the performance enhancement methods of today and tomorrow.. the doping direction.

Today the Beijing Olympics 2008 came to a close. I was not following it very closely, but from the few impression that I get, it was a wonderful event. China can take pride in the way it has organised it. There would always be criticism, but I think the World has seen another dimension of the Dragon Empire. China also would also have learnt a few things out of this. Congratulations China!

I was just browsing for the Doping Counter Hits of Beijing 2008. I didn't get there but I reached some interesting sites.. thought I will share with you.

Today its the age of Performance Enhancement Drugs.
Tomorrow it will be the Gene Doping. Although cant really be sure if its so futuristic because it might be here already.

A German television report on the availability of gene doping in China, which aired just a few days before the Olympics, stunned anti-doping experts. In the documentary by ARD television, a reporter posing as an American swimming coach met with a doctor who is the head of the gene-therapy department of an unnamed Chinese hospital. The hidden-camera report shows the Chinese doctor, with his face blurred, offering gene-therapy treatment to the undercover reporter in return for $24,000.

Quote from newsweek.com. the full link is given below

Interesting links..

Is 'gene doping' the next Olympic threat?

an unofficial list of banned athletes..

The nonsense of Olympic doping rules.

footnote:
couple of years back, I had a posting on Marion Jones (click here to see the post). I am no expert in sports drugs, but I had felt at that time that something is smelling bad. An year later (Oct 2007), she admitted that she Doped and all medals of Olympics 2000 and subsequent medals were stripped off her.

So what you see is not always what it is, more so in this case.

what defines you and me.

I came across this movie on YouTube the other day. Its not only very touching, but make you introspective and indeed very thankful what all we have.



It was a very beautiful day for him until that small accident happened. But the consequences were not so small. Its amazing that he could survive in spite of all these, because most often the mental damage (of lost abilities) would be more devastating than the physical one. It is not easy to recover from that.

I was watching the movie FELON, where the life of this guy turns upside down by an event. His fellow prisoner has this Quote for him.. "when your life is defined by a single action, it change the concept of time."

If you have watched the above movie full, at the end he says this to all. Can you define yourself, beyond the physical abilities that you have?

Probably another reason why he was able recover is that he could accept himself being not good in certain things.. Things which he was good at and had taken pride in.. He was able to redefine himself.. he was able to find joy when he could do simple things.. that was an achievement for his at his level.. I think there is an underlying lesson in that. We often compare ourself with the best and gets disappointed that we are not as good as they are.. May be we need to set the benchmarks for ourself and not by comparing with others.. Be happy at what you have achieved, however small that may be when comparing with others.. But, for you, you had to put the 100% to get there and that's what all you can ask for.. Take pride in that..

We, most often gets concerned at what all we missed, could have, would have etc etc.. But probably, once in a while we have to sit back and think what all went right for me. There could be so many instances where we miss the worst by a whisker.. But we soon forget that. Things that we don't forget are on the other side of the spectrum. I guess its human.

So define yourself beyond the physical abilities.. Can we?

what do you think ?

Beijing Olympics 2008. Is it the Phelps-Bolt Olympics

Some more superstars !!! Rather they are a phenomenon in themselves..

Usain Bolt
Michael Phelps






When the competition gets tough, you normally expect the winning margins to be very small.. But here are two guys who are just miles ahead of others (one over land and the other in the water).

There are obviously speculations that these are backed by illegal substances. But I like to believe otherwise. May be they are not cheating and if they are not, then I think its the biggest crime not to give it to them. I mean, there are ways and means to keep a check on those. And so long as they are proved otherwise, I think its not fair to doubt their ability and efforts they might have put in.


On the one hand you have the (Thunder) Bolt, who didn't compete in the 100m until one year ago, suddenly emerges from the cloud and in the BIGGEST stage, takes the glory with ease. He was posing for the cameras even before he finished and even then won it with a margin that is the biggest in last 40 years and of course broke the world record by a big margin. "We've never seen anything like that before" was the verdict of the great Olympian Michael Johnson after a breathtaking 100 metres final.



On the other hand, you have a superhuman in Phelps. The way he strokes past others will mislead you to think that he is competing with armatures. And he does that event after event. There is no stopping him. The term - Fatigue - might have to be redefined now, because he seems to have not heard about that at all. I heard a comment about him "He is just another guy, but from a different planet". One can't help thinking in those lines. Interestingly enough, if you read through his physical specialities (c/o wiki), then one might wonder, if this is a small evolutionary change!


