The essence of true leadership

What does a leader mean? What qualities define a leader? Do leaders always arise owing to difficult situations? Are they born or made? Sometimes situation demands a leader`s arrival. But `The Leader` must be a continuous reader, a dedicated learner and a critical thinker.

Great leaders often have leadership styles that fit into few categories, and they interchange these leadership styles when it makes the most sense. The basic categories of leadership are autocratic, participative and free-rein. Autocratic leaders are often very commanding in style. Autocratic leaders typically make choices based on their own ideas and judgments and rarely accept advice from followers. `Do as I say because I am the boss` is the common attitude amongst leaders using this particular style. Participative leaders believe in equality between leaders and followers soliciting input from followers. This leader often asks followers “What you think?” making some major decisions by a majority-rule vote. Free- rein leaders are unengaged in leadership. This style of leadership caters for minimal control by the leader or manager and maximum flexibility for the team members. The team leader often takes a back seat role and functions to coordinate and direct the actions of the team rather than dictate it. The free reign style can be good or bad, depending on whether the followers are high performers or not.

Whether one type of leadership is better is not of importance. Different situations require different types of leadership. Leadership is much more than the management of people. It is the ability to lead a group of followers effectively, make them and their purpose successful, and still maintain valid principles and ideas. Leaders must have followers to be successful, and they must know how to treat the followers to ensure their success. Leaders should have values that are consistent with high moral and ethical standards, and they should know how to motivate others effectively. The greatest leaders in history, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Hitler, had the ability to motivate their followers and elicit change, and change is a vital element of a great leader, they have to know how to create successful change and motivate others to change, too. Great leaders are not all positive, as someone like Hitler clearly indicates, and that can be the negative aspect of leadership and the power of leadership.

Positions of leadership

People respond to a task when they know they will be treated fairly, their input will be respected, and they can trust in the integrity of the person responsible for the success of a pursuit. Thus, everybody believe good leadership is derived from being a careful listener and communicator who understands the needs of others and the goals of an endeavor. To me, leaders are not complacent by the way the world shapes them, but are motivated by the way they can shape the world. A leader is directed by what is achievable, not by what is preventing his or her success. When leaders see past hurdles or difficulties, they inspire hope and commitment, which is essential for any pursuit. Furthermore, Leadership is not characterized by rushing to the forefront and being a directing charge, but rather acting as a rudder in the rear maintaining a course with a clear view of what is ahead.

Follow And Lead

The essence of true leadership is the ability to follow as well as to lead. Well defined values, clear vision, a sense of purpose, sufficient resources, and a good strategy or a policy are some of the main components of true leadership. A true leader must be self-confident, well informed, and persuasive in the community or in business and in relationships. A true leader must endure hatred and rejection and turn failure into success. A true leader must stay competitive and innovative if he or she is to create the future. A true leader must also have a keen sense of humor, self-knowledge, outstanding manners, and a few trustworthy friends. Above all, he/she must know how to balance power and gather shrewd teammates.

leadership is more than power or influence over subordinates, it's more about team building, confidence building among the team members, encouraging continuous learning, and inspire the team members to bring out their real potential. Every leader is challenged to respect the power they have been given, to be morally and ethically responsible, and to ensure that the decisions of today will provide a promising tomorrow for all humanity.

ON-I-ON

Supply and demand is perhaps one of the most fundamental concepts of economics and it is the backbone of a market economy. Demand refers to how much (quantity) of a product or service is desired by buyers. The quantity demanded is the amount of a product people are willing to buy at a certain price; the relationship between price and quantity demanded is known as the demand relationship. Supply represents how much the market can offer. The quantity supplied refers to the amount of a certain good producers are willing to supply when receiving a certain price. The correlation between price and how much of a good or service is supplied to the market is known as the supply relationship. Price, therefore, is a reflection of supply and demand. Necessity goods are goods that we can't live without and won't likely cut back on even when times are tough, for example food, power, water and gas. Now we can take a look on onions. In india onions rate stands at high. why? it is simple., the above principle applicable here.

