Kalpana Sar-ojFrom child bride to multi-millionaire in India

Kalpana Saroj heads Kamani Tubes, a company worth more than $100m

An Indian Dalit (formerly untouchable) woman, who once attempted suicide to escape discrimination, poverty and physical abuse, becomes the CEO of a multi-million dollar company.

The BBC's Rajini Vaidyanathan in Mumbai captures Kalpana Saroj's journey - a symbol of the Dalit struggle to mark their arrival at the top.

Her life reads like the plot of a Bollywood film, with a narrative which has defied so many obstacles, to conclude with a happy ending.

The "rags to riches" cliche can be overused, but it goes some way in describing the story of Kalpana Saroj, a woman who struggled on so many occasions on her way to the top.

Born into a low-caste Dalit family, she was bullied at school, forced into marriage at the age of 12, fought social pressures to leave her husband, before she tried to take her own life.

Today, she is a multi-millionaire. At the helm of a successful company, she rubs shoulders with prominent businessmen and has won awards for her professionalism.

“Start Quote

I was treated badly by my husband's elder brother and his wife. They would pull my hair, and beat me, sometimes over little things”Kalpana Saroj

"The first time I came to Mumbai, I did not even know where to go. I was from such a small village. Today my company has two roads named after it in the city," she says, summing up the extent to which her life has transformed.

India's caste system is an ancient social hierarchy, which places people into different categories by birth. Those born into the lower castes have historically faced discrimination.

"Some of my friends' parents would not let me in their homes, and I was not even allowed to participate in some school activities because I was a Dalit," says the 52-year-old.

"I used to get angry. I felt really nervous because I thought even I am a human being," she adds.

Marital woes

Even though her father allowed her to get an education, wider family pressures saw Kalpana become a bride at the age of 12.

She moved to Mumbai to be with her husband who was 10 years older, but was shocked to find herself living in a slum.

But that was not the only hardship she had to endure.

"I was treated badly by my husband's elder brother and his wife. They would pull my hair and beat me, sometimes over little things. I felt broken with all the physical and verbal abuse," she says.

People from all backgrounds and caste work in Kalpana's company

Leaving a husband is widely frowned upon in Indian culture, but Kalpana was able to escape the violent relationship, thanks to her supportive father.

When he visited her in Mumbai, he was shocked to see his daughter emaciated and wearing torn clothes and took her back home.

Many villagers were suspicious of her return, viewing Kalpana as a failure.

She tried to ignore the judgemental comments thrown at her, focusing instead on getting a job. She learnt tailoring as a way to make money.

But, even with some degree of financial independence, the pressure became too much.

"One day, I decided to end my life. I drank three bottles of insecticide, termite poison," she says, recalling her lowest moment.

Kalpana was saved after her aunt walked into the room and found her frothing at the mouth and shaking uncontrollably.

The big change

It marked a watershed for her. "I decided to live my life, and do something big, and then die," she says.

So, at the age of 16, she moved back to Mumbai to stay with an uncle and work as a tailor.

She began by earning less than a dollar a month, but tirelessly learnt how to operate industrial sewing machines, and as a result saw her income rise.

But the money she earned was not enough to pay for her sister's treatment which could have saved her life, a moment which defined Kalpana's entrepreneurial spirit.

"I was highly disappointed and realised that money did matter in life, and that I needed to make more."

She took a government loan to open a furniture business and expand her tailoring work.

Kalpana (right) is one of the few Dalits to have succeeded by unleashing their entrepreneurial spirit

She worked 16 hours a day, a routine she has not managed to shake off to this day.

In the following years, she remarried, this time to a fellow furniture businessman, and had two children.

Her reputation led to her being asked to take over the running of a metal engineering company, Kamani Tubes, which was in massive debt.

By restructuring the company, she turned things around.

"I wanted to give justice to the people who were working there. I had to save the company. I could relate to the staff who needed to put food on the table for their family," she says of her motivations at the time.

