·         Olympics is the not stage that one can express their political views.

·         We should not mix politics with the games. There are other ways to express the political issues.

·         It’s responsibility of each and every nation to protect this great sports event from the controversies, political issues and to run in friendly atmosphere and sportive environment.

·         It’s not only the athletes, the sporting authorities, people has to set standards in enjoying this sports festival and to spread the true spirit of the sports.

We wish the 2012 London Olympics will run smoothly without any issues and wish London Olympics will script a new chapter in Olympic Games without any controversies.

Ardas

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Benefits of Globalization to the world economy

Article written by Adit:

Globalization is a powerful factor for growth in the developing world, and it is one of the most influential forces in determining the future course of our world. It has many dimensions: economic, political, security, environmental, health, social, cultural and others. The main focus is on how the "globalization" improves the world economy.

Amnon Levy-Livermore observes globalization as “a force for advancing the world economy” (42). There are many important aspects to globalization. Some of its features stem from the effects of competition that it entails. Globalization can contribute to their containment through the beneficial effects of competition and the potential for global cooperation to treat economic and other threats that our world is facing. One can see globalization as a positive development and it must be understood that it has changed the world economic system and poses both opportunities and challenges.

Globalization leads to an increase in worldwide trade. It has involved greater openness in the international economy. There has been a remarkable growth not only in traditional international trade in goods and services, but also in exchange of currencies, in technology transfer, in people moving through international travel and migration, and in international flow of information and ideas.

Globalization has had significant benefits to all the economies of the world, with manifold effects. It affects the production of goods and services. It also affects the employment of labor and other inputs into the production process. In addition, it affects investment, both in physical capital and in human capital. It affects technology and results in the diffusion of technology from initiating nations to other nations. It also has major effects on efficiency, productivity and competitiveness. Globalization has led to growing competition on a global basis (AharoniandNachum 235). Daniel Drezner points out that there are many beneficial effects of competition that can increase production or efficiency (841). Specialization and the division of labor, with their implications for increases in production, now exist not just in a nation but also on a worldwide basis.

Globalization is a very positive force that lifts countries out of poverty. It causes a virtual economic cycle associated with faster economic growth. Nico Van Stokrom, Frank Bonger, LeslieNootenboom and Wim Tebbens mention that the workers in the developing countries now have more occupational choices than ever before (167). Competition and the widening of markets can lead to specialization and division of labor which in turn helps for an increase in production on the worldwide basis. Thus globalization has the potential for increased output and living standards. The result is a potential for human well-being throughout the world. For instance, China has benefited enormously from globalization as a result of which thousands of people have been lifted from poverty and have improved their standard of living.

Therefore, globalization is a positive force offering opportunities. The net result of globalization depends crucially on the nature of the world system. In a cooperative world globalization benefits the economies of the world.

Works Cited

Levy-Livermore, Amnon. Handbook on the Globalization of the World Economy.Cheltenham,UK; Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar, 1998. Print.

Aharoni, Yair and Lilach, Nachum. Globalization of Services: Some Implications for Theoryand Practice. London; New York: Routledge, 2000. Print.

Drezner, Daniel. “Globalization, harmonization, and competition: the different pathways topolicy convergence.” Journal of European Public Policy 12.5 (2005): 841-859. Print.

Van Stokrom, Nico, Frank Bonger, Leslie Nootenboom, and Wim Tebbens. “Globalization andthe effect on national accounts: Practical examples.” Statistical Journal of the UN EconomicCommission for Europe 23.2 (2006): 167-178. Print.

Written by: Adit
Oct 2011, Minneapolis MN

The Influence of the World’s Creative Class

Article written by Adit:

In this world, some great people were born for the society and to do social service in different ways to make our world a better place to live. Through the centuries, some great people were born in this world, to navigate, to guide this world for making a life worth living on the Earth. I would like to present, how the “Creative Class” of great scientists and engineers has transformed our world.

The innovation, creativity and originality could bring the change and development in our world and that makes our world into a better place to live with lot of comforts. Many great scientists were born in this world; they made the mark and showed us the path for making this world to a better place to live with more comforts. I would like to explain how they made the impression in this world and would like to emphasize how they influence us with their scientific skills. The different sets of great people, whose role can be divided into: the role of the great scientists, the role of the great engineers.

The role of the great Scientists

The only constant is change. The innovation, creativity and originality will be essential in bringing change in our world. The notion is that the world is a creative place and so the scientists have showed their distinct innovative skills and gave us many great structures. They are the agents of change. Great scientists have brought change in the world with their theory and formulas. They have laid the stepping stones for the scientific advancement and industrial growth. Their theory and design in the laboratory has showed the way to the industry and resulted many devices and machines developed by engineers in the industry. If these great scientists had not born in the world, we would have gone in different direction and it would have been a long journey to make this world as comfortable as it is today with many devices and machines.

They navigated our world with their innovative ideas. Their design models, methods have brought rapid change in scientific field. This in turn, boosted the growth of economic development and thus changed the life style of people in our world. They left their impressions in this world and showed the path for future generations.