Across the country, arrivals have decreased in all the major markets due to lower supply from Maharashtra and Gujarat region. The other reason for decrease in arrivals is lower late kharif crop this season and gap between arrivals of rabi crop as late kharif arrival is almost over. Depending on the production of onion, there is a seasonality in arrivals and prices every year. The changes in arrivals may occur due to a rise or fall in production, poorstorage, early harvesting, lack of retention power by growers and exports. However, now due to unseasonal rains, the production of onions declined. To some extent, this reduction in production was offset by marginally higher production in all onion cultivating states.The magnitude of decline in production did not affect arrivalsin the market very much. Staggered planting of onions with suitable varieties can address the supply gap during the slack period, thereby stabilising prices during all the year. As part of market reforms, minimum support prices for onions and the implementation of market intelligence systems can help in discovering the right prices for producers as well as consumers.

Hi`story`

Common onions are normally available in three colours: yellow, red, and white. Yellow onions, also called brown onions, are full-flavoured and are the onions of choice for everyday use. Yellow onions turn a rich, dark brown when caramelized and give French onion soup its sweet flavour. The red onion is a good choice for fresh use when its colour livens up the dish. It is also used in grilling and char-broiling. White onions are the traditional onions that are used in classic Mexican cuisine. They have a golden colour when cooked and a particularly sweet flavour when sauteed.

The onion plant (Allium cepa) is unknown in the wild but has been grown and selectively bred in cultivation for at least 7,000 years. It is a biennial plant but is usually grown as an annual. Modern varieties typically grow to a height of 15 to 45 cm (6 to 18 in). Bulbs from the onion family are thought to have been used as a food source for millennia. In Bronze Age settlements, traces of onion remains were found alongside date stones and fig remains that date back to 5000 BC. However, it is not clear if these were cultivated onions. Archaeological and literary evidence that onions were probably being cultivated around two thousand years later in ancient Egypt, at the same time that leeks and garlic were cultivated.

Energetic

In ancient Greece, athletes ate large quantities of onion because it was believed to lighten the balance of the blood. Roman gladiators were rubbed down with onions to firm up their muscles. In the Middle Ages, onions were such an important food that people would pay their rent with onions, and even give them as gifts. Doctors were known to prescribe onions to facilitate bowel movements and erections, and to relieve headaches, coughs, snakebite and hair loss. Most onion cultivars are about 89% water, 4% sugar, 1% protein, 2% fibre and 0.1% fat. They contain vitamin C, vitamin B6, folic acid and numerous other nutrients in small amounts. They are low in fats and in sodium, and with an energy value of 166kJ (40 kcal) per 100 g (3.5 oz) serving, they can contribute their flavour to savoury dishes without raising caloric content appreciably.

Onions were taken by the first settlers to North America, where the Native Americans were already using wild onions in a number of ways, eating them raw or cooked in a variety of foods. They also used them to make into syrups, to form poultices and in the preparation of dyes. Onions are cultivated and used around the world. As a foodstuff they are usually served cooked, as a vegetable or part of a prepared savoury dish, but can also be eaten raw or used to make pickles or chutneys. They are pungent when chopped and contain certain chemical substances which irritate the eyes. Onions contain phenolics and flavonoids that have potential anti-inflammatory, anti-cholesterol, anticancer and antioxidant properties.

Top Ten Onions Producers

China, India, United States, Egypt, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Brazil, Russia, Republic of Korea.

It is estimated that around the World, over 9,000,000 acres (3,642,000 ha) of onions are grown annually. About 170 countries cultivate onions for domestic use and about eight percent of the global production is traded internationally.

Plastic Roads

Plastic-waste in road construction i.e., Plastic roads. The present newly construction method highlights the developments in  using plastics waste to make plastic roads.The use and abuse of plastics vis-a-vis environmental protection  can go on, without yielding results until practical steps are initiated at the grassroots level by everyone who is in  a position to do something about it. The plastic wastes could be used in road construction and the field tests  withstood the stress and proved that plastic wastes used after proper processing as an additive would enhance the life of the roads and also solve environmental problems. Plastic is everywhere in today’?s lifestyle. It is used  for packaging, protecting, serving, and even disposing of all kinds of consumer goods. With the industrial revolution, mass production of goods started and plastic seemed to be a cheaper and effective raw material.  Today, every vital sector of the economy starting from agriculture to packaging, automobile, building construction, communication or infotech has been virtually revolutionised by the applications of plastics. Use of  this non-biodegradable (according to recent studies, plastics can stay unchanged for as long as 4500 years  on earth) product is growing rapidly and the problem is what to do with plastic-waste. Studies have linked the  improper disposal of plastic to problems as distant as breast cancer, reproductive problems in humans and  animals, genital abnormalities and even a decline in human sperm count and quality. If a ban is put on the use  of plastics on emotional grounds, the real cost would be much higher, the inconvenience much more, the  chances of damage or contamination much greater. The risks to the family health and safety would increase  and, above all the environmental burden would be manifold. Hence the question is not ‘?plastics vs no  plastics’? but it is more concerned with the judicious use and re-use of plastic-waste.

