Wednesday 6 November 2013

[www.keralites.net] New norms to make health cover claims much easier

 

 
Health insurance customers with multiple covers don't have to fret about making a claim anymore. They have the option of approaching one of the insurance companies and claim the entire amount.

Earlier, those with multiple policies were required to approach both (or all) insurers and the companies used to settle claim in the ratio of the sum assured. For example, if you had two policies with sums insured of Rs1 lakh each and the claim was Rs1 lakh, both the companies would shell out Rs50,000 each. But, the new health insurance regulations, effective from October, and the abolition of contribution clause that dealt with claims under multiple policies, have made life simpler for health insurance customers. Policyholders will benefit from fewer delays in claim settlement and less paperwork.

Moreover, one also gets to retain the no-claim bonus on a policy that is not used, which enhances the health cover at no extra cost. "As per the new guidelines, the customer can avail of the entire claim in any of the policies till the sum insured is exhausted and the remaining claim can be settled with other insurer or insurers," says Sanjay Datta, chief of underwriting and claims at ICICI Lombard. That means insurers cannot insist that the claim burden be divided as long as the amount does not exceed the sum insured. "Even if the claim amount is higher than the cover under one policy, the policyholder has the right to exhaust the limit and make a claim for the balance from the other insurer. So, in a sense, the contribution clause has become somewhat redundant," says Renuka Kanvinde, assistant vice-president, health insurance, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance.
The new regime is also favourable to those with an individual cover plus group cover from the employer. The new rule gives you the choice of making a claim under the policy of your choice. "The process of claims would be similar as both the policies would be treated as independent policies irrespective of whether it is group or retail," says Antony Jacob, CEO, Apollo Munich Health Insurance.

However, if you have bought a regular health cover and a fixed benefit cover that offers, say, Rs2,000 per day of hospitalisation or a pre-defined lump sum on diagnosis of illnesses to supplement it, the scenario will remain the same for you as the contribution clause does not apply to this combination. The regular health covers promise to reimburse expenses incurred by you, while the fixed benefit covers that are usually sold by life insurers hand out a fixed sum when you make a claim.

Typically, a policyholder has to submit a bunch of documents, including medical records, original hospital bills and discharge summary, along with the completed claim form while filing a claim for reimbursement of expenses. Since the emphasis is on originals, the procedure of claiming from more than one insurer always tended to be a long-drawn-out affair. While the new regulations have eased concerns on this front by nearly eliminating the contribution clause, you may still have to go through the process if your claim amount exceeds the sum assured.

Cashless procedure will be simpler. "The claim will be settled on a cash less basis by one insurer and the insured can then submit claim documents with the settlement report received from the hospital to the other insurance company for the remaining amount," says Jacob. Also, if all your insurers happen to use the same third-party administrator's services for processing claims, the procedure could be hassle-free
Source ET

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[www.keralites.net] Fwd: Material Love [1 Attachment]

 
[Attachment(s) from Murli dhar Gupta included below]

 

Rich or poor, makes no difference in finding ways to avoid or dumb down to insufficient love in your life. One of the ways, regardless of wealth, is to be addicted to getting 'things', or the denial thereof. What do they REALLY do for you that more love in your life doesn't have? The answer is that they are a substitute for more love. Deep love for most doesn't come easy, and not that the 'goodies you want' always come easier either, and without sacrifices including seeing them disappear. The material, and usually it's thrill of obtaining, always disappears or fades in importance.

Love on the other hand, only disappears in your mind that chooses to recognize that it's always there in your heart or not. People have infinite love within, but due to the mind in conjunction with the heart, most of it will lay as dormant, not used energy! Abracadabra, and the heart opens spilling the glistening feelings of joy and bliss, but only if you are in tune with the relaxing harmonious positioning to life.

