Shaping The Future With Big Data: Are We Playing With Fire?

The urge to be mobile and make a mark is as old as mankind. Ancient tribes moved around guided by stars, sent sound signals and left their ‘selfies’ on cave walls with colorful palm prints. Today we use GPS to get where we’re going, communicate on a variety of devices and are so obsessed with visuals that it would take an individual more than 5 million years to watch the amount of video that will cross global IP networks each month in 2018.
Sharing and generating all this information has led to a new era shaped by a phenomenon we call big data. It’s not easy to explain what big data is, or more important, how companies try to manage it so that it’s useful for business purposes. SAP’s head of Platform Solutions, Steve Lucas said in his interview between two schnitzels that the best way to manage data is by developing cloud applications that allow you to run your business from a mobile phone. Simple, right?
What’s different now?
The big difference between data then and now is that before, only humans created and collected data as they went about inventing more and more things and ways to make life easier. With the rise of sensors and other technology that creates and collects data, humans are no longer the center of the data solar system, creating everything, but are just another node in an increasingly autonomous data universe. In an article published in the The Human Face of Big Data, Esther Dyson points out that the big in big data is about self organization. Without our awareness, data is organizing itself, mostly following human rules but without human intervention, acting more like the immune system than the nervous system ruled centrally by the brain. So what?
This means that while we may be able to observe the data around us, there is still much we don’t understand. Just as ancient people lacked knowledge about bacteria and its impact on health, we lack knowledge about how billions of objects really interact with their own virtual presence and identity, sending data they collect to other devices to coordinate common activity and making decisions humans are not even aware of.
Are we playing with fire?
Humans have always tried to model and shape the natural world and sometimes have lost control, leading to disasters and destruction. Think loss of habitat, the extinction of many species, or the change in climate and its impact around the globe. There are many lessons to be learned about messing with nature; the most important one is taking responsibility for the outcome. With big data revolutionizing what it means to mess with something humanity has never known before comes a new responsibility, because the purpose of managing data is not to predict the future but to shape it. And that’s a huge responsibility.
Rising to the challenge
Using technology that provides insight into data, today’s business leaders have a unique opportunity to make thoughtful decisions that will have long-lasting impact. A century ago no one could foresee how the automobile would become a ubiquitous mode of transportation that changed the world. Changes took place slowly in an evolutionary manner, unplanned and unmanaged, brought about by technological advances that led to safer and more reliable cars on one hand and messy traffic and massive ecological problems on the other.
Evolution hasn’t stopped! Connected cars are already here, and driverless, sensor-based cars are coming.  In the new world, people will rely on service providers to get around and won’t need to own cars. There will be no need for car dealerships, insurance, or parking. There will be no car accidents, no speeding tickets, and entirely different energy sources. Data in the new, connected network will autonomously ‘drive’ us safely to wherever we are going.
This kind of transformation has far reaching implications on the entire ecosystem and our lifestyles. Innovative companies within the automotive ecosystem are already analyzing data to help them understand what needs to be done in 5-year chunks, so they can transform from an automotive
company to a ‘mobility company’ using sustainable practices.
Disruptive changes like that are happening in every industry around the world.  Will today’s leaders rise to the challenge of shaping the future in a responsible way? Let’s not just be another node in the data universe.  Let’s leverage our tools and technology to better understand the data around us and use it to make a difference.
This article was originally posted at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2014/07/10/shaping-the-future-with-big-data-are-we-playing-with-fire/

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Reason behind Linkedin unpopularity

While LinkedIn is a great social media networking tool, and arguably the most professional of such tools available, it is not without its disadvantages. These include the potential of a profile or activity causing harm to your professional reputation as well as causing you to overlook professional contacts who are not actively engaged on LinkedIn. As you create a profile or build an active presence on the site, it's important to also be conscious of some of its downfalls.