Not New.!

Plastic use in road construction is not new. It is already in use as PVC or HDPE pipe mat crossings built by cabling together PVC (polyvinyl chloride) or HDPE (high-density poly-ethylene) pipes to form plastic mats. The  plastic roads include transition mats to ease the passage of tyres up to and down from the crossing.Both  options help protect wetland haul roads from rutting by distributing the load across the surface. But the use of  plastic-waste has been a concern for scientists and engineers for a quite long time. Recent studies in this  direction have shown some hope in terms of using.

A Bangalore-based firm and a team of engineers have  developed a way of using plastic waste for road construction. An initial study was conducted in 1997 by the  team to test for strength and durability. Plastic roads mainly use plastic carry-bags, disposable cups thickness  up to 60micron (PE, PP and PS), Hard foams (PS) and any thickness (PET) bottles, Soft Foams (PE and  PP) any thickness. Laminated Plastics thickness up to 60 micron (Aluminum coated also) packing materials  used for biscuits, chocolates, etc., That are collected from garbage dumps as an important ingredient of the  construction material. When mixed with hot bitumen, plastics melt to form an oily coat over the aggregate and  the mixture is laid on the road surface like a normal tar road.

Basic Process

Waste plastic is ground and made into powder; 3 to 4 % plastic is mixed with the bitumen. Plastic increases the melting point of the bitumen and makes the road retain its flexibility during winters resulting in its long life. Use of shredded plastic waste acts as a strong “?binding agent”? for tar making the asphalt last long. By mixing  plastic with bitumen the ability of the bitumen to withstand high temperature increases. The plastic waste is  melted and mixed with bitumen in a particular ratio. Normally, blending takes place when temperature reaches 45.5C but when plastic is mixed, it remains stable even at 55C. The vigorous tests at the laboratory level  proved that the bituminous concrete mixes prepared using the treated bitumen binder fulfilled all the specified Marshall mix design criteria for surface course of road pavement. There was a substantial increase in Marshall Stability value of the BC mix, of the order of two to three times higher value in comparison with the untreated orordinary bitumen. Another important observation was that the bituminous mixes prepared using the treated binder could withstand adverse soaking conditions under water for longer duration.

Comparison

The durability of the roads laid out with shredded plastic waste is much more compared with roads with asphalt with the ordinary mix. Roads laid with plastic waste mix are found to be better than the conventional ones. The binding property of plastic makes the road last longer besides giving added strength to withstand more loads. While a normal 'highway quality' road lasts four to five years it is claimed that plastic-bitumen roads can last up to 10 years. Rainwater will not seep through because of the plastic in the tar. So, this technology will result in lesser road repairs. And as each km of road with an average width requires over two tonnes of polyblend, using plastic will help reduce non-biodegradable waste.

Expensive?

The cost of plastic road construction may be slightly higher compared to the conventional method. However, this should not deter the adoption of the technology as the  benefits are much higher than the cost. Plastic  roads would be a boon for countries like India’? Hot and extremely humid climate, where temperatures  frequently cross 50C and torrential rains create havoc, leaving most of the roads with big potholes. Already, a  kilometre-long test-track has been tested in Karnataka using this technology. The government is keen on  encouraging the setting up of small plants for mixing waste plastic and bitumen for road construction. It is hoped  that in near future we will have strong, durable and eco-friendly roads which will relieve the earth from all type of plastic-waste.

Plastics will increase the melting point of the bitumen. The use of the innovative technology not only  strengthened the road construction but also increased the road life as well as will help to improve the  environment and also creating a source of income. The plastic roads include transition mats to ease the  passage of tyres up to and down from the crossing. Both option of making roads was to protect wetland haul  roads from cracks by distributing the load across the surface. 

