http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand

Region: South Western Pacific Ocean
(Island country comprising two main landmasses)
Area total: 268,021 km²
Coast line: Pasific Ocean, Tasman Sea
Capital: Wellington




Hauraki Gulf



.Kawhia Harbour



Lake Pupuke



Muriwai Beach



Muriwai beach-gannet colony



Omaha Beach near Auckland



Piha Beach



Waiheke Island



Waiheke Island



Rangitoto Island



Beautiful surroundings near Karekare waterfall



Karekare - Surf Clu

http://www.facebook.com/indiavisionlive?sk=app_162891010412392

ART PAINTING WALL PAPER

The Miracle of Computers!

Hope you enjoy this one- it's interesting to see all that
is included. It would prove invaluable assistance to anyone studying history or biographies.
Well worth saving for students.
Now take a look at this picture.....

Painted by Chinese Artists, Dai Dudu, Li Tiezi and Zhang An,
oil on canvas, 2006.
This painting is truly remarkable.
Even more amazing though, is that the canvas has
been computerized.
When you click on the link below, a much bigger
version of the computerized painting appears.
Run your cursor over the people.

Happy New Year 1433 H.

Happy Hijri New year to all of you and your families. May this year be filled with happiness, success and prosperity to you and your families.

Udayapura, Banglore

The Art of Living Ashram, also known as The Art of Living International Center, is located on top of thePanchagiri Hills, 36 km south of Bangalore. A fusion of the old and the new, this ashram is an affirmation of what the Art of Living truly believes in.



It is founded by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who is an inspiration to thousands of people around the world and is regarded as a spiritual leader, a meditation teacher and an advocate of peace among other things.



In the Sanskrit language the word Shram means effort, while the word Ashram means a place where things take place effortlessly and the encouraging motto of the Art of Living Ashram is You can come here with innumerable concerns and botherations, but you cannot take them back with you.










Spread over a sprawling 65 acres, the Art of Living campus is filled with beautiful flowering plants and trees besides curving footpaths, a serene lake and the mesmerizing Vishalakshi Mantapa, the central meditation hall.




Art of Living courses are offered within the ashram itself and different workshops are conducted for different age groups. The Art of Living Ashram courses range from the basic, known as the Sudarshan Kriya, to detailed courses that allow attendees to understand themselves at a deeper level.










Every evening, The Art of Living Ashram conducts a Satsang where devotees sing, dance and meditate with songs praising different Gods and Goddesses. The ashram also gives worshippers an opportunity to do Seva(voluntary work) in the ashram which includes duties such as cleaning the ashram, helping in the kitchen, and taking ownership of the ashram as if was one’s own home. The Art of Living bhajans are renowned all over the world.








--

The Long Divergence: What Turned the Tables Between the West and Islam?





November 21, 2011 • Posted by:Charles Lewis Sizemore, CFA



For centuries the Islamic world dominated the West militarily, economically, and culturally. As late as 1683, when Ottoman forces laid siege to Vienna, Muslim military domination was a legitimate fear for the Christian world.


Excluding the sophisticated Byzantine Empire—which Muslim Arab forces nearly conquered and Muslim Turkish forces did conquer in 1453—and some of the city-states of Italy, the West remained backward and underdeveloped compared to the Middle East for roughly 1,000 years. Prior to the Renaissance the West had nothing that could rival Damascus, Baghdad or the other great cities of the region.


But then, a funny thing happened. Europe emerged as an economic juggernaut and turned the tables on the Islamic world. Starting in the late 1400s and accelerating with the Industrial Revolution of the late 1700s, the West emerged as the dominant military, economic, and cultural force in the world.


The question that has perplexed scholars for ages is why?


None of the popular explanations are satisfactory. Those who would suggest that Islam is hostile to commerce have clearly never walked the streets of a Muslim country or have never spent five minutes discussing business with a Lebanese—Muslim or Christian. Arabs—particularly in the Levant—have capitalism in their blood, as do Turks and North Africans. Try your luck at haggling in a bazaar, and you’ll see what I mean.


The oft-cited Muslim prohibition against the charging of interest also fails to hold water. The charging of interest was prohibited for Christians in the West for most of the Middle Ages, and neither Christians nor Muslims prevented Jewish minorities within their borders from charging interest.


