SATURDAY 3 JANUARY 201510 HYDERABAD TIMES, THE TIMES OF INDIA

Make the most of where you live

TECHCITYPLUS

Born in a muslim family, trainedby the great Himalayan Vedicmasters, spiritual master to

thousands and social reformer Sri Mlives the Oneness religions speak ofwith great ease. He is about to begin a6500 km long walking journey fromKanyakumari to Kashmir with like-minded fellow Indians touching uponmillions of people in villages, townsand cities, in an audacious idea, namedthe Walk of Hope 2015. It will be a 500day journey, and covers 11 states, 86districts, 10 million people, aiming toconnect with Indians of all faiths onthe essential theme of communal har-mony.

Having lived in the high Himalayasin difficult conditions in the early partof his life, and travelled across India insearch of spiritual masters, Sri Mknows and speaks about India more in-timately than most politicians would.Having experienced deep spiritualheights and helped thousands of peo-ple on their spiritual path, he speaksabout inter-religious Oneness from aplace of knowing. To see the strife thatrises everyday in India in the name ofreligion seems to have inspired theWalk in a big way.

Very practical about the need forpeace, he says, "nothing of value in de-velopment can be achieved withoutpeace and harmony in a nation likeours. I hope many young people jointhis yatra also, along with people pas-sionate about a united India. Often it’sthe young in our society that have notbeen totally conditioned, that can seethe oneness in humanity more easily.”

He is clear that this change can bebrought about by ordinary individu-als, people who just believe in beinggood human beings. Each day, thepadyatra will halt in the evening at avillage or town on the way. “We willhave meetings with the local commu-

nity of the place, which will includemeaningful dialogues and inter-faithprayers. Then, we will eat together andrest overnight in their homes in a spir-it of oneness. We will walk together,not as members of groups or parties,but as human beings. We will walk fora society where opportunity is given toall, regardless of caste, religion, lan-guage, region or gender. Together, we

will spread the message, personally, toover 10 million fellow country menalong the way.”

Other than communal harmony, onthe agenda is to discuss and help inwhatever way possible, issues in socialspaces such as environment, womenwelfare, education and others, depend-ing on what is urgently the need of alocality.

To understand what made himthink of such a radical idea, one has toknow the man. Sri M could easily be In-dia’s best kept spiritual secret, and ishighly regarded by knowledgeable andardent spiritualists as an exceptionalspiritual master. Born as Mumtaz AliKhan on 6 November 1948 in a devoutMuslim family in Trivandrum, Kerala,he speaks of all religions in an equally

easy way, from a place of knowing. Hisautobiography, Apprenticed to a Hi-malayan Master – A Yogi’s Autobiogra-phy, which is a best seller, brought himinto the awareness of people across theworld. It weaves in its hundreds ofpages the rich tapestry of a spirituallife under masters and is in the lineageof great Indian spiritual classics suchas The Autobiography of a Yogi.

M was attracted to Vedic teachingsat an early age. He met his Guru at theage of 9 and left home at 19 to live inthe Himalayas, where he met manysaints and sages before living withhis Guru for three years. He has beenassociated with the Rishi ValleySchool as a former trustee of the Kr-ishnamurti Foundation. Rather thanchoosing any specific religion or tra-dition, M teaches the universalessence of all religions. He is married

and has two children. "When one ex-periences deep spiritual realities, oneknows that the ultimate aim, be itwhat the Buddha called ‘Shunya’ orthe Vedas describe as ‘Purna’ are thesame in all religions," he says.Trained by Sufi masters in theessence of Islam, and having studiedthe Bible deeply, he asserts no reli-gion can ever be interested in any-thing other than peace and harmony.

People find his simplicity and au-thenticity appealing, teaching andguiding the Satsang Foundationwhich is essentially a space for spiri-tual seekers and working with theManav Ekta Mission to encourage re-ligious harmony.

His Guru called him Madhu, shortfor Madhukarnath. I ask him how hewould like to be addressed. “Just call

me ‘M’,” he says, during an interviewin Madanapalle, AP, where he lives.M stands for Manushya, or humanbeing, and that is enough.” Afterreading his autobiography, onecan’t help asking if there is some-thing special about souls like him toreceive such incredible grace fromthe highest spiritual masters. Hebrushes off any idea that life wasmore special than any other humanlife, “we are all special, some of us aremore awake.”

From the Dalai Lama to the PMModi, and filmstars like Rajnikant,people have applauded the idea, theysay. Ordinary Indians, when theyhear of the idea, tell him they willwalk with him.