A stretch of 800 metre bus route of Valluvar Kottam High Road from Unit Office 21 Junction to Dr.MGR Salai  junction would have 13,700 square metre of plastic road in chennai. A 1,250-metre stretch of Nelson  Manickam Road would have 22,500 square metre of plastic road. The civic body would complete re-laying of  121 plastic roads on 80-km-long bus routes at a cost of Rs.51.7 crore. Shredded plastic waste would form at  least 8 per cent of the weight of the binder used for re-laying. Initially, the civic body planned to use plastic for  re-laying of the top layer of 40 mm in the roads. The 75 to 50 mm macadam layer beneath the top layer of 40  mm is also likely to have plastic content in areas where damage to road is high. The Corporation has put in  place bins for collection of plastic waste in every ward office. The civic body is procuring plastic for road re- laying, as it is yet to get enough plastic waste from residents. Patch work on Anna Nagar West School Road,  Perambur High Road, Greams Road and Taluk Office Road also ready for began. Work on 292 km of interior roads started at a cost of Rs.59.5 crore.

World's Longest and Sturdiest Recycled Bridge

Stretching out across the peaceful waters of the River Tweed in Peeblesshire, Scotland, the Dawyck Estate  river crossing is an unlikely record breaker. Measuring 30 meters in length and made entirely out of waste  plastic products, the newly completed structure is the world's longest and sturdiest recycled bridge. Utilizing a super-strength composite plastic material -- engineered by researchers at Rutgers University from  items as common as plastic bottles and household plastic waste -- the bridge caters for pedestrians, cars and  heavy goods vehicles. The river span is one of five such structures now in existence, although all others are  smaller and based in the U.S., and can support weights of up to 44 tons. According to Vertech Composites,  the British company behind the project, the bridge is a prototype that has the potential to meet future road and  bridge requirements in an eco-friendly manner.

Yellow Metal

Gold is always Gold since from the ancient days. This yellow metal rules the entire world. Why it is attractive?... It is scarce, It cannot be fabricated or produced in large quantities, And it is durable, homogenous and divisible, It is widely acceptable as money. These characteristics gives that much of importance to the Gold. Printed money can’t meet these criteria which increases the attractiveness of Gold.

It has always been used as a medium of exchange for goods since ancient times and has not suffered devaluation in the same ways as paper currency. Gold has a record long history as a commodity and as a store of value. It has been formally a monetary media in and around the world. Gold has faced complete official demonetization long back, yet it experiences continued and renewed interest as a private or unofficial monetary medium. Even governments around the world are making greater use of gold in international financial affairs. Over time, gold has undergone three major transitions: Gold was a medium of exchange in the early civilization. Next, an international banking system was developed around it, in which paper money was fully convertible into gold.This convertibility was ceased in 1971 by the then president Richard Nixon and a purely fiat money system took its place. Early civilizations equated gold with gods and rulers. Humans almost intuitively place a high value on gold, equating it with power, beauty and cultural elite. And since gold is widely distributed all over the globe, we find this same thinking about gold throughout ancient and modern civilizations everywhere. And because of this very basic reason, gold is hovering around $1700 per ounce, even when the US departed the gold exchange standard long back. As per the statistics, today 61% of gold demand is for jewellery purposes as compared to only 27% for investment. And this affinity towards gold is attributed to our roots.

Most other pure metals are gray or silvery white, gold is yellow. This color is determined by the density of loosely bound (valence) electrons; those electrons oscillate as a collective "plasma" medium described in terms of a quasiparticle called plasmon. The frequency of these oscillations lies in the ultraviolet range for most metals, but it falls into the visible range for gold due to subtle relativistic effects that affect the orbitals around gold atoms. Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and atomic number 79. It is a dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal with a bright yellow color and luster that is considered attractive, which is maintained without tarnishing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a transition metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements, solid under standard conditions. The metal therefore occurs often in free elemental (native) form, as nuggets or grains in rocks, in veins and in alluvial deposits. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, usually with tellurium. Gold resists attacks by individual acids, but it can be dissolved.The gold content of alloys is measured in carats (k). Pure gold is designated as 24k. English gold coins intended for circulation from 1526 into the 1930s were typically a standard 22k alloy called crown gold, for hardness (American gold coins for circulation after 1837 contained the slightly lower amount of 0.900 fine gold, or 21.6 kt).

