AC's Sharing Spree

Weekly Photo Challenge: Pattern

Posted on May 10, 2013 by aket95

This is my response to this week’s photo challenge (pattern) which can be found at: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/weekly-photo-challenge-pattern/#more-24539

I have got a wide variety of entries this time and to start of with I am going to present the patterns of beautiful Venetian architecture ( I think it’s good anyway)

Now some photos from Prague. I thought a stained glass windows and a cathedral’s exterior would fit the bill? What do you think about the shots below?

Lastly, but not least, some snaps from Barcelona. I truly loved my visit there. It has been some time but I still remember tasting the delicious tapas….

Hope you’ve enjoyed viewing my post. Thanks for visiting!

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged architecture, barcelona, DPchallenge, patterns, photography, postaweek, prague, stained glass window, Venice, weekly photo challenge | 25 Comments

Weekly Photo Challenge: From Above

Posted on May 3, 2013 by aket95

This post is in response to this week’s photo challenge, which can be found at: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/weekly-photo-challenge-from-above/

This is a small island of the big island of Venice.

This is the view from my bedroom on the 20th floor of the luxurious Fairmont Hotel in Canada. I have focused the camera on my parents, who went down for a stroll.

This was taken on the ride up a mountain on a chairlift.

This is a view from above, a view from a Canadian gorge to be specific.

This is the view from a gorge. The camera is looking down to the river below.

These decorative tea lights are light at the festival of Diwali, which is the festival of light celebrated by Hindus.

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Posted in Challenges, Photography | Tagged Canada, Canadian Rockies, dailypost, Diwali, DP challenge, DPchallenge, festival of light, island, landscape photography, landscapes, natural beauty, photography, postaweek, tea lights, Venice, weekly photo challenge | 19 Comments

Pilot Writing-A Time of Tension

Posted on May 2, 2013 by aket95

Next week I have got a week full of exams in school. These exams are covering most of my subjects from Resmat to Maths. One of the exams I have to sit is English Language. I was doing some past papers for revision when I stumbled across a question, which asked me to pretend writing an article on a blog. So I thought: I am a blogger anyway, so there is no need to pretend. This post is in response to the exam question. Not only does it act as revision, it will also hopefully act as a post you’ll enjoy reading.

The question is:

“Write an entry for your online blog which describes a time when you felt uncertain or unsure about a situation you were in and explain how you overcame it. (16 marks)”

I was on summer vacation and I had gone to India to not only enjoy a holiday, but also visit family. I had spent a couple of weeks in Mumbai and decided to escape with my parents and paternal grandparents to my grandfather’s village bungalow in the rural parts of Maharashtra. Once we reached there I was pleasantly surprised to see some members of my extended family.

The day after I arrived at Poladpur, my grandfather’s home village. My family and I decided to take a visit the fort of Pratapgad, which is a famous location in Maharastran history, as it is the location where King Shivaji beat Afzar Khan in a battle. There were lots of us, about 9. At the time I was seven and my two cousins were even smaller so we managed to cram ourselves into a seven seater car in typical Indian fashion. There was also a driver.

We had devoured down a delicious lunch before we left and thank God we did. We left in the afternoon and embarked on what should have been a hour journey. We were about half way through the journey when we began to climb the lush green mountain of Pratapgad.

The view was great and the wind gushing through the open windows hitting my sun baked face felt even nicer. Everything was jolly until we got a little further up the mountain. We were climbing a steep slope and the car got slower and slower until we stopped. We then rolled back a little, before we came to a standstill.

The driver unleashed upon us an unfortunate piece of news. He solemnly said that our tank had run out of fuel. We were half way up a mountain; stuck halfway up a mountain; with an empty tank.

We got off the car and tried to call for help, using mobiles as well as looking for help close by. As always happens in these situations; there was no mobile signal; and being halfway up a mountain, where nobody lived, there was no help either. We were truly stranded.

I was seven and the event was my problem to worry about but it was certainly a time of tension and for the first time in my life I swore in front of my parents out of the frustration of being isolated with no help in the middle of what seemed to be nowhere.

