Hello & welcome to this weekend’s GK nugget . First up I’d like to wish you, your family, friends & colleagues a very Happy Diwali & a prosperous New Year . Since Diwali is the time of a lot of bonuses & superb sales where you get more bang for your buck, I thought of giving you more information this weekend than normal . So this weekend’s GK nugget is about Diwali of course, but also about Bill Gates (his birthday was on 28 th Oct). Let’s begin with Diwali. Now we all know why Diwali is celebrated and how it is celebrated, but did you know that it is a national holiday in India, Trinidad & Tobago, Myanmar, Nepal, Mauritius, Guyana, Singapore, Surinam, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Fiji . And is an optional holiday in Pakistan . In Nepal , Diwali is referred to as ‘Tihar’ or ‘Swanti’ & the God of death, Yama is worshipped for a longer life of the people on the fourth day.  While in Orissa , Diwali celebrations include calling upon the spirits of t

Hello & welcome to another GK Nugget . This time we’re travelling 15 years into the past where on this very day the portable music player industry changed forever. No prizes for guessing, 23 rd October 2001 was when Steve Jobs unveiled the very 1 st iPod … and the rest, as they say, is history. Over its 15 year journey, can you guess how many times has the iPod evolved? Available now with a maximum memory size of 128 GB , the 1 st edition had a capacity of only 5 GB & was marketed as being able to offer “ 1,000 songs in your pocket ”. Nobody expected Apple to release a MP3 player. In fact, the 1 st generation iPod received much criticism ranging from its US$399 price to the scroll wheel and its lack of Windows compatibility. (Windows compatible iPods came out in July 2002). The name "iPod" was inspired by “ 2001: A Space Odyssey ” – the 1968 epic science fiction movie produced & directed by Stanley Kubrick. The immortal line: “

Hello & welcome to this week’s GK Nugget. October 13 marks the day on which the Greenwich ( pronounced Gren-itch, not Green-which ) Meridian in UK was established by the International Meridian Conference in 1884 as the starting point for measuring time zones across the globe. So on its 132 nd anniversary , we’re going to look at why it was important to establish GMT in the 19 th century, why it’s still significant and also at some quirky facts about time. GMT was born at the world-famous Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, established in 1675 by Charles II. According to the Observatory's website, the site " is, by international decree, the official starting point for every new day, year and millennium ". The growth of shipping & railroad travel led to great confusion about the correct time at different parts of the globe which made it necessary to establish the prime meridian. The Greenwich Meridian maintains a position of Longitu

Hello & welcome to this weekend’s GK Nugget. The Nobel prizes have been announced this week and no prizes for guessing, but that’s the subject of this weekend’s nugget. Now we’ve all stayed abreast of the news and know that the Nobel Prize for Physics, Chemistry, Medicine & the Nobel Peace Prize have been announced. The Nobel Prize for Economics will be announced on Monday while the prize for Literature will be announced later. Here’s some trivia that you might not have been aware of, about these prestigious awards. The Nobel Prizes are named after Alfred Nobel , a Swedish entrepreneur, who was famous for inventing dynamite. As per his will, after his death in 1896 , his fortune was used to annually award individuals who have bestowed the greatest benefit on mankind . The Nobel Prizes were originally handed out in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine or Physiology, Literature & Peace but in 1968 Sweden's central bank ( Sveriges Riksbank ) establi

Hello & welcome to this weekend’s GK Nugget. The high point of this week has clearly been India’s surgical strikes on Pakistan to nip infiltration of terrorists in the bud. But this week also saw a low point in the sporting world, particularly for ardent golf fans, with the passing away of golf great Arnold Palmer . So this week, the GK nugget tees off with some lesser known trivia about Arnold Palmer and the game of golf . Born in 1929 in Pennsylvania, USA , Arnold Palmer was regarded as one of the greatest professional golfers. He was one of golf’s most dominant players in the late 1950’s & early 1960’s ; so much so that he was nicknamed “ The King ”. He was the 1 st golfer to make $1 million from the sport. He collected 7 major titles in a 6-plus-year explosion, from the 1958 Masters to the 1964 Masters & also notched up 62 PGA Tour wins . Palmer was the trailblazer in sportsmen taking on brand endorsements. Even at the age of 86 , he ranked as t