The Required Investment of Time

Possibly one of the biggest disadvantages of LinkedIn, as with other social media tools, is the investment of time required to use it most effectively. While setting up a profile is relatively easy and does not require design expertise, the robust nature of the site means that there are many resources to navigate through, from Groups to Answers to making connections with others, which also makes it very time-consuming. For those interested in establishing a presence without a loss of work time, a good best practice is to be very strategic in terms of deciding which areas of the site to focus on and how much time to spend on a daily or weekly basis.

Not Everybody is Actively Engaged in LinkedIn

While LinkedIn boasts more than 100 million users as of this article's publication, the figure is a reported one, and can be misleading. Users who have created a profile may not be actively participating, and may not check it on a regular basis. Adding or making contacts on the site may not necessarily translate into a social business network, particularly if focusing on making those contacts online causes you to less actively seek out direct connections with key business contacts. Fortunately, it is easy to search to find out which contacts are on the site and to view their profiles to determine level of activity, should it prove more beneficial to reach out to them instead via email or otherwise.

Privacy Concerns

One big concern with LinkedIn, as with all social media sites, is privacy. LinkedIn provides the opportunity for you to adjust your settings to control who can see your activity broadcasts or activity feed, who can see when you've viewed their profile, who can see your connections and who can see your profile photo and visibility. Your decisions about how to manage your privacy settings will be based on your objectives in using the site and the levels of privacy you are personally comfortable with.

Your Reputation

While it is possible to manage your privacy settings on LinkedIn, the nature of social media means that at least some people will be able to see some of what you're doing and saying some of the time. Managing and protecting your reputation online is important because what goes online stays online--and can be readily shared with others. Posts made on LinkedIn through updates, Groups participation and involvement on Answers, are relevant examples, and without exercising caution both in the writing and content, have the potential to be damaging.
It is important to be cognizant at all times that what you are doing is public and to think carefully about the reputation you are establishing through your profile and contacts. A profile that lists a past employer as current, for instance, might send a sloppy message to others. Outdated references call into question whether you have done anything of note lately. Think of your LinkedIn profile as your face to the world, but it won't be useful unless it's accurate, relevant and kept up-to-date.

Article from a yourbusiness.azcentral.

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King of the Mobile OS - A Analysis

The Analysis looked at over 1000 parameters to compare Android, iOS, BlackBerry and Windows Phone in terms of usability and features in order to arrive at a winner.

How do you determine what makes a good OS? What makes iOS vs. Android or Windows Phone vs. BB10, or any other such comparison not just about the fanboyism? Is it even possible to arrive at a scientific conclusion to this question? If we look at entire eco-systems, Android and iOS are obvious choices for buyers because of the sheer amount of apps they have available. However, what’s that got to do with an answer to the question, what’s the best designed OS out of the box? 

How they compared

So how do you go about “testing” or “comparing” OSes? For one, we couldn’t run benchmarks, because that’s a test of hardware running an OS and not really a test of the OS itself. What we really needed to do was to break down the functions of a mobile OS into components that highlight a particular use case and rate the ability of the OS on its ability to handle that task. 

So how do we use our phones the most these days?

· ●  Browsing to find content to read and research

· ●  Good old email to communicate for work and personal reasons

· ●  Messaging / texting people, obviously

· ●  Customising our phones to be exactly as we want them to be, and thus we gave importance to settings and not just what was possible but how easy it was to find what we wanted

· ●  Managing contacts and the dialler to call and keep in touch, link contacts, etc

· ●  Photography, obviously, as we now click more pictures with smartphones than dedicated cameras, but not just clicking, sharing, editing, etc.

· ●  Notifications, and being alerted and updated about what’s happening, and the control you get over what you're notified about

· ●  The lock screen of our phones (which some claim will be the most important screen going forwards) as it’s the real summary of what’s happening as soon as we look at our phones

· ●  Searching for things (on or off the phone), because we can't live without search these days, but more importance to on the phone searches. 