Islam’s founder was also no stranger to the business of making money. Unlike Jesus Christ—who lived his earthly life as a humble carpenter and eschewed worldly possessions—Muhammad was a hard-nosed trader and businessman before he became a religious leader, and the Koran is far more “business friendly” than the Christian New Testament.


The second popular explanation—that the Islamic world is poor due to Western imperialism—makes even less sense. Until roughly 1500 it was the Muslim powers doing the colonizing, not the Christian. And in any event, the West’s eventual colonization of the Islamic world happened only after it had become wealthier, so we’re back to the original question: why did the West rise to the top in the first place?


In his engaging new book The Long Divergence, Timur Kuran believes he has found the answer: the West invented the corporation.


The Christian New Testament is a general guide for spiritual and personal living; it is distinctly not an all-encompassing blueprint for organizing a society. Ever since Christ’s admonition to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and render to God what is God’s, there has been an understanding that there are secular areas of life for which religion does not have the answer. This left the Christian world free to experiment with concepts such as double-entry accounting, the limited partnership or the corporation.


Not so in the Islamic world. As Kuran writes,


In principle, Islamic law covered all human activity… In commerce and finance, two areas in which the Middle East fell conspicuously behind, Islamic law played a key role. People entered into contracts that followed an Islamic template and were enforced through Islamic courts. They apportioned estates according to Islamic inheritance rules. Residents of the region’s great cities obtained services mostly from waqfs, which were trusts formed under Islamic law and supervised by officials with religious training. Almost all lawsuits involving at least one Muslim were litigated by Muslim judges, under Islamic legal principles.


Interesting, the uniform commercial code imposed by Islam was initially a boon to commerce. Since all Muslims played by the same set of rules and were held accountable in the same Islamic courts, business deals across borders became remarkably easy.


Unfortunately, these Islamic institutions had several limitations that made them unsuitable for the modern era:



The concept of limited liability did not exist in Islamic partnership law. All partners were responsible for the obligations of the partnership, which discouraged risk taking.
Islamic partnerships are designed for specific projects and are not designed to be perpetual going concerns. The partnerships are automatically dissolved with the death of a partner, and any partner can dissolve the partnership at any time. Partners could not sell their ownership interests in the form of tradable shares of stock or pass their ownership interests to their heirs.
Islamic inheritance law ensures that assets are dispersed among wives, children, and even siblings, and the common practice of polygamy among the wealthy meant that there were more heirs entitled to a share of the inheritance. Under sharia, a Muslim only has discretion over one third of his or her assets; the rest is distributed per Koranic guidelines.

These restrictions prevented the multigenerational accumulation of wealth and prevented the emergence of large corporations that were capable of engaging is long-term, global enterprises. Something like the British East India Company, for example, would have been absolutely out of the question.


It was only in the late 1800s that Muslim rulers began to import Western legal institutions, and these were subject to opposition by religious conservatives. But by then, the damage was done. The West had already leapt into the position of world dominance.


Though his explanations may seem too simple to some readers, Mr. Kuran makes a compelling case and he has the research to back it up. The Sizemore Investment Letterrecommends The Long Divergence for any readers that are economic history buffs.


Alas, for the Occupy Wall Street crowd, the book will only provide more proof of the unassailable power of the modern corporation.

"We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself."

~Lloyd Alexander~

Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you'll understand what little chance you have in trying to change others.~Unknown~

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.~Thomas Edison~


"Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect Leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly Under your belt, that's real power."~Clint Eastwood~ 


"Tears are more expensive than a smile because you can give a smile to anyone you want,but the tears fall only for the best person..."~Unknown~

The only difference between stumbling blocks and steppingstones is the way in which we use them.

~unknown~

Write the bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble.~Arabic Proverb~ 


Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try Again. Fail Again. Fail better.~Samuel Beckett~                

A wise soul opens the window to the future by closing the doors to the past.

~unknown~

Life without trust is a life in turmoil.~unknown~

Happiness is inward and not outward; and so it does not depend on what we have, but on what we are.~Henry Van Dyke~