Posts Tagged ‘stitch’
Written by Rahul on 07 April 2009
The following is a snapshot of recent developments in India’s general election campaign. (The sources are mentioned in brackets)
* Mayawati, chief of the caste-based Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and a prime ministerial aspirant, has promised to have job quotas for all poor sections of society cutting across caste and religious lines (The Times of India).
She told an election rally that jobs, including in the judiciary, would be reserved for even poor upper castes, Muslims and Christians. Under present laws, affirmative government action such as reserved jobs and college seats is aimed only at lower caste Hindus, tribes and other backward classes.
* The Samajwadi Party, which is strong in Uttar Pradesh, has begun talks with a new political outfit in Andhra Pradesh floated by a popular film star (all newspapers). Media reports said the Samajwadi Party was trying to stitch together a loose alliance which could leverage a post-election deal with any formation that emerges as the front-runner to form a government.
* Sonia Gandhi, the chief of the ruling Congress party and one of the most powerful politicians in India, does not own a car or a house (all newspapers). She declared assets worth only $274,000 while filing her nomination papers to contest the Rae Bareli seat. She lives in a sprawling government bungalow in the heart of New Delhi.
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Written by Rahul on 03 April 2009
At a time when the Congress, in the run-up to the elections, seeks to showcase the Indo-US nuclear deal as one of its major contributions towards achieving energy security, party president Sonia Gandhi has taken a dim view of the party’s Uttar Pradesh unit’s decision to stitch up an alliance with a Muslim organisation whose president had offered bounties for beheading former US President George W Bush and Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen.
Party sources said Sonia was “upset” about the embarrassing episode of the party providing platform to Ittehad-e-Millat Council (IMC) president Tauqeer Raza Khan at party headquarters without checking his antecedents and credentials. Khan had reportedly offered Rs 5 lakh as bounty to anyone who beheads Nasreen and, by his own admission at the press conference at the Congress headquarters on March 26, Rs 25 crore to anyone who beheads Bush.
AICC general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh Digvijay Singh and state PCC chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi, who had ushered Khan to the party’s press briefing to announce his support to the Congress in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, were found clueless when asked about Khan’s announcements regarding Bush. Although Singh had dissociated the party from this, Khan had admitted that he had offered the bounty for Bush’s head.
Party sources said even Sonia had not been informed about Khan’s antecedents and she was upset about it.
She has issued instructions that the announcement about those joining the Congress or extending their support to the party should be made at the state level, and not at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi, except in cases involving some prominent leaders, it was reliably learnt. At a 90-minute meeting with party spokespersons on Wednesday, she also expressed her disapproval of AICC general secretaries and state presidents showing up at press briefings.
At the meeting the Congress president was said to have instructed the spokespersons not to make “personal attacks” (on opposition leaders) and rather focus on highlighting the achievements of the UPA Government.
Tags: admission, AICC, alliance, announcement, Antecedents, anyone, Bangladeshi, beheading, bounty, briefing, Bush-haters, charge, conference, congress, Congress President, Council, crore, deal, decision, Digvijay, dim, Dim View, Disapproval, energy, energy security, episode, george w bush, government, head, headquarters, IMC, Indo, Ittehad-e, Joshi, Khan, Lakh, Learnt, level, line, Lok, lok sabha elections, March, meeting, Millat, minute, Muslim, Nasreen, New Delhi, nuclear deal, opposition, organisation, party, party headquarters, party president, pcc, platform, Pradesh, president, president george w bush, press, Raza, raza khan, Rita Bahuguna, run-up, sabha, Secretary, Security, showcase, Singh, sonia, Sonia Gandhi, spokespersons, state, State Presidents, stitch, support, Taslima, Tauqeer, time, unit, upa, us, Uttar, view, Wednesday, writer
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Written by Rahul on 02 April 2009
At a time when the Congress, in the run-up to the elections, seeks to showcase the Indo-US nuclear deal as one of its major contributions towards achieving energy security, party president Sonia Gandhi has taken a dim view of the party’s Uttar Pradesh unit’s decision to stitch up an alliance with a Muslim organisation whose president had offered bounties for beheading former US President George W Bush and Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen.
Party sources said Sonia was “upset” about the embarrassing episode of the party providing platform to Ittehad-e-Millat Council (IMC) president Tauqeer Raza Khan at party headquarters without checking his antecedents and credentials. Khan had reportedly offered Rs 5 lakh as bounty to anyone who beheads Nasreen and, by his own admission at the press conference at the Congress headquarters on March 26, Rs 25 crore to anyone who beheads Bush.
AICC general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh Digvijay Singh and state PCC chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi, who had ushered Khan to the party’s press briefing to announce his support to the Congress in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, were found clueless when asked about Khan’s announcements regarding Bush. Although Singh had dissociated the party from this, Khan had admitted that he had offered the bounty for Bush’s head.
Party sources said even Sonia had not been informed about Khan’s antecedents and she was upset about it.
She has issued instructions that the announcement about those joining the Congress or extending their support to the party should be made at the state level, and not at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi, except in cases involving some prominent leaders, it was reliably learnt. At a 90-minute meeting with party spokespersons on Wednesday, she also expressed her disapproval of AICC general secretaries and state presidents showing up at press briefings.
At the meeting the Congress president was said to have instructed the spokespersons not to make “personal attacks” (on opposition leaders) and rather focus on highlighting the achievements of the UPA Government.