Now, Kamani Tubes is a growing business, worth more than $100m.

Kalpana employs hundreds of people, from all backgrounds and castes. She has met prominent businessmen such as Ratan Tata and Mukesh Ambani, and in 2006 won a prestigious award for her entrepreneurial spirit.

Kalpana regularly visits her home village and does charity work to help those in her community.

As a Dalit and a woman, her story is all the more remarkable in a country where so few CEOs are from such a background.

"If you give your heart and soul to your job and never give up, things can happen for you," she says.

It is a mantra that has helped Kalpana through the worst of times and still rings true for her.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-18186908

16 Further Uses for Tea

There's nothing like a hot cup of tea, especially on a cold day. Not only does tea warm the body and give us inner peace, it also fights cancer, lowers the risk of stroke and helps our cells fight aging.  However, if you thought that is where the usefulness of this drink ends, you are surely mistaken... Here are 16 other things that you can do with tea:

1. Tired Eyes Tired and red eyes can be caused by irritation, too much crying or simple tiredness  While ice bags or cucumber slices are a workable solution, tea bag get you the same results but are also warm and pleasant. Put them in hot water, allow them to cool a bit and then place them on the eyelids like a compress. 2. Improving the taste of meat Meat tastes great when properly cooked, but when not, it can become stale, hard and dry. Here is an effective solution to the problem: Use used tea bags to  restore its flavor. Soaking hard meat in black tea can also soften it again. 3. Cleaning wood surfaces Tea can be a great and gentle cleaning material for wood floors and surfaces. Wipe the wood surfaces or furniture with a clean cloth soaked in cool tea water, then use a clean and dry towel to prevent stains. 4. Removing fat and dirt The astringency of the tea will reduce the fatty buildup in pots and pans. Just soak the used tea bag in the container you wish to clean. 5. Cleaning Rugs Clean moldy and dirty rugs by spreading some used (dry) tea leaves on it. Leave them be for 10 minutes and then vacuum the rug. If these are delicate carpets, you can brush the tea leaves gently away. 6. Cleaning fatty fingerprints from glass Tea can remove those pesky fingerprints from glass, and make it shine. Just rub a moist tea bag on the glass surface, then use a spray bottle filled with tea water and wipe. 7. Cleaning the toilet Use tea to remove stubborn stains in the bottom of the toilet. Soak several bags of tea for several hours in the toilet water and then remove them gently and brush the sides. 8. Getting rid of fish smell To get rid of that overpowering smell of fish, wash your hands in tea water. 9. Air freshener Bags of tea can absorb those bad odors in the pantry, in your shoes or in your car. Put a few tea bags on a tray and put them in the closet, shoe or car. Let  them absorb the odors. 10. Getting rid of bad foot odor If you suffer from stinky feet, soak them for 20 minutes in a tea bath. Use black tea for extreme case. The stringency in the tea will close the sweat glands that give off the smell and  will kill the bacteria. 11. Removing warts and blisters Soak a tea bag in water and put it on the blister for 20-30 minutes. Make sure to throw away the bag afterwards. 12. Get your mouth wounds to heal Get your mouth wounds to heal faster by gently biting a used tea bag. The healing powers of the tea will reduce the pain, shrink the blood vessels and stop the bleeding. 13. Treating burns If you suffer from  irritated skin from a burn or sun tanning, use used tea bags to bring relief. Wash the areas burnt with a cold tea bag, but if most of the skin needs it, make a bath of tea water 14. Treat acne Many find that washing your face with a cool brew of green tea is an effective solution for acne. 15. Avoiding fleas To turn back fleas from your dog or cat, spread some dry and used tea leaves around the place they sleep. 16. Softening and dying your hair Washing your hair with a cup of tea can make it shiny and soft to the touch. However, if your hair is light colored, it may turn it darker, which is perfect if you want to dye it. (Information shared as received by way of an email)

DNA as Data Storage-A Reality

Researchers at the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) have created a way to store data in the form of DNA – a material that lasts for tens of thousands of years. The new method, published January 23 in the journal Nature, makes it possible to store at least 100 million hours of high-definition video in about a cup of DNA.