Ultimately, its about bringing backHope, and helping people find them-selves. “We cannot do anything much

by talking to frenzied crowds,” Msays. “The change has to come withineach individual.”

Fellow media colleague, Ben fromUK asks him worriedly, “Aren’t youworried about any violence on the wayor resistance?” Very matter-of -factly,he says, “Well that is always a possibil-ity. This is a journey that is within, asmuch as it is outside. My Guru used tosay, “We can’t be free unless we doaway with our anger, hatred, and jeal-ousy and so on. But where in this cave(where they meditated) will someonemake you angry? It’s in real life, livingamong people, that these are tested. Soif something happens, it happens. Onehas to take the risk.”

dipal.gala@timesgroup.comFor more on the yatra:

www.walkofhope.in

A 6500 KM WALK TO HEAL INDIA

IN WHAT PROMISES TO BETHE MOTHER-OF-ALL-WALKS,

THE WALKOFHOPE 2015 ISINSPIRING THOUSANDS OF

INDIANS TO WALK FOR AUNITED NATION, AND THEONENESS OF ALL PEOPLE

On 12 January 2015 - the birthday of a great prophet of in-terfaith harmony, Swami Vivekananda - we will start theWalk from the southern most point of mainland India, theGandhi Memorial Mandapam in Kanyakumari. The Walkwill conclude in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir in 2016, ajourney of 6500 kms across 11 states of India spanning 15-18 months. I invite all Indians to join, wherever they can,for any length of time. Together,we will cover 15 to 20 kmswalking everyday across the heat and dust of our nation,for peace, harmony, and well being of our people.

While 2014 introduced us to a world ofnew tech, 2015 will have us get ourhands dirty with them all. Here is the

low down on all of the best bits you shouldkeep your eyes peeled for!

VIRTUAL REALITYVirtual Reality (VR) tech

and its possible applications have fasci

nated brains andeyes around the

world. WhileOculus has gotthe ball rolling,we believe 2015 isthe year whenthings will finallybegin to come to-gether, with thefinal con sumer

version hitting themarket. You should

also keep your eyespeeled for Sony's Pro-

ject Morpheus VR. It isaimed at enabling PS4 VR

gaming and looks poised toshake up the tech world this

year.

SMARTPHONES2014 was a year where smartphones

pretty much ruled the roost, withmassive launches and advance-

ments. The new iPhones madea big splash and the Androidkings in the likes of theHTC M8, Moto X ruled.However, it was the lowcost phones that showedtrue potential.

Xiaomi (Mi4) and Micromaxwill have even better spec'd

phones lined up for 2015, the year whenyou should be able to get your hands bet-ter phones that aren't priced to burn ahole in your pocket. But there will alsobe an elite list of devices that will haveyou drop your jaws all over again.Theones that have us all interested are theHTC M9, successor to the popular HTCM8. Oppo showed us it's R5 smartphonesin Singapore, the thinnest at the time oflaunch. Expect it to hit the Indian market inJanuary. Windows 10 Microsoft should take the lid offits much awaited Windows 10 Operating System. Fanboysand users alike hope this new OS will fix the problemsthey faced in Windows 8 (activation errors, updating WiFiissues). What we know as of now is that a consumer buildhas leaked on to the net and news is that

WINDOWS 10will feature Cortana and also

sport a new Xbox Live app.Overall the inter faceand settings will begetting quite a bit oftweaks. But theburning questionis, will they getrid of the startmenu?

TABLETSCome 2015 and

the tablet war willget even hotterwith Microsoft look-ing to launch its Sur-face Mini tablet. But be-fore that Samsung shouldunveil its new Note 10.1 just intime to fight it out with Apple's upcoming iPad range.Also expected is Sony's new 12in Xperia in the firstquarter of 2015.

WEARABLESApple iWatch clearly seems like the most awaited

product to start of 2015. While the iWatch looks ex-tremely promising on paper and sports

tons of external and internal fea-tures only a full test will reveal

more. This year laptop giantLenovo too should launchtheir new smartwatch. Andwhy not, now that they haveacquired Motorola, the re-quired expertise should bemore than adequate. We

have also been hearing ru-mours about HTC planning

to dive into the smartwatchmarket. Since the fitness bug has

bitten us Indians too, finally, expectbrands like Goquii, Tom Tom and more to bringtheir fitness products here sooner than before.

DRONESNothing beats the feel of shooting aerial videos,

normally you would need to jump off an airplane.Not any more. With the fairly easy availability ofdrones, at least internationally, I believe dronebased photography should literally reach newheights in 2015.Products like the DJI Phantom,Parrot AR, Hubsan X4 and more have alreadyproven their worth and the videos and imageryshot with these products are simply spectacular.

