Flower Power - Piercing the Glass Ceiling?

I read an interesting article in Bloomberg news today titled "Women Break Old-Boy Barriers on Boards, Bench" by Albert R. Hunt.

It was mostly stats in the beginning like - 58% of the American undergrads finishing college this year were Women & so were 50% of the medical and law school grads.

17% of the US Congress is now made up of women - 3 of the last 3 secretaries of state and 7 Governors are women

One in four of the eight Ivy League schools are headed by women.

The last section of the article, which I have quoted here, was about women in business and to me, the most interesting..

"Reinemund, former chairman of PepsiCo Inc., mentored the CEOs of two of the five largest companies headed by women -- Indra Nooyi, his successor at PepsiCo, and Irene Rosenfeld, the chairman and CEO of Kraft Foods Inc. In a sign of changing
times, Xerox Corp. announced last week that Anne Mulcahy will be retiring as CEO and be replaced by Ursula Burns, an African-American woman.

Some studies and other management experts say the qualities often associated with women -- empathy and a more collaborative approach -- aren’t requisites for successful CEOs. Instead, it’s the single-minded toughness more associated with men.

There’s a rejoinder: American International Group Inc.,Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns Cos., Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac,Countrywide Financial Corp., General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC. These firms share two characteristics: All are either extinct, bankrupt or wards of the state. And all were headed by men."

As far as academia goes, India has always had more girls do well than boys and so there is nothing new there. In politics as well, women have proved their mettle in India and there are quite a few women that lead with an Iron fist & a bulletproof vest!

What about women CEOs? Do we have enough of them? Hema - being one yourself, perhaps you can comment on this!

A Japanese "Aladdin"?

For some people, just being in space is not enough of a fairy tale - they need to also fly on a magic carpet to make the mental picture complete.

The video here features Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata on the International Space Station. He was asked to perform 16 amusing low gravity tasks that were submitted by the general public to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency - JAXA. One of those tasks requested by the public was to see if you could duplicate a flying carpet in space, which Wakata-san performs quite easily.




Other fun tasks that JAXA was requested by the public included how to fold laundry and demonstrate how astronauts use eye drops in low gravity.

Household chores dont leave even astronauts in space, it seems!

Slow Motion

I was watching this video in youtube today..



The video is fantastic and shows the beauty of nature juxtaposed against the determination of man to explore and conquer it.

Meanwhile, some thoughts crossed my mind..

It seems like the batting of an eyelid, but we are already in May this year. No idea how the months flew past..

Won't it be nice if life could sometimes move in super slow motion! Also, I won't mind a few more years of childhood and those wonderful college years, while we are it..