Durga Puja:

P.C.:Saptarshi Banerjee(friend)

The sweet breeze of autumn brings forth with it the season of celebration in the Bengali heart as the East Indian state eagerly awaits the homecoming of Goddess Durga. The celebration of Goddess Durga, a ten days affair in Bengal, accompanied with merrymaking over food, drinks and cultural performances, is often highlighted as one of the prime examples of religion and secularism blending into each other quite peacefully.

In recent years,a lot of scholarly attention has been turned towards explaining the non-Vedic roots of Goddess Durga. Kunal Chakraborty, one of the foremost historians to have worked on the subject has written that the accommodation of tribal deities into the Hindu pantheon through the Puranas, began from the 6th century onward. It is only from the 16th century on that we see Durga developing into a Brahmanical deity, whose worship as a public festival gains visibility from the 18th century on.

The celebration of Durga Puja in Bengal underwent its most significant shift when the partition of Bengal was announced in 1905.

Today as Bengal, and the Bengali community all over the world celebrates Durga Puja in its familiar carnivalistic spirit, devoid of the usual religious sentiments attached to the worship of most other deities in India, it is important to keep in mind that the celebration of Durga, for generations has been far more than a spiritual and religious affair.

CBSE relaxes passing criteria for Class 10 students

In a relief to Class 10 students, the Central Board of Secondary Education has extended the passing criteria. “To give relaxation to students, the board has decided to ease the passing criteria for Class 10 students from 2019,” said CBSE chairman Anita Karwal. From next year, the students need to get a minimum of 33 per cent marks in theory and practical combined to declare pass in the subject.

“It has now been decided to extend the same passing criteria henceforth for the students of secondary classes i.e. candidates apprearing for Class 10 examination 2019 onwards will have to secure 33 per cent (both taken together) in the subjects to be eligible to pass the subject,” mentioned the official release.  Earlier, CBSE had announced that students do not have to pass separately in theory as well as practical exams.

“All candidates who had appeared in the exam as per the scheme of studies were exempted from separate pass criteria in internal assessment and board examination. The result was computed in each subject taking into account combined marks obtained in internal assessment and board exam and those who secured 33 per cent marks was declared pass in that subject,” read the official release. “In case of a candidate being absent in practical or internal assessment, the marks were treated as zero and result was computed accordingly.”

CLICK HERE(Book Store)

Google+ will be shut down:

Google has worked to improve Google+ over the years with several  notable updates ever since the social network first launched in 2011. However, it looks like Google+’s time is coming to an end.

Google today revealed that it’s shutting down the consumer version of Google+. The service will wind down over the next 10 months, with the goal of finishing the shutdown by the end of August 2019. Users will be able to download and migrate their data. As for why it’s being shut down, Google says that Google+ has “low usage and engagement”, with 90 percent of G+ user sessions lasting less than five seconds.

A major security bug appears to also be to blame for the Google+ shutdown. Google said today that it found a bug in one of the Google+ People APIs that allowed developers access to profile data like full names, email addresses, birth dates, gender, profile photos, places live, occupation, and relationship status. Info like phone numbers, email messages, timeline posts, and direct messages were not surfaced by this API.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, this bug existed from 2015 through March 2018, and Google confirms that it patched the bug in March 2018 after it discovered its existence. Before patching it, Google ran an analysis and found that up to 500,000 Google+ accounts were affected. The company does say that it found no evidence to show that any developer was aware of the bug or that any profile data was misued.

Google+ may not be the biggest social network — far from it, according to Google — but there are some folks out there that use it, so the news of its shutdown is a bit disappointing for them. G+ did have some interesting ideas, like its concept of Circles for deciding who you share posts with. Now that G+ is shutting down, maybe we’ll see some of those ideas used in other social networks.

Fresh Air on Sale!

Gone are the days when we said the air is a free gift of nature. Compressed New Zealand Air is being sold for nearly USD 100 at the Auckland airport. A picture of Kiwiana company's pure fresh New Zealand Air in cans is going viral on Twitter. A pack of four bottles for sale at USD 98.99.

The Kiwiana website claims the air is "harvested above the snow line hundreds of kilometres from civilisation", in an area somewhere near Hokitika.

It is available on the website for just USD 29.50, as "the purest air you will ever breath" (sic). The packaging on the photo that is being shared widely on social media states that the cans are part of a "value pack" and buyers can "save $20". These bottles come along with facemask that lets people breathe in the air "almost [as] if they were standing right here in this pristine environment themselves".

Kiwiana also offers five-litre cans of "medical grade air" on their website for USD 34.50 each. The company on their website says, "New Zealand has one of the most pristine environments on earth, with clear blue skies, low population and geographical location, it has some of the cleanest air on the planet. When it comes to your health why risk it? Without your health you have nothing. Life is priceless

Microsoft's Surface Laptop2

Microsoft announces Surface Laptop 2

Another bit of expected news at today’s big Microsoft  event. Here’s the latest version of the Surface Laptop. Once again, not a lot of changes on the outside of the product — which might be for the best. After all, the Laptop is presently my favorite member of the Surface family.

Product lead Panos Panay touched upon the keyboard, which is easily one of the device’s best features, particularly compared to the keyboard cases found on other Surface devices. Like the Pro, the new device now comes in a much slicker matte black. And, like the Pro, most of the key changes are inside.

The new Laptop is said to be 85 percent faster than its predecessor, thanks to an on-board 8th-gen Quad Core Intel processor. The battery also gets an impressive 14.5 hours, which should more than get you through that flight. That’s even more impressive because Microsoft is giving the laptop a brighter, thinner and higher-resolution display, too.

Pre-order for the device opens today, starting at $899. It will start shipping October 16.

Petta second look:

Superstar Rajinikanth looks young and dashing

sun Pictures on Thursday unveiled the second look of Rajinikanth from his upcoming film Petta. Dressed in a traditional attire, the 67-year-old superstar looks half his age in the second poster. He also sports a striking handlebar moustache.

Petta is young filmmaker Karthik Subbaraj's maiden directorial venture with Rajinikanth. He has been shooting the film at a breakneck speed in various parts of the country. After shooting some portions in Lucknow, the film crew has moved to Varanasi for a month-long schedule. According to reports, director-actor Sasikumar shot for his cameo role during the Varanasi schedule.

Petta has a sprawling star cast handpicked from the Tamil, Hindi and Malayalam film industries. Actors Simran, Trisha, Malavika Mohanan, Megha Akash and Bobby Simha will be seen sharing the screen space with Tamil Superstar Rajinikanth. Bollywood's seasoned actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui will make his debut in Tamil with Petta. Vijay Sethupathi will also be seen in an important role. Composer Anirudh Ravichander is scoring the music for the upcoming film.

The industry buzz is that the filmmakers are aiming to release the film for Pongal in January next year.

CLICK HERE( Movies)