President-elect Obama's Statement on Job Loss

The 533,000 jobs lost last month, the worst job loss in 34 years, is more than a dramatic reflection of the growing economic crisis we face. Each of those lost jobs represents a personal crisis for a family somewhere in America. Our economy has already lost nearly 2 million jobs during this recession, which is why we need an Economic Recovery Plan that will save or create at least 2.5 million more jobs over two years while we act decisively to maintain the flows of credit on which so many American families and American businesses depend. There are no quick or easy fixes to this crisis, which has been many years in the making, and it's likely to get worse before it gets better. But now is the time to respond with urgent resolve to put people back to work and get our economy moving again. At the same time, this painful crisis also provides us with an opportunity to transform our economy to improve the lives of ordinary people by rebuilding roads and modernizing schools for our children, investing in clean energy solutions to break our dependence on imported oil, and making an early down payment on the long-term reforms that will grow and strengthen our economy for all Americans for years to come.

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H.P.S. Ahluwalia

Major H.P.S. Ahluwalia is an Indian mountaineer . He climbed Mt Everest on 29 May 1965.
In 1965 Indo Pak war he was injured and confined to the wheel chair.He set up Indian Spinal Injury Society in 1993.He was awarded Padma Bhushan award in 2002.
Major Ahluwalia is also the chairman of Rehabilitation Council of India and is a recipient of several awards like Padma Sri, Arjuna award, National Award for the best work done in the field of Disability, order of the Khalsa (Nissan A Khalsa).
He has written several books like ‘Higher than Everest’, ‘Beyond the Himalayas’, ‘Everest is within you’.

Gary Leonard Ackerman

Gary Leonard Ackerman (born November 19, 1942) is presently serving his thirteenth term in the United States House of Representatives. Ackerman represents the Fifth Congressional District of New York, encompassing the North Shore of Long Island, including West and Northeast Queens and Northern Nassau County. It includes areas like Corona, Flushing, Jamaica Estates, Bayside, Whitestone, Douglaston, and Little Neck in Queens, as well as Great Neck, Sands Point, Port Washington, Searingtown, Albertson, Manhasset, and Roslyn in Nassau County.
Biography

Congressman Ackerman was first elected to Congress in a special election of 1983. Born in Brooklyn to Eva and Max Ackerman,[1] Ackerman was raised in Flushing, Queens. He attended local public schools, Brooklyn Technical High School and graduated from Queens College in 1965. After college, Ackerman became a New York City School teacher where he taught social studies, mathematics, and journalism to junior high school students in Queens.
Following the birth of his first child in 1969, Ackerman petitioned the New York City Board of Education for an unpaid leave of absence to spend time with his newborn daughter. But his request was denied under then existing policy which reserved unpaid "maternity-child care" leave to women only.
In what was to be a forerunner of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, then teacher Ackerman successfully sued the Board in a landmark case which established the right of either parent to receive unpaid leave for child care. A quarter of a century later, now a Congressman, Ackerman in the House-Senate Conference Committee, signed the report of the Family and Medical Leave Act which became the law of the land.
Ackerman's second career move occurred in 1970, when he left teaching to start a weekly community newspaper in Queens called The Flushing Tribune which soon became the Queens Tribune. Ackerman served as its editor and publisher.
Ackerman was first elected to public office — the New York State Senate — in 1978. State Senator Ackerman was then elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1983 in a special election. Ackerman represented the central Queens area until 1992, when reapportionment reconfigured his district to the north shore of Queens, Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Then redistricting in 2002 slightly redrew the boundaries again to its present configuration of communities in Queens and Nassau County.
Ackerman, who sports a white carnation boutonnière each day, lives on a houseboat named the Unsinkable II while in Washington, D.C. and otherwise resides in Roslyn Heights in Nassau County with his wife Rita, having moved there from a home in Jamaica Estates, Queens that sold for US$1 million in 2008.[2] The Ackermans have three children: Lauren, who married Paul; Corey, who married Lena; and Ari.[citation needed] Representative Ackerman is an amateur photographer, an avid stamp collector and a boating enthusiast. Ackerman is an Eagle Scout.
At the 2006 meeting of the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians (ICJP), Ackerman was unanimously elected to serve as the executive of the organization.

A. Ramachandran

A. Ramachandran is a renowned Indian painter, born in 1935 in Attingal, Kerala. In 2002, he was elected a Fellow of the Lalit Kala Akademi, the highest honour in art conferred by the Government of India; three years later, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India’s third highest civilian honour, for outstanding service to the nation.
In 1957, he obtained his Master's degree in Malayalam literature, but art had remained a continuing interest since childhood. He joined Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan and completed his education in art in 1961. Between 1961 and 1964, he did his doctoral thesis on the mural paintings of Kerala. By the mid-60s, he had moved to Delhi and in 1965 he joined Jamia Milia Islamia as a lecturer in art education. Later, he became a professor in the same department and was attached to the university until his voluntary retirement in 1992. In 1991, he was appointed honorary chairman of Kerala Lalit Kala Akademi, and in 2005 became Professor Emeritus at Jamia Millia Islamia University.
Initially, Ramachandran painted in an expressionist style which poignantly reflected the angst of urban life. The paintings were large, akin to murals, and comprised powerful figuration. By the 1980s however, Ramachandran's work underwent a sea-change. Urban reality was no longer a preoccupation. A tribal community in Rajasthan with its vibrant ethos gripped his imagination. Simultaneously, the colours and forms of the murals in the Kerala temples began to influence his mode of expression. Myths became a great resource for him. The first in this new style was ‘Yayati’, a retelling of this story from the Indian epic Mahabharata. It was conceived as the inner shrine of a Kerala temple, with thirteen bronze sculptures surrounded on three sides by painted murals, 60 by 8 feet in total size.
As a painter, his strong command over lines, colours and forms create an exciting visual drama. Ramachandran's canvases are vibrant with a sense of teeming, burgeoning life. The artist's quirky sense of irony imbues his paintings with a piquancy and feeling of new discoveries. And, as one who considered Ramkinkar Baij as his guru, Ramachandran has created sculptures which are even more intriguing in formal terms than his paintings.
In 2003, the National Gallery of Modern Art (New Delhi) organized a major retrospective of his work. A comprehensive two-volume book ‘A Ramachandran: A Retrospective’ (by Prof. Siva Kumar) documenting and analyzing his works was released simultaneously.
Ramachandran is the author of an extensive study on Kerala temple murals (‘Abode of Gods: Mural Traditions of Kerala’).
He designed the granite bas-relief sculpture at the Rajiv Gandhi Memorial at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai, Tamilnadu, completed in 2003. It extends for 125 feet and has a height of nearly 20 feet.
Although known largely for his grand paintings and sculptures, he has written and illustrated numerous picture books for children that have been published in India, Japan, Britain and the United States. Some of the original illustrations from these books are on permanent display at the Museum of Children’s Books at Miyazaki, Japan.
Ramachandran lives and works in New Delhi. He is married to artist Tan Yuan Chameli.