· ●  Videos that we capture, edit and then want to share with friends

Are these the only ways we use our phones? Of course not, some of us may find creative uses for phones, such as using them to read long Tolkien tales, or as a brick to throw at someone (shameless exaggeration), but we’re focusing on the rules here and not the exceptions. As those of you wondering about social media and “sharing”, don’t worry, absolutely every parameter or use case where you would want to “share” something, was looked at under each individual category. So, for example, you want to share a picture you just clicked on all your social media accounts, we’ve considered that under photography, etc.

Once we’d decided what we needed to look at (which basically covers over a thousand individual features or settings in each of the OSes), we then proceeded to segregate each and every setting / feature into one of the 10 categories mentioned above.

The Results

Android 4.4.4 (3rd Place)

In our minds, and, we’re quite sure, in most of your minds as well, Android was the winner even before we began testing. It seemed such a blindingly obvious winner, given that its plethora of apps and the thriving developer community. Unfortunately (for Android), this test is looking at the design of the OS rather than the popularity of the platform and in that regards, stock Android is surprisingly lacking. Perhaps it's a leave it to the apps philosophy, but out of the box it's a little underwhelming when compared to the competition.

Let’s consider universal search for example. One would expect an OS that’s being mentored by Google would have the best overall search experience of them all, but it’s just not as good as you would expect. Both iOS and BB10 do better than Android when it comes to search functionality (internal phone search) and beat it by a large margin. How large? Well, believe it or not, more than double Android’s score!

The default Android Search tool doesn’t search through SMS, calendar entries, E-mail and much more. Those who are used to Android probably won’t even notice it because you didn’t know that it was even possible, but for those migrating from other platforms, especially BlackBerry, this would be a glaring omission.

The same can be said for photography as well. The new “Android Camera” app is a huge disappointment and nowhere near as feature-rich, and in-effect, as functional, as the camera apps on other platforms, BlackBerry and Windows Phone included. Again, remember this is a comparison of the camera software, not hardware, so don't shoot off angry mails about how your camera clicks better photographs than any other platform.

What does it do right? For one thing, Android 4.4.4 features the most feature-rich mobile browser that we’ve had the pleasure of using. While it does lose out on something as convenient as Safari’s Reading List feature, it’s syncing features are incomparable; iOS does manage to come a close second though.

Something else that Android does well is customisability, which was to be expected, but there were issues here as well. Stock Android is simply not as customisable as one would expect. Simple things like customising your quick settings are just not present. You can, of course, just ignore stock Android and jump to CyanogenMod or some other such ROM, but the true customisability of ROMs such as that are something we’ll be looking into later.

Overall, Android manages a distant third, a full 8 points behind our winner and just barely 1.5 points ahead of Windows Phone in fourth.

iOS 7.1.2 (2nd Place)

To be completely honest, we’ve always respected Apple for what they’ve done with iOS as a platform, but the full extent of the work that they’ve put into the OS was largely ignored by many of us and we really didn’t expect the OS to fare as well as it did. The price for their phones in India kind of turns us off, truth be told.  

The big shocker was notifications. iOS didn’t have real notifications a couple of iterations ago (iOS 5) and now all of a sudden we discover that it has the best implementation of a notification system across all platforms. It’s the subtle design decisions that make this possible, the indicator on the icons, location-specific reminders, the ability to allow repeated calls to notify you even when night-mode is enabled and so much more. None of the other OSes even came close to providing such a degree of information and customisability.

Interestingly, the default camera app in iOS is quite awful in terms of manual control. One might argue that the iPhone 5s has an amazing camera and that it probably doesn’t need as many fine-grained settings as the camera app on a rival, but as we've said before, this is about the OS and not the hardware. Plus, what happens when the same camera app is on a lower specced iPod Touch or older iPad? You might want some extra controls on those to tweak your pictures.

