2011 Cricket World Cup Matches Announced!

ICC has announced the matches for the 2011 WC. ICC has aimed for the shorter WC and the Super-8 group has been replaced by the old method Quarter-Finals. 14 teams have been split into 2 groups and a team has to end in the top 4 in the group to get to the Quater-Finals, after which the tournaments becomes a knock-out stage. The matches to be played in Pakistan has to shifted to Sri Lanka. Pakistan will play all their matches in Sri Lanka, however they will be welcomed to India if they reach the finals.

The teams are -

Group A – Australia, Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Canada, Kenya.

Group B – India, South Africa, England, West Indies, Bangladesh, Ireland, Netherlands.

Indian matches are as follows,

Feb 19 – India vs Bangladesh – Mirpur
Feb 27 – India vs England – Kolkata
Mar 6 – India vs Ireland – Bangalore
Mar 9 – India vs Netherlands – Delhi
Mar 12 – India vs South Africa – Nagpur
Mar 20 – India vs West Indies – Chennai

Quarter finals – Mar 23 (Mirpur), 24 (Colombo), 25 (Mirpur), 26 (Ahmedabad)
Semi finals – Mar 29 (Colombo), 30 (Mohali)
Finals – Apr 2 (Mumbai)

Matches at Chennai:

Feb 20 – Kenya vs New Zealand
Mar 6 – England vs South Africa
Mar 17 – England vs West Indies
Mar 20 – India vs West Indies

Plastic Indian Rupee Notes

Finally India too have started printing plastic currency notes. Well, not actually started, but its on trial. In September 2009 Reserve Bank of India decided to use polymer banknotes on trial basis. Initially 100 crore of 10 rupee notes will be introduced. Its lifespan will be about 4 times more than the normal notes. I’m eagerly waiting for those plastic notes.

Also India has minted its first bi-metallic coin. The new 10-rupee Coins are minted with nickel and bronze on the outer side and ferrous steel in the inner side. Here is a picture of our new bi-metallic coin. I got one of it about a month back. I got two of them now.

Source: Wikipedia

 DID YOU KNOW:

• Indian Rupee was the official currency in Pakistan, Oman, Bahrain, UAE, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Seychelles, Mauritius, etc. until 1960’s. Since then these countries started using their own currencies.
• The Bhutanese Ngultrum is at par with the Indian Rupee and both are accepted in Bhutan. The Indian rupee is also accepted in towns of Nepalese side of Nepal-India border.
• Some Indian Shops in UK accepts Indian Rupee. 

Nibiru – The Birth

Nibiru, the most talked topic of the century, is (unbelievably) believed by many. You search Nibiru online and every website tells you that it is a fact and that it will destroy Earth in 2012. But if you notice carefully, you’ll realize that none of these websites were created by a professional astronomers. I made a little research to find more about how the rumor of Nibiru actually began.

It all began with the Mayan Calendar. Mayans were one of the oldest civilization. They had formatted a calendar which lasted for more than 3000 years. The last date of the Mayan Calendar leads to 21st December, 2012. Why did the Mayans stop their calendar on that date and why didn’t they continue beyond that? Did the Mayans think that Earth will end on that date? These questions attracted many people. And that’s how it began. But Mayans never meant the end of the world with their calendar. Mr. Jim Papp from Seattle made a research back in 1998 and found that the Mayan Calendar does not end in 2012, but in fact it was the end of a cycle and that the cycle would repeat all over again. It is similar to the Chinese 12-year Calendar.

Visit this website to know more about research of Mr. Papp.

Another very important fact is that the Mayans never mentioned about any unknown planets.

If Mayans didn’t know about the planet Nibiru, where did it come from. Well, the name ‘Nibiru’ was invented by Zecharia Sitchin (born 1922 A.D.), who is an author and a scholar. He created a theory which says that an unknown planet, which he called ‘Nibiru’, collided a planet that existed between Mars and Jupiter and this collision led to the formation of the asteroid belt. He claims that this effect happened in 2024 B.C. Sitchin himself accepted that it was only a theory and no proof of the existence of Nibiru. He also said that he never theorized about Nibiru colliding Earth.

Sumerian Mythology believes that a planet will collide Earth which will lead to the destruction of Earth and all mankind. Now the fact is that Sumerians never claimed to have seen this planet nor did they predict when this would happen. It was just a belief like every other civilization on Earth have, including the modern day ones. It was a belief just like Kalki in Hinduism and Judgement Day in Christianity.

Now lets get back to how the rumor began. People who were obsessed by the Mayan Calendar, began telling everyone that the Earth will end but none would believe. They realised that people will believe them only if they bring about a scientific theories which would grab people’s attention. That’s how the theories began. Some of the theories said the Earth will get destroyed by – a planet colloiding Earth, Cosmic Radiation, Nuclear War, Aliens attacking Earth, etc. Actually all these theories exists. But Nibiru was well bought by people – thanks to these websites.


Now if you go about those Nibiru websites, it is clearly written that Mayans named the planet ‘Nibiru’. But wikipedia says that Sitchin invented that name. This clearly says which is true and which is fake.


Other 2012 rumors:

In 1995, Nancy Lieder proposed the theory of an object that would collide Earth. She describes herself as a contactee with the ability to receive messages from extra-terrestrials from the Zeta Reticuli star system through an implant in her brain (lol). She states that she was chosen to warn mankind that the object would sweep through the Solar System in May 2003, causing a pole shift that would destroy most of humanity. The date was then revised to 2010 and then to 2012. I’m pretty sure that in another 2 years it will again be revised to 2015.This whole story was created by her just to get public attention.

Click Here to read about Nancy Lieder from Wikipedia

Why don’t you google search for “Nostradamus prediction of World War III”. It says a nuclear war between major countries will begin which will destroy most of the Earth and it will end in 2012. The website actually says that it was predicted by Nostradamus himself. I saw this news in 2006 which then said that WW3 will take place between 2007-2012. A year later I checked that website. It was revised to 2008-2012. Now it says 2009-2012. Can you guess what it will be after few months. Hard guess, I guess. :p

Click here to read about the Nostradamus Prediction.

One of the visible star in the night sky called, ‘Betelgeuse‘, was noted to have shrunk 15% since 1993. That is, it is expected to die anytime between the next 5-50 years causing huge explosion which will be clearly seen even during day (And this explosion will not affect Earth by anyway). But now some websites says that the star will die in 2012 creating huge cosmic radiation which will kill all humans just like it killed dinosaurs.
Click Here for the Betelgeuse Rumor.

There are hundreds of other theories as well but most of them are toooooo kiddish to even mention. Of all such theories only the ones I mentioned above had atleast a bit of logic. Well, my point is that all these theories have only one common stuff – the year 2012 and this clearly proves that these theories were created to make people get obsessed about 2012 but none of these will make is a fact.

Songs Copied From ARR

There are too many talks everywhere about Indian Musicians copying their songs from west. But the hard truth is that this happens vice versa too. Even western musicians have copied from the Indian Musicians, especially from A.R. Rahman. View the following video to know youself.

Sun Dog

I had mentioned in my previous post about Sun Dog, which is a type of an ice halo. Click Here to read my post on Halo.

A Sun Dog is a particular type of ice halo. It is a colored patch of light to the left or right of the sun, 22 (or more) degrees distant and at the same distance above the horizon as the sun. It is the most commonly or second most commonly seen of the ice halos. Sun Dogs can be seen anywhere in the world during any season. They are best seen and at their most conspicuous when the sun is low. They are not rainbows.

These Sun Dogs are commonly mistaken for the Planet Nibiru.

Here are some of the pictures of the Sun Dog.