The 20^th century’s great scientists have laid the stepping stones for scientific revolution. The world has benefited with their formulas, scientific experiments and innovative thoughts. Now 21^st century’s scientists are continuing their legacy and doing lot of experiments and groundwork to bring practical approach for their new theories and ideas.

The role of the great engineers

Great engineers have brought the change in the world with their great effort and thus made our world into a better place to live with many devices and machines. With the intellectual brains of our engineers as the driving force, our world has got many great century-old companies such as International Business Machines (IBM), General Electric (GE) and General Motors (GM), and today’s companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google have brought revolution in the scientific technology, financial, healthcare, telecommunication industries and corporate world.

IBM, the first Information Technology company, which was established in 1911, and introduced the personal computers, mainframes to the world and did lot of research work for the advancement of Computer Science. General Electric (GE) was founded in 1892 by Thomas Alva Edison and has produced many gadgets, tools such as electric bulb, record player etc. which are very much essential in our daily life. The automobile company General Motors (GM) was founded in 1908 and has gifted the world with many models of cars by changing the design with day to day advancements. Microsoft made it possible to reach the hearts of people with their Windows Operating System, Software programming packages. Google has introduced the search engine. Apple has introduced number of intelligent machines and devices such as Macintosh, laptops, iPod, iPhone, iPad etc. With the evolution of internet, communication transfer is happening in micro seconds and the business world is rapidly growing up. Today’s world is benefiting with lots of gadgets, tools and getting the comforts for that effort initiated by our fore-fathers. If these devices weren’t exist, our world wouldn’t have tasted this happiness and wouldn’t have got this beauty that it has today.

The 20^th century’s great engineers, taken a practical approach for the scientific experiments and presented great machines, devices to the world. Our world has seen much growth from then onwards in environmental and economic positions of the world. Now 21^st century’s engineers are working with hard to improve the science and technology to more advanced levels and presenting great gadgets, devices to the world.

The scientists and engineers have led the way. The great people of the earlier generations have changed our world’s scientific and economic landscape. The credit goes to the creative people, who drive economic prosperity and the technicians who make it all happen behind the scenes. They were the innovators in marketing, entrepreneurship, and brought development in science and technology. They were the flag bearers of this world and agents of change. They brought change in the society and made our world into a better place to live as we are seeing today and we have to continue this development process and have to handover to future generations. Today’s world is the result of hard work, sincerity of the “Creative Class” and collection of many years’ efforts of intellectual minds. They influenced this generation to continue the scientific experiments to get new devices with new design. They set example by guiding the other public and influenced the society in showing the path to generations to come.

Written by: Adit
July 2011, Minneapolis MN

Education

Article written by Adit:

Education gives knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is power. To acquire knowledge, a structured education is very much essential. For any person, along with the basic needs such as food, water, clothing and shelter, education is also very important to survive and lead a comfortable life. A good education is one that teaches students to think and conceive ideas on their own. Education is very important for everyone to lead a decent life in the society.

Sources of Education: There are many sources to get good education. In many countries, education can be given through schools and institutions. Education helps people to get discipline, behavior, knowledge and thus helps to get a comfortable life. It is very important to start education at an early age. Children can go to school and get education in a systematic approach by following the traditional class-room training. A teacher has to instruct and train them by teaching moral values in order to make them good citizens of one’s country. Children have to learn the habit of reading and understand the morals, history, behavioral sciences, mathematics, environmental sciences and languages. With the evolution of the internet and advancement in the electronics, education can be delivered on-line by using computers or laptops or other electronic devices. This paved a new way of learning such as online education. This gives students the opportunity to learn what they are interested in.

Education Models: In many countries, education can be delivered by formal education and informal education. Formal education involves the teacher, the students and the institution. It is organized and structured with a curriculum. In formal education, many countries in the world prefer class-room training because teachers can monitor students and train them in mathematics, sciences, morals, practical etc. Typically, formal education involves preschool education, primary education, secondary education and post-secondary education. Education can be done in schools from 1^st grade to 12^th grade, and then further undergraduate and graduate studies in colleges or institutions or in universities. Students can do further studies by doing research and exploration in the area of their interest. Many countries offer free primary education as it is must for us to live and survive in the society.

Informal education, on the other hand, does not correspond to an organized and systematic view of education. It merely supplements the formal education. It can be achieved more by observing the society, environment and by visiting public places such as museums and scientific fairs. Informal education can also be obtained by listening to radio broadcasting, reading texts on sciences, education etc. in journals, reading magazines, attending lectures etc. The latest advances in technology also help to gain informal education through web in the form of open courseware, videos, blogs and other online communities that deliver free tutorials.

Benefits of Education: Education gives intellectuality, awareness, discipline and thus increases the thought process. It gives us how to behave properly and gives us responsibilities to lead a happy and a peaceful life in the society. It helps to make decisions at work. If children get education, they will become confident citizens with moral values. Through education one can get a job, livelihood and a better standard of living. Education is a means to alleviate poverty and engineer a social change in many developing nations. It always helps to discover our ignorance in a progressive manner. It has a fundamental role in personal and social development and puts us in a better position to contribute more positively to society.

Written by: Adit
Apr 2011, Minneapolis MN