Search is another area where iOS shines and while it still isn’t as good as BlackBerry’s native search functionality, it was still more than enough to take the second place in our tests with a very healthy score of 75%. Way ahead of Android (35%) and just 10 points behind BB10 (85%).

iOS suffers badly in two departments – managing contacts and customisation. When it comes to contacts, the dialler is very basic and just seems to deal with contacts as an after-thought, unlike the more integrated approach used by just about every other mobile OS. Customisation is another sore point with this OS because it simply doesn’t let you change a lot of the default behaviour.

iOS manages to bag the second spot with its excellent notification system, good browser and excellent search functionality.

BlackBerry 10.2 (1st Place)

The underdog takes the crown. The BlackBerry 10.2 OS is undoubtedly the best designed mobile OS out of the box that’s currently available in the market. We were stunned by the result and to be honest, we delayed sending the magazine to print a day just to recheck everything. BlackBerry’s been behind the times for some time, if we're honest, and BB10 was supposed to be the game-changer. Quite frankly though, most people haven't given the OS much attention. While we’re not arguing the justification for that disdain, it’s quite clear that the OS deserves much more attention than it actually receives.

Now BlackBerry OS 10.2 (10.2.1.2977 for those who want specifics) has, by today’s standards, a very lacklustre browser – lacking even basic sync functionality, a messaging app (SMS) that’s also very basic, and that’s it. Those were the only real downsides to the OS. The browser itself is not terrible, and gets most things done, but with a whole range of other features being offered by the other platforms, somehow quick rendering and a reader mode don't make up the gap. 

BlackBerry OS 10.2 boasts of the most feature-rich search engine, an e-mail and contact management system that’s second to none, and is also surprisingly more customisable than we thought it would be, and also offers a good photography and video capture experience.

The sheer functionality offered by the OS, out-of-the-box, just cannot be ignored. Once you complete the initial setup, the device is perfectly capable of performing just about any and every task you would expect from a phone, and then some.

Take the search functionality, it truly is a universal search. A function that scans every bit of data on your phone, including browser history, e-mail and SMS conversations and much more. No other OS in our test was capable of performing these actions. In effect, the search is so effective that BlackBerry OS 10.2 walks away with scores that indicate it to be more than twice as good as Android’s implementation. Only iOS managed to come even close to BB10’s performance in this department.

E-mail was another area where BlackBerry OS 10.2 outshone every other OS (we expected this one). However it was the margin of victory (a score of 83.2, which is a full 30 points ahead of Android’s gmail app) that surprised us a little. The reason for this massive performance difference lies in the way the OS deals with e-mail. While the others are content to leave e-mail management to an app, BlackBerry OS 10.2 integrates e-mail into the OS, making it as native to the platform as a dialler is to a phone. This lends the OS some distinct advantages, particularly when it comes to managing multiple accounts and search, courtesy of the “Hub”.

Anyone who’s used a BlackBerry device knows that it’s a device that places communication first and entertainment second, and that comes across very clearly in our tests. Entertainment options, which would include the browser, photography, etc., are functional components and powerful enough to not give the average user cause for complaint. At the same time, the communication modules are so well designed and integrated into the OS that they far outstrip the competition and place this OS as the clear leader out of the box.

Windows Phone 8.1 (4th Place)

Windows Phone placed last on our test and it’s actually a little difficult to pin-point the problem. The OS is not bad really, it does perform all the actions you would expect an OS to perform in the sense you can send and receive calls and SMS, manage e-mail and even includes a notification drawer with quick access settings.

The real problem, as far as we can judge is that the OS does everything that you expect it to, but it just doesn’t do those things as well or as efficiently as other OSes. It does handle contacts and messaging better than almost every other OS (excluding BB10) courtesy of its People Hub, but that’s the only thing we can really say about it.

In essence, Windows Phone needs more exclusivity and focus than People Hub to outshine the other three.

