One Pen’s Journey

Those who say I can do it and those who say I can’t do it are both usually Right, No one can stop you in achieving your goals other than you. If you really want to achieve your goals you’ll find a way, if you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.’ Shrikant Pantawane from Nagpur, an auto-driver and son of a security guard, started working early in life as a delivery boy to support his families financially. Later he took to driving an auto to make ends meet. At a very young age Shrikant was burdened with responsibilities and he would balance both his job and studies to support his family. But hardships, obstacles and financial struggles never disheartened him from pursuing his dreams. Shrikant still sits behind a three-wheeled vehicle, but now it’s not his auto-rickshaw, but an aircraft! With hard work, determination and passion to defeat his struggles, Shrikant achieved what he had only dreamt of as a child. Once when Shrikant had gone to the airport to deliver a parcel, duri...

A prodigy rock climber, by age eight he had scaled the face of the 11,627-foot Mount Temple in the Canadian Rockies, and by 17 he was acknowledged to be one of the best climbers in the United States . In January 1982, after having ascended a difficult technical ice route in Huntington Ravine on Mount Washington in New Hampshire, Herr and a fellow climber Jeff Batzer were caught in a blizzard and became disoriented, ultimately descending into the Great Gulf where they passed three nights in −29 °C degree temperatures.   By the time they were rescued, the climbers had suffered severe frostbite. Both of Herr’s legs had to be amputated below the knees ; his companion lost his lower left leg, the toes on his right foot, and the fingers on his right hand. While a postdoctoral fellow at MIT in biomedical devices, he began working on advanced leg prostheses and orthoses, devices that emulate the functionality of the human leg. Using specialized prostheses that he designed, he ...

The weight of clouds can reach quite astonishing proportions. For example, a cumulonimbus cloud, commonly known as the thunder cloud, can contain up to 300,000 tons of water. The fact that a mass of 300,000 tons of water can remain aloft is truly amazing. Attention is drawn to the weight of clouds in other verses of the Qur'an: It is He Who sends out the winds, bringing advance news of His mercy, so that when they have lifted up the heavy clouds, We dispatch them to a dead land and send down water to it, by means of which We bring forth all kinds of fruit... (Qur'an, 7:57) It is He Who shows you the lightning, striking fear and bringing hope; it is He Who heaps up the heavy clouds. (Qur'an, 13:12) At the time when the Qur'an was revealed, of course, it was quite impossible to have any information about the weight of clouds. This information, revealed in the Qur'an, but discovered only recently, is yet another proof that the Qur'an is the Word of Alla...

Dr. Salah Sultan , President of Islamic American University and professor of Islamic Jurisprudence, Cairo University, issues the following Fatwa:   "The best way to earn money in Islam is to work hard and employ thought. Islam prohibits a Muslim from earning vast amounts of money without making any effort. Allah Almighty says:   "O you who believe! Strong drink and games of chance and idols and divining arrows are only an infamy of Satan's handiwork. Leave it aside in order that you may succeed."   (Al-Ma'idah: 90)   Islam wants people to give their money for good and charitable causes out of the goodness of their hearts, love of God and humanity, and not through devious and dubious ways and means. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) says,   "Allah does not accept except that which is good and pure."   (Reported by Al-Bukhari)   In Islam, money is not an aim in itself, in the sense that it is a means of earning one's livelihood. It ...

Woman has the right to accept or reject marriage proposals. Her consent is a prerequisite to the validity of the marital contract, according to the Prophet’s teaching. It follows that if an "arranged marriage" means the marrying of a female without her consent, then such a marriage may be annulled if the female so wishes: Ibn Abbas reported that a girl came to the Messenger of Allah, and she reported that her father had forced her to marry without her consent. The Messenger of God gave her the choice...(between accepting the marriage or invalidating it) (Ahmad, Hadith no. 2469). another version of the report states that “the girl said: ‘Actually, I accept this marriage, but I wanted to let women know that parents have no right to force a husband on them.’” (Ibn-Majah). The Muslim scholar, Dr. Bilal Philips had to say the following about Chilad marriage in a recent interview: The concept of child marriage, of course in Islam, if a pers...

Everyday a large number of homeless, poor people who cannot afford a decent meal, line up in neat rows under the Dabeerpura bridge in Hyderabad. Every man, woman and child wait for their turn to pick up a plate, washes it and sits down in formations.Many in the line have not eaten for days, but they still wait their turn. Without a hassle, rice is served on each plate followed by dal and Khichdi. This has been going on for more than three years, with one man sincerely running from end to end serving the food. Azhar Maqsusi is a 36-year-old who lives in the Old City in Hyderabad has been unrelentingly feeding lines of destitute people in the afternoon as part of his daily free-food camp for the past three years."It all started around three years ago. I hardly ever took that route but my tyre got punctured that day and I decided to catch the local train from the station under the bridge when I saw a physically handicapped woman with her feet amputated," says Azhar, reca...

A recent study   found   that bilingual speakers may actually process information more efficiently than single-language speakers. Researchers from Northwestern University, in Illinois, and the University of Houston used brain imaging to look at bilingual people’s comprehension abilities. They found that people who speak more than one language are comparatively better at filtering out unnecessary words than monolinguals, whose brains showed that they had to work harder to complete the same mental tasks. The study, published in the journal   Brain and Language, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to look at what’s called coactivation and inhibition in the brain. Coactivation is the ability to have both languages simultaneously active in the brain, while inhibition is that ability to select a correct language while hearing more than one at a time. The researchers studied 17 Spanish-English bilinguals and 18 monolinguals, and had they undergo tests that as...