As the world rings in the New Year, we at TAJA didn't want to be left behind in joining in the celebrations and wishing our valued members, sponsors and readers and their loved ones a very happy New Year 2007!

Our festivals give us a chance to get together and to uphold our traditional values. Why don't we add in some fun to the mix and enjoy an evening of festivities? Come, join us and let us ring in Sankranthi together! Need directions? Use the link below...

| 01.13.2006 | 4.30 PM | Jacksonville Country Day School |

Our annual charity event was held at the Southwood Nursing Center. Around 15 members aged anywhere between three and fifty showed up in right earnest at the center. They participated in activities as varied as serving food, cleaning up tables and windows, helping sort out the laundry and even entertaining the elderly with some lively Indian music.

Even the young children got involved in the action and were seen actively participating in the tasks. Some of the residents even enquired about the origin of the music that was played while mentioning that they thoroughly enjoyed the exposure.

As often happens, the seemingly simple task of sorting out socks into matching pairs became more challenging than anticpated! So much so that somebody even came up with the bright (albiet humorous) idea of writing an algorithm for the sort!!

The personal thanks that were handed out to the members as they were preparing to wind up the event were testament to how much our efforts were appreciated on that day. Maybe the fact that the event coincided with the spirit of the Christmas/holiday season was not lost on the elderly. All in all, this event was proof positive once again that, as humans, we can be happiest when we give without expecting something back in return

| 12.23.2006 | Southwood Nursing Center| Photo Gallery |

Expect Murphy's law to hit you when you least expect it. My washer went out of warranty a few months ago, and it recently stopped mid cycle and wouldn't go to the rinse cycle. Needless to say, I was a bit alarmed as calling in a service rep might turn out to be quite expensive.

As I looked through the latest load, I realised that the cause of the problem might have been the load itself as I found out that only one shoe lace (instead of two) could be found. The possibility exists that the other lace might have found it's way out of the tub and may be blocking a hose somewhere. Using this premise, I started googling for more information on troubleshooting the washer.

A few minutes on the web led me to a couple of sites that seemed to have some relevant information. I got my final answer at a site called The Samurai Appliance Repair Forums where there is information on all types of problems on almost all appliances in the market. Luckily for me, somebody already had a similar problem and there was an existing post on how to solve it. Even more luck, for my washer, I didn't even have to use a screwdriver to fix my problem!

I just followed the directions and a twist and a turn got the pump out of it's housing. Lo and behold, there was the absconding shoe lace lodged at the entrance of the pump. I just took it out, cleaned the area a bit and re-inserted the pump. The whole job took me abut fifteen minutes. Ran a maintenance wash (a no-load wash) with hot water and the problem is now history! Almost all washing machines recommend running a maintenance wash once in a while. Check out your user manual for the details.

The Telugu Association of North America (TANA), Potti Sriramulu Telugu Viswa Vidyalayam and Department of Telugu of Andhra University (AU) launched ‘Telugunu Parirakshnichukundam’ a campaign for protecting and propagating Telugu language on December 15, 2006 to commemorate the death anniversary of Potti Sriramulu.

TANA's President will be gracing our Sankraanthi festivities this month in Jacksonville. TANA would like to enlist the help and support of local volunteers for their upcoming Orlando event in 2009. Interested? Email us with your name and address details.

The Andhra Pradesh Assembly has the distinction of becoming the first legislature in the country to allow the members to use laptops in the House. Speaker KR Suresh Reddy said the legislators who were provided with laptops recently could use henceforth carry them into the House and get additional information over the internet.

So far, MLAs used to get information through chits from outside to raise an issue but they can now get information without leaving the House provided they had wireless internet connectivity. He said that the Assembly was already having internet connectivity and plans were on the offing to make the entire premises wireless by installing wireless routers.

In what can be a strong indicator for the good prospectus of biotech industry in the State many major companies, including US based global giant Du Pont are expressing keen interest in setting up their facilities in the State. Lakshmi Parthasaradhi, Principal Secretary, Department of Industries and Commerce told to the media that they are in the advanced talks with Du Pont, which requested for allotment of site for setting up an R&D centre and have offered 15 acres in ICICI Knowledge Park.

The investment could be very high, given the nature of Du Pont’s operations across the world. Du Pont is a two-century-old multinational chemical and healthcare company that operates in over 70 countries across the globe. The Bangalore based Pharma major, Biocon has also approached the State Government for land. She said that the governments have offered two places for the company-in the Pharma City in Visakhapatnam and the Genenome Valley in Hyderabad.

In addition to the 75-acre Pharma SEZ in the third phase of Knowledge Park, Shanta Biotech would act an anchor client by partnering with French Pharma major. Many other companies including GVK Bio Sciences and 3Gene have been allotted land and in the next six months 440 acres in the third phase of the Park.

In the next four years, organised retail in India will receive investments in excess of $25 billion from 40 players, taking the size of modern retail to $75 billion by 2011, according to estimates provided by Technopak. The investments include the supply chain, but exclude real estate component.

"The big players include Reliance Retail, Bharti-Wal-Mart, AV Birla Group, Future group and the money that will be pumped in by Tesco's and Carrefour when they enter India. While ITC and Godrej have not formally announced any new retail plans, we are speculating that in the next five years these two companies will be investing heavily into retail," said Arvind Singhal, chairman, Technopak.

These investments imply that share of organised retail will grow from the present 3 percent to approximately 15-18 percent in 2011-12. "India is attempting to do in 10 years what took 25-30 years in other major markets in world," said Singhal in a presentation.

Of the $25 billion investment, approximately 60-65 percent is expected to be from the domestic retailers. The organised and unorganised retail market is presently worth $300 billion and is projected to grow to $427 bln by 2010 and $637 bln by 2015. Food and grocery, which makes up about 55 percent of the entire retail market is expected to receive almost 60-65 percent of the investments.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."

Delta starts daily non-stop flights between Jax and Lax (LA).

Negative marks being considered for EAMCET. If okayed, this policy will become effective starting next year.

Sun Microsystems starts opreations in Vizag.

New JNTU college started in Pullivendula. Two more JNTUs set to come up at Karimnagar and Vijayawada.

Reliance cuts regular India call cost to 7.9 cents per minute. Reliance also introduces reduced call prices through the end of January 2007 (like 4 cents a minute to India).

The Post Master General issues a special envelope to commemorate the platinum jubilee of Timpany School, Vizag.