Hans Rosling: Asia's rise -- how and when

Hans Rosling was a young guest student in India when he first realized that Asia had all the capacities to reclaim its place as the world's dominant economic force. At TEDIndia, he graphs global economic growth since 1858 and predicts the exact date that India and China will outstrip the US.

Fly Without Fear

Flying is the safest form of travel, but it terrifies 40% of airline passengers. In fact, fear of flying is so common that a website scared of flying has been set up to offer nervous travelers techniques and advice to conquer their phobia.
Features include a monthly webcast called the captain’s clinic, allowing you to talk directly to an airline captain. Each session lasts about an hour and attempts to answer all your questions. Those wanting a more direct approach can book a flight simulator, which gives you the experience of flying without having to board a plane.
In a more relaxing vein, a series of audio CDs and a book called flying Without Fear provide both encouragement and information. And to reassure yourself that you’re not alone, chat with others and share your thoughts via the site’s online discussion forum.

Nordic Walking

The term is less than a decade old, and is largely unknown in India. Even in England it’s become popular only in the past couple of years. Derived from a Finnish method of training cross-country skiers during the summer months, Nordic walking is becoming a popular alternative to jogging. This sport is similar to the training required for cross-country skiing, but without snow or skis, but using special walking stick-like poles. Brisk walking with the poles is not only good for the legs but for your whole body. The poles support part of your body weight and this takes pressure off the joints.

In this sport, you should walk along briskly with slightly longer strides than in normal walking supported by the poles. The body should be taut and the posture slightly forward-leaning. Keep your head straight, with your eyes on the horizon. The arms swing forward alternatively; the poles hit the ground slightly behind the forward heel and pull through the full length of the stride. Give yourself a good forward impetus with the poles and then open your hand fully. The loops hold the pole in position for a moment and then open you renew your grasp.
If you’re getting the poles make sure they’re the right length. This is crucial. As general rule the length of the poles should be 0.7 times your won height. For beginners, normal running or walking shoes are fine to start off with.

The Travel Agent

“The spirit of entrepreneurship includes imagination, inventiveness and openness to the new. This spirit of creative response aligns with the capacity to exercise moral imagination and to see ethical problems in a new light. To be sure, our most fundamental ethical values -- values such as honesty, avoiding doing harm, keeping commitments -- are grounded in timeless traditions and are not likely to be soon abandoned. But it is in the application of these ethical values to emerging, unique situations, where moral imagination and the entrepreneurial spirit can make a decisive difference.”   David Schmidt.

A story of an entrepreneur who believes on himself and whose vision is different than others. Here is the story of entrepreneur Kong; 


Alex Kong was genetically destined to be an entrepreneur. When his grandfather arrived on Borneo from China in the 1940s, he established a timber business. His son, Kong’s father, started as a carpenter, and later teamed up with his children to launch a succession of businesses, ranging from seafood exporting to a travel agency.
“If you want to make money, you have to be the boss,” Kong’s father once told him. “Don’t work for somebody else.”
After graduating from the University of Hawaii in 1993 with a degree in tourism planning, Kong returned to Sarawak with plans to get into the travel business. His father had built a hotel in Malaysia’s Gunung Mulu National Park on Borneo Island, but it was struggling due to its remote location. Kong established a travel company that packaged the hotel with transportation and other services. The company, along with his father’s hotel, boomed.
But Kong had bigger plans. An enthusiastic internet user at university, he now wanted to use his technology to expand his travel business. In the mid-1990s the internet was still largely underutilized in Asia, but Kong was convinced that it would take off. When he married his long time sweetheart Catalina Chu in March 1997, the future looked bright.
Within months, everything changed. A thick haze from forest fires in nearby Indonesia engulfed the entire region, keeping tourist away. Then in August, the Malaysian stock market crashed and the currency collapsed. Business slowed to a trickle. All Kong had to fall back on was his plan to start an internet travel business.
 Kong sold everything he had and gave $447, 000 to a Kuala Lumpur company to develop an internet-based ticketing and reservation system. “I know this will work,” he assured Catalina. But at the end of 1997, the company went bankrupt without delivering the goods. Kong was completely broke. He couldn’t even afford to care for Catalina, who was pregnant and living in Hong Kong with her parents.
Still, Kong clung to his dream. This is the best time to launch, he told himself. People are looking for bargains. All he had to do was find a financial backer. In early 1998 he met hundreds of bankers and corporate investors. Unable to afford taxis, he sometime showed up for meetings soaking wet from the rain.
“If this project fails, I have nothing left,” he told potential backers. “I have to make this work.” They were touched by his simple, straight-forward approach, but nobody had money to invest.
In April 1998, Kong secured a meeting in Kuala Lumpur with Hanson Cheah, founder of the Hong Kong based venture capital group AsiaTech Venture. Unlike other potential investors, Cheah understood immediately the almost unlimited possibilities of the internet. After Kong’s 90-minute presentation, he took only a few seconds to respond: “How much do you need?”
With an initial investment of $180, 000, Kong started Asia Travel Network in June 1998. The company, through his website Asiatravelmart, links travelers with hotels, airlines and other suppliers. Its bulk buying power secures discounts for customers around the world. Asia Travel Network, which employs more than 100 people, is now a multi-million dollar business.
Catalina and their daughter Claudia have moved to Kuala Lumpur, where Kong now lives. “It was tough trying to convince investors to believe in my pain,” he says. “But my belief, coupled with loads of tenacity, was all that I needed to keep going.”

Coffee fights Cancer?

Everyday all tell us something nice for us. But, here’s good news for cappuccino addicts. Coffee may actually be good for you. A study at the National cancer Centre in Tokyo found that subjects who drank coffee daily had about half the risk of a particular type of liver cancer as those who did not.
In another study in Boston, the researchers found no connection between caffeinated coffee or tea and colon or rectal cancer. They did find that those drinking two or more cups of decaffeinated coffee a day had a reduced risk of rectal cancer – though this may just be because decaf drinkers tend to have healthier lifestyle.