In a surprise price-revealing move, Vodafone sent out a SMS to all those who had pre-registered with it during the past few weeks confirming the iPhone would be available at the price that was being floated for past few days. Indiatimes Infotech had first reported this pricing on August 12.

The operator also confirmed that the 16GB model will cost Rs 36,100.

However, Vodafone, one of the two operators in India which will start selling iPhone from Friday, did not spell out if the price tags were for unlocked iPhones, or those with bundled plans.

If this pricing has been finalized for unlocked iPhones which the users can use with any 3G networks (as and when available next year in India), the price is a tad more than the US price tag of $550 for similar handsets.

But if it comes with the bundled plans — wherein the operator also gives stipulated usage as part of the package — it will be prohibitively expensive compared to the $199 tag that a similar 8GB sale from AT&T carries.

It is also not clear yet if Bharti Airtel would keep the price exactly the same, but the probability is quite high as both operators tend to follow each other on pricing. Besides, Apple would have gone out of its way to ensure a near-similar pricing in each region, point out industry insiders.

Vodafone has advised its prospective customers to visit the nearest Vodafone stores to confirm their booking by paying an advance of Rs 10,000 on August 20 and 21. The company has not specified, however, when it will start giving out the handsets. It has simply said it will intimate the buyers to collect the iPhone after paying the balance amount at a pre-appointed time.

Last week, Bharti had said that millions of Airtel subscribers will be able to purchase the iPhone at Airtel’s Relationship Centres from August 22.

Source: infotech.indiatimes.com

Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times.

NEVER GIVE UP: Deborah Phelps, mother of the swimming champion Michael Phelps, said his teachers had low expectations.

DEBORAH PHELPS’S third baby and only son was larger than life from Day 1 — 9 pounds, 6 ounces and 23 inches long. As a little boy, said the mother, he asked 25 zillion questions, always wanting to be the center of attention. If he wasn’t zooming by on his big-wheel tricycle, he was swinging past on the monkey bars.

Starting with preschool, teachers complained: Michael couldn’t stay quiet at quiet time, Michael wouldn’t sit at circle time, Michael didn’t keep his hands to himself, Michael was giggling and laughing and nudging kids for attention.

As he entered public school, he displayed what his teachers called “immature” behavior. “In kindergarten I was told by his teacher, ‘Michael can’t sit still, Michael can’t be quiet, Michael can’t focus,’ ” recalled Ms. Phelps, who was herself a teacher for 22 years. The family had recently moved, and she felt Michael might be frustrated because the kindergarten curriculum he was getting in the new district was similar to the pre-K curriculum in their old district.

“I said, maybe he’s bored,” Ms. Phelps recalled saying to his teacher. “Her comment to me — ‘Oh, he’s not gifted.’ I told her I didn’t say that, and she didn’t like that much. I was a teacher myself so I didn’t challenge her, I just said, ‘What are you going to do to help him?’ ”

In the elementary grades at their suburban Baltimore school, Ms. Phelps said, Michael excelled in things he loved — gym and hands-on lessons, like science experiments. “He read on time, but didn’t like to read,” she said. “So I gave him the Baltimore Sun sports pages, even if he just read the pictures and captions.”

She will never forget one teacher’s comment: “This woman says to me, ‘Your son will never be able to focus on anything.’ ”

His grades were B’s and C’s and a few D’s.

It was a tough period. Ms. Phelps and her husband, a state trooper, were divorcing. She had just gone back to school to get a master’s degree to become an administrator, she said, and at the same time she had to be the 24/7 parent.

Michael grew like crazy, but not evenly — his ears looked huge, and when he ran, his arms swung below his knees. (He was on his way to being 6 feet 4 inches tall with an arm span of 6 feet 7 inches.) Kids bullied him, and when he whacked one on the school bus, he was suspended from the bus for several days.

When he was in fifth grade, during his annual check-up, Ms. Phelps and the family physician, Dr. Charles Wax, discussed whether Michael might have A.D.H.D. — attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. By then, the Phelpses were a swimming family. (Michael’s older sister Whitney at 15 was ranked first in the country in the 200-meter butterfly, though her career would be cut short by a back injury.) Dr. Wax’s children also swam, and he’d noticed Michael at the Phelps sisters’ swim meets. “Michael used to run around like a little crazy person mooching food off people,” said Ms. Phelps.

The doctor suggested sending assessment forms to his teachers. Their consensus: Can’t sit still, can’t keep quiet, can’t focus.

At age 9, Michael was put on Ritalin, a stimulant used to treat hyperactivity.

His mother thinks it helped a little. “He seemed to be able to focus longer,” she said. “He could get through homework without moving around so much.” She said he was still a middling student. “It might have raised some C’s to B’s,” she said. But if a homework assignment had to be at least four sentences, she said, “he’d just do four sentences.”