Further reading
Olympics: Bolt saunters into history in 9.69 sec
9.69 - and Usain Bolt didn't even try
The Michael Phelps diet: don't try this at home

Bio of Usain Bolt
Bio of Michael Phelps

youtube channel of Usain Bolt

6th Pay Commission (INDIA) and calculator

The India Govt. has decided to implement the 6th Pay commission recommendations with effect from from 1st Jan 2006.

This post may not have the comprehensive info on this subject, but just an easy link to the official site (which may not be easily found out) and some basic info ..

The news is that, for most, the revision will be better than the pay commission recommendations, especially for the defence oriented. The Sixth Pay Commission headed by Justice B N Srikrishna submitted in March, its report to the government. It had recommended an average 28 per cent hike for central government staff and defence personnel.

Now the Cabinet has approved the recommendations and there will be a 40 per cent hike for the Central government employees and defence personnel.

However, the arrears will not be disbursed in one go, but will be divided into two components to be given by the end of next year. 40 percent of the arrears will be disbursed in 2008, while the remaining 60 percent will be rolled out after March 2009. The cost to the government will be over Rs.23,000 crores.

As per the cleared proposal, the minimum basic pay will be Rs 7000, while the minimum salary per month at the lowest level will now be Rs 10000.


Click here to go to the calculator links
The official version can be seen at http://www.india.gov.in/govt/paycommission.php
Click here for the excel prepared by Deva Arul Daniel (FDD/ISAC). please check yourself the correctness of this.

The following will give you the table of the original and new scales...

Pre-Revised		Revised
Pay Scale	Pay Scale	Pay Band	Corresponding Pay Bands	Grade Pay
S-1	2550-55-2660-60-3200	-1S	4440-7440	1300
S-2	2610-60-3150-65-3540	-1S	4440-7440	1400
S-2A	2610-60-2910-65-3300-70-4000	-1S	4440-7440	1600
S-3	2650-65-3300-70-4000	-1S	4440-7440	1650
S-4	2750-70-3800-75-4400	PB-1	4860-20200	1800
S-5	3050-75-3950-80-4590	PB-1	4860-20200	1900
S-6	3200-85-4900	PB-1	4860-20200	2000
S-7	4000-100-6000	PB-1	4860-20200	2400
S-8	4500-125-7000	PB-1	4860-20200	2800
S-9	5000-150-8000	PB-2	8700-34800	4200
S-10	5500-175-9000	PB-2	8700-34800	4200
S-11	6500-200-6900	PB-2	8700-34800	4200
S-12	6500-200-10500	PB-2	8700-34800	4200
S-13	7450-225-11500	PB-2	8700-34800	4600
S-14	7500-250-12000	PB-2	8700-34800	4800
S-15	8000-275-13500	PB-2	8700-34800	5400
S-16	9000	PB-3	15600-39100	5400
S-17	9000-275-9550	PB-3	15600-39100	5400
S-18	10325-325-10975	PB-3	15600-39100	6100
S-19	10000-325-15200	PB-3	15600-39100	6100
S-20	10650-325-15850	PB-3	15600-39100	6500
S-21	12000-375-16500	PB-3	15600-39100	6600
S-22	12750-375-16500	PB-3	15600-39100	7500
S-23	12000-375-18000	PB-3	15600-39100	7600
S-24	14300-400-18300	PB-3	15600-39100	7600
S-25	15100-400-18300	PB-3	15600-39100	8300
S-26	16400-450-20000	PB-3	15600-39100	8400
S-27	16400-450-20900	PB-3	15600-39100	8400
S-28	14300-450-22400	PB-4	39200-67000	9000
S-29	18400-500-22400	PB-4	39200-67000	9000
S-30	22400-525-24500	PB-4	39200-67000	11000
S-31	22400-600-26000	PB-4	39200-67000	13000
S-32	24050-650-26000	PB-4	39200-67000	13000
S-33	26000(Fixed)	Apex Scale	80000 (Fixed)	NIL
S-34	30000 (Fixed)	Cab.Sec./Equ.	90000 (Fixed)	NIL

Further Reading...
http://www.tarunreflex.co.cc
http://www.thaindian.com