It's easy to avoid the emotional, spiritual, conscious meanings of life by chasing and/or acquiring other things, including of course more wealth. While working in Manhattan (NYC) for 20 years, and keeping open to seeking spiritual riches as well as the material ones, I began to enjoy the material quest, and maybe more. Then, the next day after Christmas, I sat on my 40th floor balcony over looking Central Park and the thousands of tall buildings when an epiphany came to me. Time to walk away! I could see that everyone I knew were getting wealthier too, and often moving to upscale homes in the 'bedroom' class communities. That takes years more of support to pay for the toys which are wonderful, but leaving no time for evolving the inner aspects.

Most around my circle were continuing to march in similar step to a life dedicated to making more, buying more, and avoiding the journey to the deeper things in life. Likely they had little idea beyond having to work, and buy more to lead the 'American dream' that they couldn't see it's called a 'dream' because that's what it is! 'New things' are nice, but when they are life's priority, there will always be a 'gap' between them and your inner spiritual, conscious self. That attitude multiplied by the many, rich or poor, contributes to a world of sheeple who are controlled by their material desires. Those who choose the path of 'love' with the accompanying awareness raise not only their light but the light of humanity which has been in the dark blindness of all history. Time to stop sidestepping love be it loneliness or fear.

It's a new world that repeats being new faster and faster, and mostly through technological marvels. The technological growth is growing at such a fast pace while humanity is evolving at the pace of a turtle. Inevitably, human inner growth will suffer more and more as barriers or distractions continue to de-elevate or dumb down humans to lower sheeple, zombies, or robots. Be a light to yourself, love, and the evolving consciousness of the world. Call it 'giving back' for the blessing of being here at this moment.


 

Arhata
 
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Attachment(s) from Murli dhar Gupta

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[www.keralites.net] ISKCON Govinda Restaurant Juhu Mumbai :

 

ISKCON Govinda Restaurant Juhu Mumbai : - ( No Onion or Garlic Used all food is treated as Prasadam ) - 33 items are served from Monday to Saturday while they serve more than 56 items on Sundays. Buffet .
On Sundays, with everybody crowding in, you have to wait for a table. On other days it is easier. Bisleri water is served free. Juices, butter-milk, and jal-jeera are given as welcome drinks (but cola drinks as well as coffee are not served here).Tea is served too, but only herbal tea. You would know the difference. The food is tasty, better than any other 'vegetarian food' I have eaten. The variety is amazing and the cuisines are Indian, Chinese, Thai, Italian and Mexican. Naturally, all the cuisines are available at the same meal. You then help yourself to a little of this and a little of that, and the menu changes every day.

 
But first, there was a welcome drink. A waiter came with a tray with glasses of butter milk, litchi, pineapple and watermelon. ( Even fruit juices change every day ).
Everyday there are three varieties of rice available like pulaos, biryanis, Chinese fried rice, Thai pineapple rice, Spinach Biryani, Mexican pepper rice, Italian capsicum rice, risotto, rice with cheese balls, plain steamed rice, chutneys etc. On Sundays, there are about eight to ten rice dishes, and also pasta. Everyday there are three dals, which range from tur and moong to dahi kadi, dal makhani along with vegetables. There are rotis, paranthas, bhakri, cheese naan and of course, 'each and everything' here is cooked in 'pure desi ghee'.
3 to 5 sweet items and unlimited Ice cream and Kulfi.
Within the temple complex this is located in Bldg "Heaven on Earth".

Hema Malini ji who is a regular here. John Ibrahim and Bipasha Basu also visited to attend a friend's function. Kabeer Bedi has been here many times and he personally told Premanjana Das that he loves the food here. Madhuri Dixit also came here once. Manoj Bajpai keeps coming to this Govindas, Hema Malini ji who is a regular. I was not in the restaurant when Shreya Ghoshal visited. Veteran bhajan singer Shree Anoop Jalota keeps coming here occasionally.


 
http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/editorials/07-12/editorials8775.htm



 

Ravi
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[www.keralites.net] V.K.T.BALAN - Madura Travel Services (P) Ltd. - From Poverty to success and yet a simple man even now.

