The bullet that won the gold!

Trap Air Shooter Abhinav Bindra fired his way to victory in the 10-meter air rifle event on Monday, giving India her first gold medal in Beijing 2008 Olympics. Bindra, who qualified for the finals in third place, outscored 2004 Olympic champion, China's Zhu Qinan and Finland's Henri Hakkinen for the top spot.

Bindra's final score was 700.5 points, ahead of Zhu's 699.7 points and Hakkinen's 699.4 points. Zhu holds the Olympic record for the final score in the event, the 702.7 points, which he shot in Athens. Bindra's compatriot Gagan Narang did not perform well, coming ninth in the qualifier and failed to make the cut.
 
Bindra's triumph is no fluke. Born in 1983, he was the youngest Indian participant at the 2000 Olympic Games. Though he failed to win any medal then, he showed a lot of promise. In 2001, he won six gold medals at various international meets and in 2002, in the air rifle event at the Commonwealth Games, Manchester, he won the gold medal in the pairs event and silver in the individual event. At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Bindra broke the Olympic record but failed to win any medal. Abhinav Bindra has also received the Arjuna award in 2001 and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award for the year 2001-2002.

Bindra's victory gives India her first Olympic gold medal ever in an individual event and a gold medal in any Olympic event after 28 years. The last time India came close to winning an Olympic gold was in an indiviudal event was in 2004 when trap shooter Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore won silver. India's tennis ace, Leander Paes and weighlifter Karnam Malleswari won the bronze medals in 1996 and 2000 respectively. Until Bindra's triumph, India's only gold medals had come in the sport of field hockey, the last of them coming in 1980 in Moscow Olympics. Unfortunately, India failed to qualify for hockey in 2008 Olympics.

*** REWARDS ***

The Punjab government on Monday announced a cash reward of Rs.10 million (Rs.1 crore) for the shooter as per its sports policy after Bindra won India's first individual gold medal in Olympics history. Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh announced a cash prize of Rs 10 lakh for Bindra. The Madhya Pradesh government also announced a cash prize of Rs.500,000 for the shooter. The Indian Cricket Board, the game's richest body in the world, announced a reward of Rs 25 lakh for Bindra, whom it ad adopted as part of its efforts to encourage other sports in a cricket-mad country. Railway Minister Lalu Prasad announced a free lifetime pass for travel by AC first class for the shooter. Whoaa! Now, that's what I say, "Jeeto... Chappar Faad Ke"

***

Jai Gurudev

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O.A.K. Tree

Bawa teaches me Advt & Mkt. !!!

To start with, Bawa (Khurshed Batliwala) is Art of Living teacher who teaches meditation. He is also loves technology and makes the most use of it. I am really thankful that I have met a super-man like bawa! This post is dedicated to my beloved teacher; Bawa! Just two months back, I did not own a blog. Bawa just told me that I should have a blog and it should be managed regularly. I did not ask whether I would gain from it in anyway. I knew that if bawa has asked me to start a blog, then it has will make a big positive difference in my life. I started the blog with a welcome note. I told only my 5 best friends and no one else, that I have started a blog. Ironically, those 5 friends have not yet visited my blog. But now I get 5.11 visits/day from all over the world and as on Aug 10 I had 143 visits from the day I started to track my blog (July 14, 08). Also 74.82% of the visitors use the best internet browser: Firefox. 44.06% of the visitors are unique visitors (first-time visitors)... Phew! Last Fortnight the same stats were; 3.27 visits/day with a total of 49 visitors, 34.69% of them were the new visitors. Running a blog which is one of the million blogs and gaining popularity is not a joke! Bawa guided me how to advertise, without shelling out a single paisa. I learn't to market my blog too... I joined entre-card, got a RSS Feed for my blog, added star-rating for those who are lazy to write a comment, added a Google Custom search on my blog! Also I learn't more of CSS, XML, and other amazing languages used in the web-world. AND MOST importantly, it keeps me on my toes as I have to be well-read to write good & interesting posts. Woww! Thank you, Bawa. Now my blog really rocks... I really feel good about it. P.S. After attending the workshop on Financial Literacy by Bawa, I have decided to write fabulous posts on Economics and Finance (which I am really good at... hehehe!). This will be once a week mostly on Saturdays. Do read them and PLEASE write some comments. Jai Gurudeva! -- O.A.K. Tree Note: The above stats are taken from the Google Analytics which keeps tracks of the visits to your blog and generated mind-boggling reports!

Financial Articles

It seems that the plan to spread financial literacy ultimately have to be scrapped. I am not getting any response, good or bad, from any readers as to whether I should continue writing posts on Financial Literacy. You can take Omkar out of the Finance but not the Finance out of Omkar! So I will continue writing blogs related to finance and economics. They will be something that you might have not come across. In case you want to know more about Finance & Economics or want me to shed some light on such topics, then mail me. Love! -- O.A.K. Tree

Fuel the fire

If you want the fire to burn then you must pour fuel into the fire! If you want to read more posts on Financial Literacy then I must get some response. Some comments or Star-rating will do. Else how do I come to know if the posts are of any use to you?? I am not writing the blogs on finance for myself !!! Jai Gurudeva! -- O.A.K. Tree