There is a lot of digital information in the world – about three zettabytes’ worth (that’s 3000 billion billion bytes) – and the constant influx of new digital content poses a real challenge for archivists. Hard disks are expensive and require a constant supply of electricity, while even the best ‘no-power’ archiving materials such as magnetic tape degrade within a decade. This is a growing problem in the life sciences, where massive volumes of data – including DNA sequences – make up the fabric of the scientific record.

"We already know that DNA is a robust way to store information because we can extract it from bones of woolly mammoths, which date back tens of thousands of years, and make sense of it,” explains Nick Goldman of EMBL-EBI. “It’s also incredibly small, dense and does not need any power for storage, so shipping and keeping it is easy.”

Reading DNA is fairly straightforward, but writing it has until now been a major hurdle to making DNA storage a reality. There are two challenges: first, using current methods it is only possible to manufacture DNA in short strings. Secondly, both writing and reading DNA are prone to errors, particularly when the same DNA letter is repeated. Nick Goldman and co-author Ewan Birney, Associate Director of EMBL-EBI, set out to create a code that overcomes both problems.

“We knew we needed to make a code using only short strings of DNA, and to do it in such a way that creating a run of the same letter would be impossible. So we figured, let’s break up the code into lots of overlapping fragments going in both directions, with indexing information showing where each fragment belongs in the overall code, and make a coding scheme that doesn't allow repeats. That way, you would have to have the same error on four different fragments for it to fail – and that would be very rare," says Ewan Birney.

The new method requires synthesising DNA from the encoded information: enter Agilent Technologies, Inc, a California-based company that volunteered its services. Ewan Birney and Nick Goldman sent them encoded versions of: an .mp3 of Martin Luther King’s speech, “I Have a Dream”; a .jpg photo of EMBL-EBI; a .pdf of Watson and Crick’s seminal paper, “Molecular structure of nucleic acids”; a .txt file of all of Shakespeare's sonnets; and a file that describes the encoding.

“We downloaded the files from the Web and used them to synthesise hundreds of thousands of pieces of DNA – the result looks like a tiny piece of dust,” explains Emily Leproust of Agilent. Agilent mailed the sample to EMBL-EBI, where the researchers were able to sequence the DNA and decode the files without errors.

“We’ve created a code that's error tolerant using a molecular form we know will last in the right conditions for 10 000 years, or possibly longer,” says Nick Goldman. “As long as someone knows what the code is, you will be able to read it back if you have a machine that can read DNA.”

Although there are many practical aspects to solve, the inherent density and longevity of DNA makes it an attractive storage medium. The next step for the researchers is to perfect the coding scheme and explore practical aspects, paving the way for a commercially viable DNA storage model.

Source:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130123133432.htm

How much data can you get in one gram of DNA?

Scientists from the European Bioinformatics Institute are squeezing unparalleled amounts of data in to synthetic DNA, and now they’ve achieved something absolutely amazing: they can store 2.2 petabytes of information in a single gram of DNA, and recover it with 100 per cent accuracy.

The researchers have encoded an MP3 of Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I have a dream” speech, along with all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets, into a string of DNA. Scaled up, that represents a storage density of 2.2 petabytes per gram. What’s amazing, though, is that they’ve managed to achieve that whilst also implementing error correction in the complex chains of molecules, allowing them to retrieve content with 100 per cent accuracy.

The technique uses the four bases of DNA — A, T, C and G — to achieve the high information density. It is, understandably, still incredibly expensive: creating synthetic DNA and then sequencing it to read off the data is getting far easier, but it’s still a time- and cash-consuming business. Keep hold of your hard drives for now, but DNA could represent a viable storage solution in the future. 

Source: http://coolbearco.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/how-much-data-can-you-get-in-one-gram-of-dna/