I was uncertain about what would happen and not feeling too great. My grandfather was having a go at the driver, who hadn’t done his job properly. He hadn’t paid attention to the fuel gauge and as a consequence we were now left despondent with no diesel left.

We stayed at the same location for about an hour, before luck came our way. A bus came down the mountainside. We managed to stop it and hitchhike a ride back home. I felt relieved and looking back on it I think we were very lucky that bus came down.

P.S. I know we got the car back, but I don’t know/remember how.

Posted in Other | Tagged English, English Language, exam practice, India, past paper, Pilot Writing, Poladpur, Pratapgad, writing | Leave a comment

Animal Photography

Posted on May 2, 2013 by aket95

I would like to share with you some animal photography taken in Canada.

This creature was seen obstructing the road, so whilst waiting for it to move out of the way I took the pic.

This was taken on the roadside. The authorities had warned not to get out of your car if you spotted a bear, but just look at it. I couldn’t resist getting out of the car and taking a snap.

Posted in Other, Photography | Tagged animals, black bear, Canada, goat, owl, photography | 3 Comments

Weekly Photo Challenge: Culture

Posted on April 26, 2013 by aket95

Below is my response to this week’s photo challenge: culture, which can be found at: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/photo-challenge-culture/

To start of with I would like to say that I am a British Indian. I live in England and have been born and brought up here, but my parents are Indian, and I frequently visit India. The first picture gallery is showing rangoli, which is an Indian folk art. Rangoli refers to the decorative artwork made on the floor using powdered colours and rice.

The rangoli is depicting an Indian God called Ganesh

I have presented to you one aspect of Indian culture. Now for some global culture. It is a tradition to cut a cake on someone’s birthday or a special occasion. Here are some of my and my mum’s birthday cakes from this year.

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Posted in Challenges, Multinational Issues, Photography | Tagged Birthday Cakes, birthdays, Cake, Culture, DP challenge, DPchallenge, India, Indian folk art, postaweek, Rangoli, weekly photo challenge | 25 Comments

Weekly Photo Challenge: Up

Posted on April 21, 2013 by aket95

This is my response to this week’s photo challenge: up, which can be found at: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/04/19/weekly-photo-challenge-up-2/.

I have got a variety of responses and they can be found below.

This was a very tall building in Barca and I had to tilt my neck back and look up to take this pic.

This is a very tall building in Barca and I had to tilt my neck back and look up to take this pic.

This is a picture of the landscape of Prague, which was taken high up from a beautiful vantage point.

The Best for Last: My best response for this challenge is the picture of me parasailing over the Indian ocean. Flying above the sea.

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Posted in Challenges, Photography | Tagged barcelona, DPchallenge, parasailing, photography, postaweek, prague, weekly photo challenge | 3 Comments

The Chinese Internet-’A Giant Cage’

Posted on April 11, 2013 by aket95

I can pretty much gaurantee that this post will be blocked by the Chinese authorities.

In this post I talk about the Chinese internet and censorship in China and the reason why I am writing this post is due to my newly acquired knowledge on censorship in China, a topic that I was curious and clueless about.

I started this blog as part of my school’s global blog challenge. (Visit: A Blogger’s Journey and Source of Inspiration and Kegsblogs to find out more about that). One of the aims of the global blog challenge is to try to get traffic from as many countries as you can, so every now and again I check which countries I have got views from. Every time one thing stands out to me on the choropleth map. That thing that stands out is a large mass of land dominating Asia. I have got hits from various nations, all the big nations, but I have never clocked a single hit from China and neither have my friends! I was curious and was suspicious that this was due to censorship, so I asked another blogger who attracts a lot of traffic (Frizztext) whether he gets traffic from China. He replied that he had a few loyal followers in China. This led me to conclude that WordPress must not be blocked from the Chinese, however certain posts like this are. (If anyone has any better knowledge or would like to correct me then please leave a comment.) Last Friday I was curious about China and the Internet, however on Saturday I read the Economist, in which there was a 14 page special report on the internet in China, which answered all my questions. I then did a little further research and I am now here producing this post. Now I think it’s time to stop talking about me and start talking about China.

