Rev. Dr. Geo Thadikkatt, the outgoing vicar of St. Thomas Catholic Church leaves Cheppukulam nothing to desire

People, as outsiders, who had been to Cheppukualam 6 years ago and have been recently to Cheppukulam, will be astonished by the kind of facelift and makeover that Cheppukulam had been being undergone for the last 6 years.  What a makeover and what a facelift!! People will speak out loud that the outgoing vicar of St. Thomas Church Cheppukulam, Rev. Dr. Geo Thadikkattu, leaves Cheppukulam with nothing to desire.

Data war among telecom companies leaving Indian youth loggerhead?

The advent of Jio has literally disrupted the telecom sector in India. In order to woo the mobile users Jio entered into the Indian telecom market with unlimited data offers as ‘Welcome Offer’ for 3 months until then the data was a costly affair. For the data hungry Indian youth, it was a flabbergasting offer. Of course, the entry of Jio with unlimited data offers toppled down the monopoly of the trinity; Airtel, Vodafone and Idea, which mainly constitute Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).

Sr. Abhaya case - Church washing its dirty linen in public for the past 25 years

Sr. Abhaya would have turned 44 years old in 2017 and would have been a Mother Superior in any of the convents of St. Joseph's Congregation for Religious Sisters under the Syro-Malabar Catholic Archeparchy of Kottayam. Instead, today, on March 27, 2017, her soul completed the legal battle of 25 years for the murder of her body. Sr. Abhaya lived only 19 years on this earth, and her murder case has been 25 years old, and is still pending legally.

If the Church and authorities would have let the culprits get duly punished, perhaps my generation and the coming generation would not have come to know about what Sr. Abhaya case was, which has been defaming and haunting the Catholic Church for the past 25 years and still counting.

'Those academically good are bad at motor skills' notion changed by my life partner

My life partner always thinks that the toughest challenge i had to face after marriage was to teach her how to drive a four wheeler than to get the chemistry between both of us fixed.

It is always easy to speak about woman empowerment but to make her empowered there should always be a man behind and she was empowered enough by her father. I wanted to further empower my life partner by teaching her how to drive a four wheeler, 'an empowered driver.'

Private bus employees plying the service having faith in God but not KSRTC

There is a long tradition that we have imbibed from our parents that to begin our day invoking the blessings of God and giving offerings to God, so that all our undertakings shall be turned fruitful. When it comes to employees of private and KSRTC buses plying the service, only the former keep up the tradition.

In private buses they have the images of God, some having images from various religions as well, garlanded with fresh flowers in the morning, devotional music being played and making offerings to God, irrespective of temple, church or mosque. No wonder, most private buses ply their services without loss, a person who starts the business with one bus going on to own several buses in the blink of an eye.

The tech-savvy youth not owning any mobile phone

It would have been way back in 2011, for the first time, that i met this person wearing a long kurta, with an unshaved face and not properly combed hair, in the bus plying to Ernakulam and return, and at bus stops. After having met him frequently, i made friendship with him, and casually asked him for his contact number. When he said he did not have a mobile phone, my initial thought was that he was kidding me and did not want to share his contact number with me.

On our journey back to our native place from Ernakulam, we used to engage in discussions on philosophical, technological, scientific and political matters. He is found to be very knowledgeable and well read on so many topics. 

Yes, it would be quite amusing to have an encounter with a person who is fully updated with all knowledge of electronic and communication spheres, yet still doesn't possess a mobile phone. He is Sooraj Kamal, currently pursuing his PhD in Underwater Acoustics in Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT).

Corporate Social Responsibility - nothing but Corporates just succumbing to the law of the land

Is social responsibility something to be forced? Why then companies make so much of clamor for the CSR activities that are being carried out as per the law of the country and looking out for all possible publicity? Why do they need publicity to follow certain law in order to do business in this country?

The first country in the world to enforce Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)  is India, following an amendment to the Companies Act, 2013 in April 2014. As per the law envisaged, the Corporates can invest their profits in areas such as education, poverty, gender equality, and hunger as part of any CSR compliance.

Multi Super Specialty Hospitals mushrooming in Kochi, is a sign of healthy society?

Kerala not being an industrial state and primarily being an agrarian society, whenever we have a discussion about visible development, the first thing, perhaps, we point out is the number of multi super specialty hospitals that we have in Kochi, which is better known as the business capital of Kerala.  The multi super specialty hospitals are mushrooming in Kochi like never before. To name the major ones in Kochi are Lakeshore Hospital, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Aster Medcity, Lisie Hospital, Lourdes Hospital, Medical Trust Hospital, Ernakulam Medical Centre, Apollo hospital and the last one added to the long list of multi super specialty hospitals in Kochi is Rajagiri Hospital.

Junk food and health problems

We live in a fast moving world, as the end result of industrialization, modernization and globalization. There is so much of buzz happening around, which keeps us puzzled, flabbergasted, shocked, surprised with a ‘wow’ feeling, pushing us into a world of fantasies. In order to cope with the fast moving world, we automatically, rather willfully got adapted to the new, lifestyle, trends, fashion, culture, innovation, shopping styles, gadgets, technology and food culture that the modern world offers. We follow them that we shall not be left behind in this race; we shall not be looked down and be termed as ‘aboriginals’. We always love to be perceived modern and fully updated with what modern world can offer us. 

“Great preachers are not great doers”

Absolutely, there is no skepticism that the current Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, is one of the greatest preachers that the Independent India has ever seen. Bharathiya Janatha Party has been greatly indebted to Narendra Modi’s rhetoric skills for its great victory in 2014 general election. After Indira Gandhi, Narendra Modi was the only prime minister who gave a marathon speech, which lasted for 65 minutes, without the aid of a paper or teleprompter, on Independence Day at the Red Fort in 2014, which was his first independence speech as the Prime Minister of India.