Use in Medicine

Conceived of as perhaps the most anciently administered medicine (apparently according to one source by shamanic practitioners) and known of by Dioscorides, apparent paradoxes of the actual toxicology of the substance nevertheless suggests the possibility still of serious gaps in understanding of action on physiology.

In medieval times, gold was often seen as beneficial for the health, in the belief that something so rare and beautiful could not be anything but healthy. However, only salts and radioisotopes of gold are of pharmacological value, as elemental (metallic) gold is inert to all chemicals it encounters inside the body.

Food and drink

Gold can be used in food and has the E number 175. Gold leaf, flake or dust is used on and in some gourmet foods, notably sweets and drinks as decorative ingredient. Gold flake was used by the nobility in medieval Europe as a decoration in food and drinks, in the form of leaf, flakes or dust, either to demonstrate the host's wealth or in the belief that something that valuable and rare must be beneficial for one's health.

Danziger Goldwasser (German: Gold water of Danzig) or Goldwasser (English: Goldwater) is a traditional German herbal liqueur produced in what is today Gdańsk, Poland, and Schwabach, Germany, and contains flakes of gold leaf. There are also some expensive (~$1000) cocktails which contain flakes of gold leaf. However, since metallic gold is inert to all body chemistry, it has no taste, it provides no nutrition, and it leaves the body unaltered.This metal has been a valuable and highly sought-after precious metal for coinage, jewelry, and other arts since long before the beginning of recorded history.

A total of 174,100 tonnes of gold have been mined in human history, according to GFMS as of 2012.

Besides its widespread monetary and symbolic functions, gold has many practical uses in dentistry, electronics, and other fields. Its high malleability, ductility, resistance to corrosion and most other chemical reactions, and conductivity of electricity has led to many uses, including electric wiring, colored-glass production, and gold leafing. Its history can be traced back to 6000 BC. The other seven metals including Gold, known as the Metals of Antiquity, were the metals upon which civilisation was based. These seven metals were:(1) Gold-6000 BC (2) Copper- 4200 BC (3) Silver- 4000 BC (4) Lead-3500 BC (5) Tin-1750 BC (6) Iron,smelted-1500 BC (7) Mercury- 750 BC.These metals were known to the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks and the Romans. Of the seven metals, five can be found in their native states, e.g., gold, silver, copper, iron (from meteors) and mercury. However, the occurrence of these metals was not abundant and the first two metals to be used widely were gold and copper. And, of course, the history of metals is closely linked to that of coins and gemstones.

The purchase of gold, the most frequently heard today is "Look what governments are doing, look at the record of gold, and buy gold as a safe means of beating inflation." This precious metal is bought and sold in U.S. dollars. So when dollar and other currencies experience devaluation, the value of gold rises. Between the end of 1973(at which time the price of gold had been freed in both private and official markets) and 2009, the price of gold increased from USD 106.72/oz to USD 1087.50/oz, a rise of 928%. Adjusting for the cumulative rise in US Consumer price inflation, gold rose by 119%, which equates to annualized real return of 2.2%.

World's largest gold mines

Grasberg Mine (Indonesia), Cortez (U.S.A.),Yanacocha (Peru), Goldstrike (U.S.A.), Veladero (Argentina), Vaal River (South Africa), The Super Pit ( Kalgoorlie-Boulder, WA, Australia), West Wits (South Africa), Lagunas Norte (Peru), Boddington mine (Boddington, WA, Australia). Run by Newmont, the Boddington gold mine is actually one of Australia's newest gold mines, beginning production in 2009.  At the end of 2010 it had reserves of 20 million ounces of gold and 2.4 billion pounds of copper.  It produced 741,000 ounces of gold in 2011.

Gold-mining countries

Gold is mined in around 90 countries worldwide. Some of the countries that historically have been top producers continue to be so, including Australia, Canada, the USA and South Africa. But China is now the world’s top producer, having increased productivity significantly since 2005. In 2011, Kazakhstan entered the top 20 of gold-mining countries for the first time.

Consumption       

India is the world's largest single consumer of gold, as Indians buy about 25% of the world's gold, purchasing approximately 800 tonnes of gold every year, mostly for jewelry. India is also the largest importer of gold; in 2008, India imported around 400 tonnes of gold. Indian households hold 18,000 tonnes of gold which represents 11% of the global stock and worth more than $950 billion.