China has used the internet for its benefit with online sales rocketing, however it has also managed to keep the internet tied down. The internet is censored in China to ensure that “hostile foreign forces” that are online do not corrupt the mind of the Chinese. That is the Chinese way of putting it, but in short, the government wants to stay in control and the Communist Party needs to filter out content from the internet to stop foreign ideas uprooting the communist ideology and to stop there being local unrest through usage of social media. 13 years ago Bill Clinton said that trying to control the internet in China would be like trying to “nail Jell-O to the wall,” yet Chinese authorities have managed to effectively control the web through the Giant Firewall and cyber-hacking.

Image URL: http://www.postwesternworld.com/2012/10/05/blocked-in-china/

China’s party state has deployed an army of cyber-police, hardware engineers, software developers, web monitors and paid online propagandists to watch, filter, sensor and guide Chinese internet users. Writing politically sensitive stuff on the internet in China can be like shooting yourself in the foot as Mr Liu Xiaobo found out. In 2009 he co-wrote a manifesto calling for the end to authoritarian rule. In response the Chinese government sent him to prison for 11 years, yet he still won the Noble Peace Prize in 2010. Many people in China has no clue who Liu Xiaobo is since his name is under the category of sensitive keywords, which are blocked online. Lots of things are hidden from the Chinese eye via using sensitive keywords that are blocked from people’s reach.

The Internet has been constantly manipulated in China and the censorship started in 1996 when multiple sites were blocked. Then in September 2002 Google’s search engine was temporily blocked. After that YouTube was the next victim, being blocked in 2008 following unrest in Tibet. 2009 was a huge milestone for Chinese censorship with Facebook and Twitter being temporarily blocked during the 20th anniversary of Tinammen Square crackdown. Twitter and Facebook was allowed back onto the Chinese web after the anniversary, however it was later shut down in the same year after the riots in Xinjiang. People in China do not have access to Facebook, Youtube, Google or Twitter, however the Chinese have set up replacement sites.

Baidu replaces Google
Yukou Tuduo replaces YouTube
Sina Weibo (Weibo meaning microblog) replaces Twitter
Renren replaces Facebook

I have already included one cartoon, here is my go at producing another using an app on my mac. Unfortunately it didn't turn on great, but I hope it is getting across the message.

I have already included one cartoon, I thought it was my turn to make one myself. I made this using a app on my mac, but unfortunately it didn’t turn out great. I hope it gets the message across!

China has these replacement sites, but even thousands of posts are deleted on these sites every day! Some Chinese people celebrate not having deleted posts because it is such a rare thing!

This censorship has been a very expensive affair for the Chinese government, but I don’t think the government isn’t bothered about that much, it just wants to stay in firm control. Many people believed the internet would democratise China but due to making the internet abide by its rules China has somehow enabled itself to get a firmer grip on things using the internet. Nowadays there are nearly as many Chinese internet users as there are internet users from the European Union and America combined!

The process of censorship requires a lot of manual labour and it is believed that 100,000 people are employed in censorship. That includes cyber police, propaganda workers and ‘in-house monitors’ of thousands of websites. The Chinese government is very paranoid and whenever it sees anything that could be a social threat to the Communist Party, it orders for there to be an immediate response and there is a sudden wave/surge of censorship.

The Economist beautifully describes the internet in China as a giant cage and I believe this cage won’t be opened until the cage’s key-holder changes (the government changes). What that means for me is: I won’t get a hit from China.

Hope you found this post insightful and enjoyed reading it. Please leave some feedback if you have any.