 

V.K.T.BALAN Founder of - Madura travel Service (P) Ltd : - born  in a poverty stricken and depressed class family. In 1981 he landed in Chennai, the then 'Madras', one the great metropolitan cities of the World, and the fourth largest city in India, with empty pocket.Egmore Railway Station platforms and benches were his abodes. Life was almost a mirage for Balan. He tried his best to get employed for food but of no avail.

VKT BalanStruggling hard for existence, he spent his time in the company of others who were like him in search of odd jobs. One ill-fated day, which changed his entire life, Balan was sleeping tired, broken and faint-hearted, with the deprived lot of others like him at Egmore Railway Station. Suddenly he was disturbed and woken up by a policeman at midnight. He had to run to the best of his ability to avoid getting arrested. While running, he noticed a queue of people standing near a building and joined the queue to escape the policeman. Then a stranger approached him and asked whether he can get a berth in the queue. Balan instinctively obliged and the stranger gave Balan Rupees two. Balan realised that he had been standing and sitting on the platform adjacent to the American consulate. Balan received it with a great surprise and safely possessed the capital for madura travel service in his pocket.
Thereafter he approached more gentlemen who frequented the American Consulate for Visa. He even accompanied them to the offices of other travel agents and helped them to get their tickets. He earned the goodwill of many gentlemen as well as majority of the travel agents.

To fulfill his dream and hard work, madura travel service was born on 17th January 1986. Now it has turnover in Crores and functions in its own premises opposite to Egmore Railway Station.

Till today, Balan lives as a simple man clad in white khadi shirt and dhoti with a rubber slipper and forehead smeared with sandal paste and saffron. He has upgraded himself to the position of the Chairman and Managing Director of madura travel service (P) Ltd.

Mr.Balan is searching and wants to present a Gold Ring to that particular policeman who had beaten and chased him away and attempted to handcuff him.
The Government of Tamil Nadu had conferred Mr.Balan with the prestigious "Kalaimamani" award and the citation was given to him by the then Tamil Nadu Governor Ms. Fathima Beevi. The then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.Karunanidhi presented the shawl and gave him the "Thanga Pathakam" (Gold Award).

His TV program in 'Pothigai' TV "Velichchathin Marupakkam' which portrays about down ridden and unfortunate people is presented by him for more than 300 episodes.He brought a real sense of energy and warmth to all the shows he presented.

In the year 1992 He had arranged a Gala Music Festival by bringing in all most all the Tamil Film music artists together and presented the video cassette to the then President R. Venkataraman who officially released the same. It is kept as a treasure in the Tamil homes Worldwide.From 1987 to 2007 by bringing together thousands of artists, Balan had conducted more than 200 cultural programmes in 25 countries and more. Balan's this activity had been recorded as an achievement in the Limca Record of Books. Limca Record of Book's is registering records like this by any Indian. This had fetched a great name for Balan and undoubtedly a great name for both Tamil language and the state of Tamil Nadu.

Balan had also established an Institute by the name "Madura Institute". This Institute gives training related with all information regarding Air Travel. In this Institute, training is given free of cost for those persons who are physically challenged. Those physically challenged persons were also given immediate jobs as soon as they finished their training. It has the credit of training a physically challenged to get his IATA qualification employed him as Assistant Manager.
What the VIP's have to say about him in the link below.
http://maduratravel.com/vip-talks/

 
Ravi
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[www.keralites.net] The Math Trick Behind MP3s, JPEGs, and Homer Simpson’s Face

 

