Baba Amte passes away

Noted social activist and Magsaysay award winner Murlidhar Devidas Amte alias Baba Amte passed away in Anandwan ashram in Chandrapur district of Maharashtra on Saturday, February 9th, 2008. He was 94.

Baba Amte passed away at 4:15 am, his son Dr Vikas told PTI.

One of the country's most respected social leaders, Amte devoted his life to the care and rehabilitation of leprosy patients.

He is survived by two sons.

Baba Amte won numerous awards during his life, including Padma Shree (1971) and Padma Vibhushan (1986), most notably the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service in 1985. He was chosen for his work-oriented rehabilitation of Indian leprosy patients and other handicapped outcasts.

In 1999, he was awarded the Gandhi Peace Prize for his exemplary work for treatment and rehabilitation of leprosy patients and his concept of the "Shramik Vidyapeeth" (Workers' University) where patients and volunteers work together.

All monetary proceeds from of his awards were used for his social projects.

Source: Rediff , Wikipedia

Mahesh Yogi's body reaches Allahabad

Allahabad: The body of internationally-renowned spiritual guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who popularised transcendental meditation across the globe reached here from his base in Netherlands, Saturday. The seer, who initiated the British pop-rock band Beatles into Indian spiritualism and transcendental meditation, died Tuesday, February 5, 2008, Vlodrop, Netherlands.

On January 11, 2008, he announced his retirement from all administrative activities and went into Mouna (spiritual silence). He declared: "Invincibility is irreversibly established in the world. My work is done. My designated duty to Guru Dev is fulfilled." Like many Hindu sages, he foresaw his imminent samadhi; he died less than a month later.

The chartered flight carrying the body of the Maharishi, along with at least 250 of his European devotees, landed Saturday morning at Varanasi. The body was carried in an open truck adorned with flowers, flanked by special convoys of cars and buses, along the 120-km route.

After reaching Allahabad around noon, the body was taken in a procession through the city streets to a local ashram run by Hindu cleric Swami Vasudevanand. The body was kept at the ashram for nearly three hours before reaching its final destination at the religious school run by Mahesh Yogi's organisation - Maharishi Ved Vidyapeeth - in Arail on the bank of the Ganga river here. The cortege reached the Vidyapeeth around 4.30 p.m. where his followers began to pour in to pay their last respects.

Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) chief Ashok Singhal, Swami Vasudevanand and several prominent seers joined the procession. The Vidyapeeth, created by the Maharishi as a part of his mission to promote Vedic teachings, was also a gift to his native town from where he completed his school education and obtained his masters degree in Physics.Spread over a sprawling campus, the Vidyapeeth has about 2,500 students pursuing a their education in the traditional Indian style.

The streets of Allahabad were clogged by the long motorcade that drew huge crowds to have a last glimpse of the spiritual icon. Mahesh Yogi's body has been kept in a specially erected enclosure at the Vidyapeeth where it will remain open to public on Sunday. According to the Maharishi's nephew Prakash Srivastava, the cremation will take place on the banks of Ganga in the vicinity of the Vidyapeeth Monday morning.

After the Maharishi's death on February 5, 2008, Sir Paul McCartney released a statement saying, "Whilst I am deeply saddened by his passing, my memories of him will only be joyful ones. He was a great man who worked tirelessly for the people of the world and the cause of unity. I will never forget the dedication that he wrote inside a book he once gave me, which read 'radiate, bliss, consciousness', and that to me says it all. I will miss him but will always think of him with a smile." Ringo Starr released a statement saying, "One of the wise men I met in my life was the Maharishi. I always was impressed by his joy and I truly believe he knows where he is going."

Source: MSN, Wikipedia

Yahoo! to evaluate Microsoft proposal

Yahoo! Board of Directors to Evaluate Unsolicited Proposal From Microsoft

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Feb 01, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company, today said that it has received an unsolicited proposal from Microsoft to acquire the Company. The Company said that its Board of Directors will evaluate this proposal carefully and promptly in the context of Yahoo!'s strategic plans and pursue the best course of action to maximize long-term value for shareholders.

Source: Yahoo!

Microsoft bids $44.6 billion to buy Yahoo

Microsoft Proposes Acquisition of Yahoo! for $31 per Share

REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 1, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) today announced that it has made a proposal to the Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) Board of Directors to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion. Microsoft’s proposal would allow the Yahoo! shareholders to elect to receive cash or a fixed number of shares of Microsoft common stock, with the total consideration payable to Yahoo! shareholders consisting of one-half cash and one-half Microsoft common stock. The offer represents a 62 percent premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock on Jan. 31, 2008.

“We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “We believe our combination will deliver superior value to our respective shareholders and better choice and innovation to our customers and industry partners.”

“Our lives, our businesses, and even our society have been progressively transformed by the Web, and Yahoo! has played a pioneering role by building compelling, high-scale services and infrastructure,” said Ray Ozzie, chief software architect at Microsoft. “The combination of these two great teams would enable us to jointly deliver a broad range of new experiences to our customers that neither of us would have achieved on our own.”

The online advertising market is growing at a very fast pace, from over $40 billion in 2007 to nearly $80 billion by 2010. The resulting benefits of scale along with the associated capital costs for advertising platform providers make this a time of industry consolidation and convergence. Today this market is increasingly dominated by one player. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a competitive choice while better fulfilling the needs of customers and partners.

“The combined assets and strong services focus of these two companies will enable us to achieve scale economics while reaching R&D critical mass to deliver innovation breakthroughs,” said Kevin Johnson, president of the Platforms & Services Division of Microsoft. “The industry will be well served by having more than one strong player, offering more value and real choice to advertisers, publishers and consumers.”

Source: Microsoft