GK !!

PAN explained

PAN is a 10 digit alpha numeric number, where the first 5 characters are letters, the next 4 numbers and the last one a letter again. These 10 characters can be divided in five parts as can be seen below. The meaning of each number has been explained further.
1. First three characters are alphabetic series running from AAA to ZZZ
2. Fourth character of PAN represents the status of the PAN holder.
• C — Company
• P — Person
• H — HUF(Hindu Undivided Family)
• F — Firm
• A — Association of Persons (AOP)
• T — AOP (Trust)
• B — Body of Individuals (BOI)
• L — Local Authority
• J — Artificial Juridical Person
• G — Government
3. Fifth character represents first character of the PAN holder’s last name/surname.
4. Next four characters are sequential number running from 0001 to 9999.
5. Last character in the PAN is an alphabetic check digit.
Nowadays, the DOI (Date of Issue) of PAN card is mentioned at the right (vertical) hand side of the photo on the PAN card.

How some of the global companies were named..........

Mercedes:
This was actually financier’s daughter’s name.

Adobe:
This came from the name of the river Adobe Creek that ran behind the house of founder John Warnock.

Apple Computers:
It was the favourite fruit of founder Steve Jobbs.He was three months late for filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computers if the other colleagues didn’t suggest a better name by 5 o’clock.

CISCO:
It is not an acronym as popularly believed. Its short for San Francisco.

Compaq:
This name was formed by using COMp, for computer and PAQ to denote a small integral object.

Corel:
The name was derived from the founder’s name Dr. Michael Cowpland. It stands for COwpland Research Laboratory.

Google:
The name started as a joke boasting about the amount of information the search-engine would be able to search. It was originally named ‘Googol’,a word for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. After founders – Stanford graduate students Sergey Brin and Larry Page presented their project to an angel investor; they received a cheque made out to ‘Google’.

Hotmail:
Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in ‘mail’ and finally settled for hotmail as it included the letters”html” – the programming language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective uppercasing.

Hewlett Packard :
Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.

Intel:
Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted to name their new company ‘Moore Noyce’ but that was already trademarked by a hotel chain so they had to settle for an acronym of INTegrated ELectronics.

Lotus (Notes):
Mitch Kapor got the name for his company from ‘The Lotus Position’ or’Padmasana’ . Kapor used to be a teacher of transcendental Meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Microsoft:
Coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the ‘-’ was removed later on.

Motorola:
Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when his company started manufacturing radios for cars. The popular radio company at the time was called Victrola.

Sony:
It originated from the Latin word ‘sonus’ meaning sound, and ‘sonny’ as lang used by Americans to refer to a bright youngster.

SUN:
Founded by 4 Stanford University buddies, SUN is the acronym forStanford University Network. Andreas Bechtolsheim built a microcomputer; Vinod Khosla recruited him and Scott McNealy to manufacture computers based on it, and Bill Joy to develop a UNIX-based OS for the computer.

Apache:
It got its name because its founders got started by applying patches to code written for NCSA’s httpd daemon.. The result was ‘A PAtCHy’ server –thus, the name Apache Jakarta (project from Apache):A project constituted by SUN and Apache to create a web server handling servlets and JSPs. Jakarta was name of the conference room at SUN where most of the meetings between SUN and Apache took place.

Tomcat:
The servlet part of the Jakarta project. Tomcat was the code name for the JSDK 2.1 project inside SUN.

C:
Dennis Ritchie improved on the B programming language and called it ‘New B’.He later called it C. Earlier B was created by Ken Thompson as a revision of the Bon programming language (named after his wife Bonnie).

C++:
Bjarne Stroustrup called his new language ‘C with Classes’ and then ‘newC’. Because of which the original C began to be called ‘old C’ which was considered insulting to the C community. At this time Rick Mascitti suggested the name C++ as a successor to C.

GNU:
A species of African antelope. Founder of the GNU project Richard Stallman liked the name because of the humor associated with its pronunciation and was also influenced by the children’s song ‘The Gnu Song’ which is a song sung by a gnu. Also it fitted into the recursive acronym culture with ‘GNU’s Not Unix’.

Java:
Originally called Oak by creator James Gosling, from the tree that stood outside his window, the programming team had to look for a substitute as there was no other language with the same name. Java was selected from a list of suggestions. It came from the name of the coffee that the programmers drank.

LG:
Combination of two popular Korean brands Lucky and Goldstar.

Linux:
Linus Torvalds originally used the Minix OS on his system which here placed by his OS. Hence the working name was Linux (Linus’ Minix). He thought the name to be too egotistical and planned to name it Freax(free+ freak + x).His friend Ari Lemmke encouraged Linus to upload it to a network so it could be easily downloaded. Ari gave Linus a directory called linux on his FTP server, as he did not like the name Freax.(Linus’ parents named him after two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling) .

Mozilla:
When Marc Andreesen, founder of Netscape, created a browser to replace Mosaic (also developed by him), it was named Mozilla (Mosaic-Killer, Godzilla) .The marketing guys didn’t like the name however and it wasre-christened Netscape Navigator.

Red Hat:
Company founder Marc Ewing was given the Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes) while at college by his grandfather. He lost it and had to search for it desperately. The manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux had an appeal to readers to return his Red Hat if found by anyone!