The Math Trick Behind MP3s, JPEGs, and Homer Simpson's Face

Nine years ago, I was sitting in a college math physics course and my professor spelt out an idea that kind of blew my mind. I think it isn't a stretch to say that this is one of the most widely applicable mathematical discoveries, with applications ranging from optics to quantum physics, radio astronomy, MP3 and JPEG compression, X-ray crystallography, voice recognition, and PET or MRI scans. This mathematical tool—named the Fourier transform, after 18th-century French physicist and mathematician Joseph Fourier—was even used by James Watson and Francis Crick to decode the double helix structure of DNA from the X-ray patterns produced by Rosalind Franklin. (Crick was an expert in Fourier transforms, and joked about writing a paper called, "Fourier Transforms for birdwatchers," to explain the math to Watson, an avid birder.)
You probably use a descendant of Fourier's idea every day, whether you're playing an MP3, viewing an image on the web, asking Siri a question, or tuning in to a radio station. (Fourier, by the way, was no slacker. In addition to his work in theoretical physics and math, he was also the first to discover the greenhouse effect [pdf].)
So what was Fourier's discovery, and why is it useful? Imagine playing a note on a piano. When you press the piano key, a hammer strikes a string that vibrates to and fro at a certain fixed rate (440 times a second for the A note). As the string vibrates, the air molecules around it bounce to and fro, creating a wave of jiggling air molecules that we call sound. If you could watch the air carry out this periodic dance, you'd discover a smooth, undulating, endlessly repeating curve that's called a sinusoid, or a sine wave. (Clarification: In the example of the piano key, there will really be more than one sine wave produced. The richness of a real piano note comes from the many softer overtones that are produced in addition to the primary sine wave. A piano note can beapproximated as a sine wave, but a tuning fork is a more apt example of a sound that is well-approximated by a single sinusoid.)
Fun & Info @ Keralites.net The sound wave produced by a piano note can be thought of a simple sine wave.Milan B via Shutterstock
Now, instead of single key, say you play three keys together to make a chord. The resulting sound wave isn't as pretty—it looks like a complicated mess. But hidden in that messy sound wave is a simple pattern. After all, the chord was just three keys struck together, and so the messy sound wave that results is really just the sum of three notes (or sine waves).
 
Fun & Info @ Keralites.netThe sound wave produced by a piano chord can look like a mess, but it's just three different notes (sine waves) added together.Christine Daniloff/MIT
Fourier's insight was that this isn't just a special property of musical chords, but applies more generally to any kind of repeating wave, be it square, round, squiggly, triangular, whatever. The Fourier transform is like a mathematical prism—you feed in a wave and it spits out the ingredients of that wave—the notes (or sine waves) that when added together will reconstruct the wave.
 