Drones make shooting videos anover all fun experience and

in recent times even avidHollywood direc tors

have been using themto get tricky shotsdone at minimalbudgets. Thoughone has to be re-sponsible enoughwhile using drones,

its creative applica-tions are unquestion-

able.

Govind Rammurthy The au-thor is the CEO & MD at cyber-security company eScan

As one more remarkable year comes toan end in the history of cyber securi-ty, 2015 will continue to face updated

ver sions of these cyber-attacks which wouldbe even more targeted

INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT)Similar to 2014, wherein bugs such as Heart-bleed and Shellshock were used to targetservers, in 2015 too this trend will continue,but in a much alarming way due to hackersthat will pry to open the Internet of Things.With more devices getting connected, hackershave access to many devices most of which arelack security protocols.

CELLPHONESWith the constant increase in usage of Smart-phones, this year too cybercriminals are ex-pected to target these devices at a much largerscale, as they have the ability to store tons ofper sonal and confidential data and are also al-ways switched on. As mobile users continue toignore their privacy, in order to their privacy, inorder to take benefit of apps,these apps will continue tobe target for privacyhacks. Moreover, asthe trend of mobilepayments is increasing, near-field communication (NFC)payments would bethe next top targetfor attackers.

DDOSIn 2015 too, DistributedDenial-of-Service (DDoS)will continue to rise as athreat, compromising serversand using their bandwidth in carrying DDoS at-tacks. Even if these attacks are smaller, they wouldbe intensive with an intention of conducting hack-tivism.

RANSOMWARE2015 will witness profitable ransomware scams.These vicious attacks have been constantly increas-ing. Motive of Ransomwares to encrypt a user's filesand request a ransom for the files to be decrypted.

ROOTKITSRootkits can be installed and hidden on machines.Even if a Rootkit is not malicious, it can hide mali-cious activities and this helps criminals to access data,monitor network, modify programs without being de-tected. In 2015, attackers will increase the range oftheir crimes by using multiple systems with more so-phisticated attacks.

LINUX & MAC MALWAREUnlike Windows, Linux is known to be less vulnerableto cyber-attacks, ShellShock vulnerability disclosedduring 2014, potentially affected Linux OS and gain ac-cess to confidential data and networks. Linux is as-sumed to be a safer option and hence is often overlooked.Cyber-attacks on the Mac have evolved and 2015 will wit-ness more of them too.

What are your New Year's reso lutions for 2015? Jointhe gym? Save up for a flat? Find a partner? If you'vespend most of this year single and are ready to start

something new, here are some tips to getting started.

BEING MORE OPEN-MINDEDSo he's not into going out much and she's loves a good party-so what? Say yes to someone you wouldn't normally say yesto -Mr Right may be right may be right in front of you. Seizethe moment and don't be too quick to judge -or you may endup overlooking your match.

ACT LIKE A LADY, THINK LIKE A MANIt's true, in order to attract the man of your dreams, you've gotto think like one. Be smart with your choices, if you can see heisn't looking for a serious relationship, bear in mind you're notgoing to change his mind just because you're dating.Have

standards, and stick to them.Let him know he could either riseup to those requirements, or just move on. Don't be afraid tosay it how it is, on your dating profile or to his face and don'tbe afraid to walk away.

JOIN A DATING SITEHave you tried online dating? If you have, it's time to revampyour profile -think about a new picture and refresh your bio.Tinder, for instance, is undeniably one of the most social dat-ing sites around.You can swipe right to like or left to pass.Ifsomeone likes you back, it's a match! Homegrown free appssuch as Thrill,Woo, DesiCrush,Truly Madly and more are avail-able on both Android and iOS.

MAKE THE FIRST MOVEDo you sit opposite the love of your life every morning onyour way to work? Do something about it before someoneelse does. Or if someone's profile catches your eye, say some-thing to them. Make yourself stand out by paying attention towhat they're reading or the hobbies on their profile -and startthe conversation with something you have in common.

TRY SOMETHING NEWWhether it's the gym or a cooking class, do something differ-ent.Meeting new people will boost your confidence, plus, younever know who you might meet!

5 NEW YEAR'SRESOLUTIONSTO FIND LOVE

IN 2015UP YOUR CHANCES OF FINDING

ROMANCE. TRY ONLINE DATING OR MAKE THE FIRST MOVE

A 6500 KM WALK TO HEAL INDIA