Posted in China, Multinational Issues | Tagged Baidu, Bill Clinton, Censorship, censorship in china, China, chinese authorities, Chinese Internet, Communism, Communist Party, cyber-hackers, Facebook, Google, Internet, internet in china, Liu Xiaobo, Mi, Online, online sales, Politics, Propaganda, Renren, Sina Weibo, technology, The Economist, The Great Firewall, Twitter, Web, Yokou Tudou, YouTube | 3 Comments

Eight Causes of Poverty

Posted on April 11, 2013 by aket95

The eight causes of poverty are:

Environmental Problems-e.g. Natural disasters, which mean whole communities, are seriously weakened and there is a large financial strain, which LEDCs don’t have the resources to overcome.
Healthcare-poor healthcare leads to high infant mortality rates, women becoming more likely to die from childbirth, and preventable diseases becoming fatal. This all leads to unnecessary deaths and this makes it very difficult for families and communities to develop economically.
Conflict-Warfare and civil strife within and between countries take resources and workers away into conflict, while services such as health and education, and agriculture suffer. Conflict often drives people away from their homes and destroys their way of earning a living leaving them unable to live safe and productive lives.
Bad Government-Corruption and mismanagement waste resources and lead to bad decisions by leaders.
HIV/Aids-Younger adults are the ones most affected and aids kill these adults that have HIV or seriously weaken them. This is an especially serious problem as the younger population make up the larger part of the workforce in LEDCs (where aids is a big problem and if the workforce is limited in size then the country cannot develop properly.
Trade Barriers-Unfair trade rules keep MEDCs rich and LEDCs poor. The trade cycle is very unfair on MEDCs
Greed in MEDCs-MEDCs use their power and influence to take and consume far more of the world’s wealth than is fair.
Debt-LEDCs have borrowed large sums of money from MEDCs in the past and find it very difficult to pay these loans back.

Posted in Inequality, Money, Multinational Issues | Tagged eight causes of poverty, poverty | Leave a comment

Do we wish for China to prosper?

Posted on April 11, 2013 by aket95

China has done great in the past decade, however it is coming to a point where its industry has peaked and its growth rate is slowly falling. What we need to decide in the Western World is whether we want China to succeed?

Your first thoughts as an American may be, “No way, America is the greatest nation the world has ever seen, and we don’t want China overtaking us.” Many Americans (and to some extent Europeans) don’t want to see China overtake the rest of the world, although the large majority are convinced it will. Some people, especially Americans, want to see China fail so that there country remains “wealthier and better.”

However I warn these people that the failure of China could lead to the failure of the Western World, since so the Western World, especially America relies heavily on Chinese loans and without these loans the Western world could falter.

Personally I want China to prosper, enough so that the Western world keeps getting its funds, but I also want to see other developing nations rise up and become industrial superpowers.

I know the below question is very general, but I would like to see what you think about the issue I have briefly presented, so please answer the below question. I acknowledge the below question is very narrow, so feel free to comment your reasons behind your vote and any other opinions you may have.

Posted in Money, Multinational Issues | Tagged America, America vs. China, China, economics, economy, growth rate, Western World | 1 Comment

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime

Posted on April 10, 2013 by aket95

I know it’s a bit late but I want to respond to the weekly photo challenge: lunchtime, which can be found at: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/photo-challenge-lunchtime/

At the time I had nothing worthwhile and meaningful to post, however I think I now do.

My mum was feeling lazy today and made me make lunch. I was meant to bake some jacket potatoes. It was rather simple, but I had never done it before, so I was just hoping for the best. Thankfully it tasted great.

At this point I had just put the jackets into the oven. I covered the potatoes with oil and salt to make the potato skin crispy and tasty!

This is 50 minutes later when the jackets are ready to be served with cottage cheese.

I have a sweet tooth and unfortunately am a chocoholic, therefore I had to end the meal with…..

I went to the dentist immediately after lunch, I am not so sure that he was pleased with me eating the chocolate slab!

Posted in Challenges, Other | Tagged chocolate, DP challenge, DPchallenge, food, jacket potatoes, lunchtime, potato, weekly photo challenge | Leave a comment

AC's Sharing Spree

Weekly Photo Challenge: Pattern

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Weekly Photo Challenge: From Above

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Pilot Writing-A Time of Tension

Animal Photography

Weekly Photo Challenge: Culture

Weekly Photo Challenge: Up

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The Chinese Internet-’A Giant Cage’

Eight Causes of Poverty

Do we wish for China to prosper?

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime

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