SAP:
“Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing”, formed by 4 ex-IBM employees who used to work in the ‘Systems/Applicatio ns/Projects’ group of IBM.

SCO (UNIX):
From Santa Cruz Operation. The company’s office was in Santa Cruz.

UNIX:
When Bell Labs pulled out of MULTICS (MULTiplexed Information and Computing System), which was originally a joint Bell/GE/MIT project, KenThompson and Dennis Ritchie of Bell Labs wrote a simpler version of the OS.They needed the OS to run the game Space War which was compiled underMULTICS. It was called UNICS – UNIplexed operating and Computing System by Brian Kernighan. It was later shortened to UNIX.

Xerox:
The inventor, Chestor Carlson, named his product trying to say `dry’ (asit was dry copying, markedly different from the then prevailing wet copying). The Greek root `xer’ means dry.

Yahoo!:
The word was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ . It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and action and is barely human. Yahoo! founders Jerry Yang and David Filo selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos.

3M:
Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company started off by mining the material corundum used to make sandpaper.

WHY TO VISIT TEMPLES ? - Scientific Reason

                                          
There are thousands of temples all over India in different size, shape and locations but not all of them are considered to be built the Vedic way. Generally, a temple should be located at a place where earth's magnetic wave path passes through densely. It can be in the outskirts of a town/village or city, or in middle of the dwelling place, or on a hilltop. The essence of visiting a temple is discussed here.

Now, these temples are located strategically at a place where the positive energy is abundantly available from the magnetic and electric wave distributions of north/south pole thrust. The main idol is placed in the core center of the temple, known as "*Garbhagriha*" or *Moolasthanam*. In fact, the temple structure is built after the idol has been placed. This *Moolasthanam* is where earth’s magnetic waves are found to be maximum. We know that there are some copper plates, inscribed with Vedic scripts, buried beneath the Main Idol. What are they really? No, they are not God’s / priests’ flash cards when they forget the *shlokas*. The copper plate absorbs earth’s magnetic waves and radiates it to the surroundings. Thus a person regularly visiting a temple and walking clockwise around the Main Idol receives the beamed magnetic waves and his body absorbs it. This is a very slow process and a regular visit will let him absorb more of this positive energy. Scientifically, it is the positive energy that we all require to have a healthy life.

Further, the Sanctum is closed on three sides. This increases the effect of all energies. The lamp that is lit radiates heat energy and also provides light inside the sanctum to the priests or *poojaris* performing the pooja. The ringing of the bells and the chanting of prayers takes a worshipper into trance, thus not letting his mind waver. When done in groups, this helps people forget personal problems for a while and relieve their stress. The fragrance from the flowers, the burning of camphor give out the chemical energy further aiding in a different good aura. The effect of all these energies is supplemented by the positive energy from the idol, the copper plates and utensils in the *Moolasthan*am / *Garbagraham*. *Theertham*, the “holy” water used during the pooja to wash the idol is not
plain water cleaning the dust off an idol. It is a concoction of Cardamom,*Karpura* (Benzoin), zaffron / saffron, *Tulsi* (Holy Basil), Clove, etc...Washing the idol is to charge the water with the magnetic radiations thus increasing its medicinal values. Three spoons of this holy water is distributed to devotees. Again, this water is mainly a source of magneto-therapy. Besides, the clove essence protects one from tooth decay, the saffron & *Tulsi* leafs protects one from common cold and cough, cardamom and *Pachha Karpuram* (benzoin), act as mouth fresheners. It is proved that *Theertham* is a very good blood purifier, as it is highly energized. Hence it is given as *prasadam* to the devotees. This way, one can claim to remain healthy by regularly visiting the Temples. This is why our elders used to suggest us to offer prayers at the temple so that you will be cured of many ailments. They were not always superstitious. Yes, in a few cases they did go overboard when due to ignorance they hoped many serious diseases could be cured at temples by deities. When people go to a temple for the *Deepaaraadhana*, and when the doors open up, the positive energy gushes out onto the persons who are there. The water that is sprinkled onto the assemblages passes on the energy to all. This also explains why men are not allowed to wear shirts at a few temples and women are requested to wear more ornaments during temple visits. It is through these jewels (metal) that positive energy is absorbed by the women. Also, it is a practice to leave newly purchased jewels at an idol’s feet and then wear them with the idol’s blessings. This act is now justified after reading this article. This act of “seeking divine blessings” before using any new article, like books or pens or automobiles may have stemmed from this through mere observation.

Energy lost in a day’s work is regained through a temple visit and one is refreshed slightly. The positive energy that is spread out in the entire temple and especially around where the main idol is placed, are simply absorbed by one's body and mind. Did you know, every Vaishnava(Vishnu devotees), “must” visit a Vishnu temple twice every day in their location. Our practices are NOT some hard and fast rules framed by 1 man and his followers or God’s words in somebody’s dreams. All the rituals, all the practices are, in reality, well researched, studied and scientifically backed thesis which form the ways of nature to lead a good healthy life.

The scientific and research part of the practices are well camouflaged as “elder’s instructions” or “granny’s teaching’s” which should be obeyed as a mark of respect so as to once again, avoid stress to the mediocre brains. To be continue ....