Focus: Special 'Ramadan Foods' From Around The World

By Sheena Shafia

RAMADHAN SPECIAL: Iftar can be described as a fast-breaking meal which is a daily ritual during the holy month of Ramadan. A traditional Iftar menu around the world consists of juice, fruits, dates, milk, and water. Muslims belief that the Prophet Mohammad usually broke his fast by either eating dates or drinking water.

Ramadan is a month of fasting and celebration for Muslims around the world. It is a significant month throughout the Middle East. Muslims reflect on their spiritual side and spend quality time with family and friends. During Ramadan, it is very important to focus on what’s important in life and how to improve relationships between family and friends.

New Robot Journalists: ‘Quakebot’ Is Just The Beginning!

By Sarah Williams
Group Regional Editor - USA

EXCLUSIVE: When an earthquake hit Los Angeles recently, Ken Schwencke, a journalist and programmer for the Los Angeles Times, was first to get the news out. Woken up by the tremors at 6:25 a.m. on Monday, March 17, he went to his computer and found a brief story already waiting, courtesy of a robot — an algorithm he developed and named Quakebot.

Quakebot’s role in the swift reporting of the earthquake story has industry observers talking about the role of robots in the future of journalism. Among those at the forefront of robot journalism is Noam Lemelshtrich Latar, dean of the Sammy Ofer School of Communications at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.

‘Mutual Respect’: When 'Consumers' And' 'Brands' Collide

By Newscop
Group Managing Editor

FACE-TO-FACE: Shailesh Rao, vice president of Asia Pacific, the Americas and emerging markets for Twitter, sees himself as an educator and an evangelist. He did not know how much he would fit into this role until he arrived in India in 2007 as Google’s head for that country and discovered lack of understanding about the Internet. According to eMarketer, India is set to become Twitter’s largest market after the U.S. with a projected 40 million users by 2018, up from 17 million this year.

Twitter, says Rao, is powerful. It is a platform that enables a specific kind of communication and exchange, which is real time, public and conversational. Everybody on the planet is able to get value and use Twitter, he adds.

Opinion: What’s Holding Back Affordable Housing In India

By Likha Veer
Group Executive Editor

INTERVIEW: India needs more than five million homes annually and more than 90% of this demand is in the affordable segment — homes priced at less than $50,000. But supply is lagging. Rajesh Krishnan, founder and CEO of the Brick Eagle Group, a financial services platform for affordable housing, says the disparity between supply and demand is because of a broken ecosystem. According to him, everybody in the affordable housing value chain “seems to be missing some piece of the puzzle.”

In a conversation with INNLIVE, Krishnan talks about his prescription for affordable housing in India. He points out that along with being a pressing social need, it is also a $100 billion market opportunity. “We are making investments across the value chain so that we can take it from start to finish.”

Mobile Arms Race: Why Privacy Is the Next Battleground?

By M H Ahssan - Group Editor in Chief

Recently, Apple and Google unveiled the latest iterations of their iOS and Android mobile platforms, respectively. While these were incremental enhancements from both companies, a war is brewing to make consumers’ smartphones even smarter, by using more personal data.

The two companies dominate the mobile platform space, and are now taking the fight to a new battleground that revolves around knowing users well enough to be proactively helpful, to deliver information that is contextually relevant and to make their devices act even more like a human personal assistant.

The World's 'Spiciest & Strong Chilli' Grows In India!

By Hemanshu Rai in Imphal

One of the many things that puzzle people about those from the Northeast is their obsession for bhut jalokia. A fiery chilli that makes them teary eyed. It's so hot that some even cry! But these are only tears of joy. To stop the tears, they quickly take a mouthful of raw sugar! All is well again and they continue eating.

A meal in some parts of the region is hardly complete unless it is laced with hot and sizzling bhut jalokia. The scary-sounding name "bhut jalokia" is a vermilion-coloured chilli pepper which is famed as the world's hottest chilli. In 2007, it was certified by the Guinness World Records as the 'hottest chilli pepper in the world'. In fact, in 2010 the Indian military decided to use this chilli in hand grenades for crowd control.

Hema Malini's Behaviour Not Acceptable In Any Politician!

By Krishna Kumar

How many characters does it take to hang yourself in the public eye? One hundred and forty, and that's not including the characters who make up Hema Malini's publicity team. 

This morning, the former actress and current politician's Twitter account presented the world wide web with this: "How I wish the girl's father had followed the traffic rules - thn this accident could have been averted & the lil one's life safe!".

If we ever come up with a visual dictionary, then this tweet could work as the perfect example for two words -- callousness and stupidity.

Spotlight: It's Perfect Time To Stop The Degree Snobbery?

By Likha Veer
Group Executive Editor

With even well-known institutes ditching the diploma, experts say skills matter more than a certificate. Remember those black and-white graduation photos in the family album, the prized degree held up and the proud tilt of the head? For Indians, a degree has always been a weighty document. Diplomas? In our snobby minds, those were for the electrician, the beautician or the technician.

Even today most would agree with the views of Bengaluru parent Anuradha Gopinath whose son Vivek G is in Class 11. “If my son chooses to go the IIM route, a diploma is fine. Otherwise, it's only a degree. Let's not compare a diploma from a polytechnic to a degree from a technology institute,“ she says.