After two years, Michael asked to get off the meds. He had to go to the school nurse’s office to take a pill at lunch, she said, and felt stigmatized. “Out of the blue, he said to me: ‘I don’t want to do this anymore, Mom. My buddies don’t do it. I can do this on my own.’ ”

“I was always stern as a parent,” she said, “but from Day 1, I included my children as part of the decision process. So I listened.” After consulting with Dr. Wax, Michael stopped medication.

In the meantime, Michael the swimmer had appeared. By 10, he was ranked nationally in his age group. Ms. Phelps watched the boy who couldn’t sit still at school sit for four hours at a meet waiting to swim his five minutes’ worth of races.

When Michael was 11, his swim coach at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, Bob Bowman — still his coach — took the Phelpses aside and talked about Michael’s gift. “Bob says, ‘By 2000, I look for him to be in the Olympic trials,’ ” recalled Ms. Phelps. “ ‘By 2004, he makes the Olympics. By 2008, he’ll set world records. By 2012, the Olympics will be in New York and’ — I said ‘Bob, stop, he’s 11, he’s in middle school.’ ”

As it turned out, the boy would move four years faster than his coach’s prediction (and New York would lose its Olympic bid).

At age 12 Michael needed an algebra tutor, and was so antsy in school that his mother suggested the teacher sit him at a table in the back. And yet he willingly got up at 6:30 daily for 90-minute morning practices and swam 2 to 3 hours every afternoon.

By 15, in 2000, he was at the Olympics; at 16 he had his first world record; and by 19, at the 2004 Olympics, he had won 8 medals, 6 of them gold.

Of all his mental gifts, the one that amazes his mother the most is this: “Michael’s mind is like a clock. He can go into the 200 butterfly knowing he needs to do the first 50 in 24.6 to break the record and can put that time in his head and make his body do 24.6 exactly.”

He always did his swimming homework. “In high school, they’d send tapes from his international races,” Ms. Phelps said. “He’d say, ‘Mom I want to have dinner in front of the TV and watch tapes.’ We’d sit and he’d critique his races. He’d study the turns — ‘See, that’s where I lifted my head.’ I couldn’t even see what he was talking about. Over and over. I’m like, ‘whoa.’ ”

These days, Ms. Phelps, 57, is principal of Windsor Mill, a middle school in Baltimore County. Her A.D.H.D. son is so renowned, she was hired this summer by a pharmaceutical firm, Ortho-McNeil-Janssen, as a “celebrity mom” who will answer questions about her experiences with A.D.H.D. on a company-sponsored Web site.

While the company makes an A.D.H.D. medication, Concerta, and arranged my interview with Ms. Phelps, during our three hours together, Ms. Phelps never mentioned the drug. Nor did her son ever take it. Like so many parents, she seemed conflicted about having given her son any medication. “There were so many things going on at the time — the divorce, Michael’s maturity, we changed school districts,” she said. “Were meds the right thing? I could be on the fence either way. That was the decision that was made.”

More to the point, I think, is the moral of her story, which offers hope for parents of any child with a challenge like A.D.H.D.: Too many adults looked at Ms. Phelps’s boy and saw what he couldn’t do. This week, the world will be tuned to the Beijing Olympics to see what he can do.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com

A panel of Sixth Central Pay commission was setup by Union Cabinet of India on October 5, 2006 for hiking the salaries of government employees. This commission has been setup under Justice B.N.Srikrishna with a timeframe of 18 months. Other members are Prof. Ravindra Dholakia, Mr. J.S.Mathur and Secretary Smt. Sushama Nath.

Report:

Report of Sixth Central Pay Commission is submitted to Finance Minister P. Chidambaram by B. N. Srikrishna on March 24, 2008. Over 50 pc hike likely for top Government officials.

Sixth Central Pay Commission

Agency overview

Formed October 5, 2006

Dissolved March 24, 2008

Jurisdiction Government of India

Headquarters New Delhi

Agency Executives B. N. Srikrishna, Chairman

Prof. Ravindra Dholakia, Member

J.S.Mathur, Member

Sushama Nath, Member-Secretary

Parent agency Ministry of Finance, Government of India

Website : http://www.6pc.in

A Pay Commission is a panel comprised of members of the Union Cabinet of India for hiking the salaries of government employees.

History

Since India’s Independence, six pay commissions have been set up on a regular basis to review and make recommendations on the work and pay structure of all civil and military divisions of the Government of India

First Pay Commission

The first pay commission was constituted in May 1946, and had submitted its report in a year.

Second Pay Commission

The second panel had been set up in August 1957 and had given its report exactly after two years, with a financial impact was Rs.396 million.

Third Pay Commission

The third pay commission set up in April 1970 gave its report in March 1973, and created proposals that cost the government Rs.1.44 billion.