Tags: admission, AICC, alliance, announcement, Antecedents, anyone, Bangladeshi, beheading, bounty, briefing, Bush-haters, charge, conference, congress, Congress President, Council, crore, deal, decision, Digvijay, dim, Dim View, Disapproval, energy, energy security, episode, george w bush, government, head, headquarters, IMC, Indo, Ittehad-e, Joshi, Khan, Lakh, Learnt, level, line, Lok, lok sabha elections, March, meeting, Millat, minute, Muslim, Nasreen, New Delhi, nuclear deal, opposition, organisation, party, party headquarters, party president, pcc, platform, Pradesh, president, president george w bush, press, Raza, raza khan, Rita Bahuguna, run-up, sabha, Secretary, Security, showcase, Singh, sonia, Sonia Gandhi, spokespersons, state, State Presidents, stitch, support, Taslima, Tauqeer, time, unit, upa, us, Uttar, view, Wednesday, writer
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Written by Rahul on 26 March 2009
Washington, Mar 26 (ANI): Pop singer Ashanti was left embarrassed when her dress split and exposed her bare bottom at a posh red carpet event.
The 28-year-old star anxiously hid her naked butt while her dresser rushed to stitch up the slit.
“You could see my butt. While I was doing interviews on the red carpet, the seamstress was behind me sewing up the hole in my dress,” Contactmusic quoted her as saying.
Ashanti has hinted she will marry her rapper lover Nelly in 2009.
Just four months after the couple went public with its four year romance, the singer has confessed she is planning to walk down the aisle with Nelly. (ANI)
Tags: aisle, ANI, ashanti, Bare Bottom, Bottom, butt, carpet, Contactmusic, couple, dress, dresser, event, exposed, four months, hole, Interviews, lover, mar, Naked Butt, Nelly, old star, Pop, pop singer, public, rapper, red carpet, romance, Seamstress, sewing, singer, Singer Ashanti, slit, split, star, stitch, Washington, year
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Written by Rahul on 05 March 2009
Washington, March 5 (ANI): The future of flight seems safe, with engineers at MIT using carbon nanotubes only billionths of a meter thick to stitch together aerospace materials in work that could make airplane skins and other products some 10 times stronger at a nominal increase in cost.
Moreover, advanced composites reinforced with nanotubes are also more than one million times more electrically conductive than their counterparts without nanotubes, meaning aircraft built with such materials would have greater protection against damage from lightning, according to Brian L. Wardle, from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT.
The advanced materials currently used for many aerospace applications are composed of layers, or plies, of carbon fibers that in turn are held together with a polymer glue.
But, that glue can crack and otherwise result in the carbon-fiber plies coming apart.
As a result, engineers have explored a variety of ways to reinforce the interface between the layers by stitching, braiding, weaving or pinning them together.
All of these processes, however, are problematic because the relatively large stitches or pins penetrate and damage the carbon -fiber plies themselves.
“And those fiber plies are what make composites so strong,” Wardle said.
So, Wardle wondered whether it would make sense to reinforce the plies in advanced composites with nanotubes aligned perpendicular to the carbon-fiber plies.
Using computer models of how such a material would fracture, “we convinced ourselves that reinforcing with nanotubes should work far better than all other approaches,” Wardle said.
His team went on to develop processing techniques for creating the nanotubes and for incorporating them into existing aerospace composites.
As to how nanostitching works, the research team said that the polymer glue between two carbon-fiber layers is heated, becoming more liquid-like.
Billions of nanotubes positioned perpendicular to each carbon-fiber layer are then sucked up into the glue on both sides of each layer.
Because the nanotubes are 1000 times smaller than the carbon fibers, they don’t detrimentally affect the much larger carbon fibers, but instead fill the spaces around them, stitching the layers together.
“So, we’re putting the strongest fibers known to humankind (the nanotubes) in the place where the composite is weakest, and where they’re needed most,” Wardle said. (ANI)
Tags: Aeronautics, aerospace, aircraft, airplane, ANI, Astronautics, Brian L. Wardle, carbon, composite, computer, cost, damage, Department, fiber, flight, fracture, future, glue, humankind, increase, interface, layer, lightning, March, material, Meter, MIT, Nanostitching, perpendicular, place, polymer, processing, protection, Research, result, sense, stitch, Team, turn, variety, Washington, work
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Written by Rahul on 18 February 2009
Washington, Feb 18 (ANI): British actress Kate Winslet credits her toned physique to “a wing and a prayer”, insisting she’s “too busy” to even think about exercising.
The Oscar nominee, who has struggled with weight since she was a teenager, insists she hasn’t been slimming down for the big ceremony.
When asked if she was dieting, Winslet said, “N.O. (I) absolutely do not. I’m very sort of relaxed and vocal about these things. I have not done a stitch of exercise since October. I literally have not had the time.”
“I’m just going to eat normally, I’m not going to make cuts.
“If I’m keeping it together it’s by a wing and a prayer. I just want to enjoy this,” she added.
The 33-year-old actress is winning accolades for her role in The Reader, and is tipped to win the Best actress at the Oscars.
She has already scooped two awards in Golden Globes and walked away with Best actress gong at the Baftas. (ANI)
Tags: 'no, Actress, ANI, baftas, ceremony, dieting, exercise, Feb, Globes, Golden, gong, kate winslet, nominee, October, Oscar, Oscars, physique, prayer, Reader, role, sort, stitch, teenager, time, Washington, weight, wing
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