If this sounds a little abstract, here are a few different ways of visualizing Fourier's trick. The first one comes to us from Lucas V. Barbosa, a Brazilian physics student who volunteers his time to make incredible math and science animations for Wikipedia, where he goes by "LucasVB."
So let's take a squarish looking wave, pass it through Fourier's prism, and see what comes out the other side.
Fun & Info @ Keralites.net Stills from an animation by LucasVB
In these images (click through to Wikipedia to see it as an animation), the red squarish wave is distilled into a set of pure notes (the blue sine waves). Think of these blue waves like a mathematical ingredient list for the red wave. Pressing this analogy, the Fourier transform is a recipe—it tells you exactly how much of each note you need to mix together to reconstruct the original wave. The vertical blue lines in the animation are essentially a graph visually representing the amount of each note.
Here's another way to think about this, provided by Matthew Henderson, or "Matthen," a Ph.D. student at Cambridge University who also creates animated GIFs of mathematical curiosities. Matthen explains Fourier's trick using circles instead of sine waves. This involves a set of circles of different sizes, each one centered on the edge of a bigger circle. Then the circles begin to spin, the big circles swinging the smaller ones around, and the smaller ones spinning faster than big ones. If you trace the motion of one point on the smallest circle, you can reconstruct a wave of any shape, as shown in the animation and the stills below. Again, the Fourier transform tells you how to build the wave: which circles, moving at which speeds.
Fun & Info @ Keralites.netMatthew Henderson
If you're old enough to have played with a Spirograph, this idea of tracing complex patterns using wheels within wheels might be familiar to you. Here's an interactive version of the same animation, created by LucasVB, where you can mess around and change the sizes of the circles.
To summarize, the Fourier transform tells you how much of each ingredient "note" (sine wave or circle) contributes to the overall wave. Here's why Fourier's trick is useful. Imagine you were talking to your friend over the phone and you wanted to get them to draw this squarish wave. The tedious way to do this would be to read out a long list of numbers that represent the height of the wave at every instant in time. With all these numbers, your friend could patiently stitch together the original wave. This is essentially how old audio formats like WAV files worked. But if your friend knew Fourier's trick, you could do something pretty slick: You could just tell them a handful of numbers—the sizes of the different circles in the picture above. They can then use this circle picture to reconstruct the original wave.
And this isn't just some obscure mathematical trick. The Fourier transform shows up nearly everywhere that waves do. The ubiquitous MP3 format uses a variant of Fourier's trick to achieve its tremendous compression over the WAV (pronounced "wave") files that preceded it. An MP3 splits a song into short segments. For each audio segment, Fourier's trick reduces the audio wave down to its ingredient notes, which are then stored in place of the original wave. The Fourier transform also tells you how much of each note contributes to the song, so you know which ones are essential. The really high notes aren't so important (our ears can barely hear them), so MP3s throw them out, resulting in added data compression. Audiophiles don't like MP3s for this reason—it's not a lossless audio format, and they claim they can hear the difference.
This is also how the smartphone app Shazam can recognize a song. It splits the music into chunks, then uses Fourier's trick to figure out the ingredient notes that make up each chunk. It then searches a database to see if this "fingerprint" of notes matches that of a song they have on file. Speech recognition uses the same Fourier-fingerprinting idea to compare the notes in your speech to that of a known list of words.
You can even use Fourier's trick for images. Here's a great video that shows how you can use circles to draw Homer Simpson's face. The online encyclopedia Wolfram Alpha uses a similar idea to draw famous people's faces. This might seem like a trick you'd reserve for a very nerdy cocktail party, but it's also used to compress images into JPEG files. In the old days of Microsoft Paint, images were saved in bitmap (BMP) files which were a long list of numbers encoding the color of every single pixel. JPEG is the MP3 of images. To build a JPEG, you first chunk your image into tiny squares of 8 by 8 pixels. For each chunk, you use the same circle idea that reconstructs Homer Simpson's face to reconstruct this portion of the image. Just as MP3s throw out the really high notes, JPEGs throw out the really tiny circles. The result is a huge reduction in file size with only a small reduction in quality, an insight that led to the visual online world that we all love (and that eventually gave us cat GIFs).
Fun & Info @ Keralites.net Randall Munroe / XKCD
How is Fourier's trick used in science? I put out a call on Twitter for scientists to describe how they used Fourier's idea in their work. The response astounded me. The scientists who responded were using the Fourier transform to study the vibrations of submersible structures interacting with fluids, to try to predict upcoming earthquakes, to identify the ingredients of very distant galaxies, to search for new physics in the heat remnants of the Big Bang, to uncover the structure of proteins from X-ray diffraction patterns, to analyze digital signals for NASA, to study the acoustics of musical instruments, to refine models of the water cycle, to search for pulsars (spinning neutron stars), and to understand the structure of molecules using nuclear magnetic resonance. The Fourier transform has even been used to identify a counterfeit Jackson Pollock painting by deciphering the chemicals in the paint.
 
Whew! That's quite the legacy for one little math trick.

 
Aatish Bhatia is a recent physics Ph.D. working at Princeton University to bring science and engineering to a wider audience. He writes the award-winning science blog Empirical Zeal and is on Twitter as @aatishb.
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Nandakumar

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