Fourth Pay Commission

Constituted in June 1983, its report was given in three phases within four years and the financial burden to the government was Rs.12.82 billion.

Fifth Pay Commission

The Fifth Pay Commission was set up in 1994 and implemented in 1997 at a cost of Rs. 17,000 crore.

Sixth Pay Commission

In July 2006, the Cabinet approved setting up of the sixth pay commission. This commission has been setup under Justice B.N.Srikrishna with a timeframe of 18 months. The cost of hikes in salaries is anticipated to be about Rs. 20,000 crore for a total of 5.5 million government employees as per media speculation on the 6th Pay Commission, the report of which is expected to be handed over in late March/early April 2008. The employees had threatened to go on a nationwide strike if the government failed to hike their salaries. Reasons for the demand of hikes include rising inflation and rising pay in the private sector due to the forces of globalization .com/fullstory.php?newsid=71343|title=”Rs 20,000 crore for babus?”|publisher=The Indian Express|accessdate=2006-07-20}} The Class 1 officers in India are grossly underpaid with an IAS officer with 25 years of work experience earning just Rs.55,000 as his take home pay. (Source: wikipedia.org)

6pc.in - 6th Pay commission

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Source: blog.kishalaya.com

Michael Phelps says his mother, Debbie Phelps, seen here celebrating after the men’s 4×200-meter freestyle relay, inspired his Olympic success.

Michael Phelps won his eighth swimming gold medal of the Beijing Games on Sunday, bettering Mark Spitz’s record of seven in a single Olympics. Here are eight people who influenced Phelps in his quest:

¶Debbie Phelps (mother): In the mixed zone after winning his eighth medal, Phelps said: “There’s so much emotions going through my head, so much excitement. I guess I just want to see my mom.” She raised Phelps and his two sisters on a teacher’s salary after her divorce from Phelps’s father, Fred.

¶Whitney Phelps (sister): Before Phelps, Whitney, 28, was the family’s swimming prodigy. She qualified for her first United States national team at the age of 13 and competed in the world championship as a 14-year-old. She finished sixth in the 200 butterfly at the 1996 Olympic trials before two bulging disks in her back forced her to retire. She has had her little brother’s back since long before he had a bull’s-eye on it.

¶Hilary Phelps (sister): She was also a good swimmer, competing at the University of Richmond. In his 2004 autobiography, “Beneath the Surface,” Phelps described Hilary, 30, as “nurturing and modest.” Both his sisters served as his surrogate mother when Debbie was at work and Phelps’s affection for them is obvious. After the medals ceremony for the 200-meter freestyle, he found his family, leaning over the photo stand to hand his bouquet of flowers to Hilary.

¶Bob Bowman (coach): They have been working together since Phelps was 11. Bowman turned down jobs to remain with Phelps in Baltimore and in the last four years Phelps has followed Bowman to Michigan and back to Maryland, where he is taking over the North Baltimore Aquatic Club program. “I don’t think I would be where I am today with any other coach,” Phelps said.

¶Jason Lezak (relay teammate): In the 4×100-meter freestyle relay, Lezak recorded his fastest 100 split by more than one second to reel in France’s Alain Bernard in the final meter and help Phelps to his second gold medal. Lezak anchored the 4×100 medley relay to victory Sunday as Phelps won his record eighth gold. Lezak said his last thought before he hit the water was “not to blow the lead.” Phelps would not collect the $1 million bonus from his sponsor, Speedo had he only equaled Spitz’s record. For the record, Lezak said he neither expects nor desires a cut of Phelps’s cash.

¶Young Jeezy (rapper): An artist who Phelps has listed as one of his current favorites. Phelps listened to his songs — “Go Getta” is favorite — before his Olympic races. Phelps and his American rival Ryan Lochte, who is also a fan of Jeezy, greet each other by saying “Juh,” in homage to the rapper, a k a Jay Jenkins.

¶Ian Crocker (rival): He is the last one to make Phelps look mortal, which Phelps has used as fuel. At the 2005 world championship in Barcelona, Spain, Crocker set a world record in the 100 butterfly that still stands. Phelps finished more than a second behind Crocker’s 50.40 seconds. After losing to Crocker at the 2004 Olympic trials, Phelps hung a picture of Crocker on his bedroom wall and looked at it every day for inspiration. He has prevailed in their last five meetings.

¶Ian Thorpe (rival): Phelps watched videos of Thorpe’s freestyle, paying particular attention to his underwater dolphin kick off the turns, and sought to emulate him, and not just in the water. At the 2000 Olympics, Phelps saw how popular Thorpe was in his homeland and decided he wanted to do something to make Americans pay more attention to the sport, the way Thorpe had done in Australia. Eight gold medals? That will get people’s attention.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com

Photo Credit: Anja Niedringhaus/Associated Press.

Video Credit: http://in.youtube.com/marablogger