There’s more to come

What we’ve given you so far is just part one of this quest of comparing OSes and their variants. With refreshes of all of these OSes coming soon, new OSes such as Ubuntu Phone, and even newer Android variants such as on the Amazon Fire Phone, the OnePlus One, Xiaomi Mi 4 and so on there’s still loads of work to be done.

Score Sheet
OS	Android 4.4.4	iOS 7.1.2	BlackBerry 10.2	Windows Phone 8.1
Browser	66.28	61.8	40	50.47
E-mail	53.07	46.6	83.2	44.93
Messaging	36.6	43.2	34.2	60.2
Settings and Customisation	55.48	40.09	53.21	45.13
Contacts and dialler	51.25	40.33	62.33	58.28
Photography	43.9	47.24	55.13	54.05
Notifications	29.4	69	36.7	29.2
Lock Screen	55.8	51.2	48.78	37.2
Search	35	75.3	85.3	54.7
Video	32.72	38.6	46.76	22.56
Final Overall Score	48.44	52.1	56.91	46.68

You may also give your suggestions in comment section regarding this analysis taken by Digit.

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Less known facts of Mahabharatham - A great Indian epic story

Interesting Facts of Mahabharata

Mahabharata is such a vast treasure house of facts and knowledge that it is impossible for anyone to know everything! Many of the facts are missed out or unknown. These are some of the facts that I collected from various sites and through my own research. (Although there may be some facts that have collected from folktales and such.) 

1. Sahadeva knew everything about the future. He knew that a war was going to occur but he kept silent because he was under a curse that if he revealed anything to anybody he would die.

2. Krishna had a sister named Ekanaga born from Nanda and Yashoda. (Known as Ekanamsa in Harivansha) 

3. Bhishma knew that Shikhandi was the woman Amba from his past. This was why he lowered his arrows whenever Arjuna used her as a shield. 

4. Bhanumati (Duryodhana's wife) was a devotee of Lord Krishna.

5. Balarama was Abhimanyu's father-in-law. His daughter Vatsala was Abhimanyu's wife. Actually Balarama wanted to marry Vatsala to Laxman (Duryodhana's son) but Abhimanyu did not like this because he loved Vatsala. He asked his brother Ghatotkacha to intervene. Ghatotkacha went to Laxman's marriage ceremony and frightened the groom. He brought Vatsala for Abhimanyu by magic. Laxman, traumatized from the fright vowed never to marry. Duryodhana's anger was further fueled when he learned about Vatsala's marriage to Abhimanyu. 

6. Lakshmana the sister of Laxman was married to Samba(Krishna's son).

7. Balarama had originally planned to marry Subhadra to Duryodhana. But Subhadra wanted to marry Arjuna so she ran away with him. 

8. Arjuna's 'pilgrimage' for breaking his marital laws with Draupadi earned him three more wives. They were: Chitrangada (Manipura), Ulupi (Naga) and Subhadra.

9. Abhimanyu was actually the soul of a daitya named Kalyavana. Krishna after burning Kalyavana to death had captured his soul (tied him in a knot of his upper cloth) and taken him to Dwaraka only to stuff him into a cupboard. Ghatotkacha(who had been sent by Hidimba to take care of Subhadra in Dwarka as Pandavas were in the forest.) saw Krishna and got a scolding from him. He went and reported the matter to Subhadra who went downstairs to check. She opened the cupboard and a light entered her womb which caused her to fall unconscious. This was the main reason why Krishna divulged only half the secret of Chakravyuha to Abhimanyu when he was in the womb. 

10. Ekalavya was actually Krishna's cousin. He was the son of Devashrava (brother of Vasudeva) who got lost in the forest and was found by a Nishada Hiranyadhanu. Ekalavya died protecting his father during Rukmini Swayamvar. He was killed by Krishna.

11. Yudhistira had another wife named Devika. She was the daughter of Govasana of the Saivya tribe. Her son was Yaudheya. 

12. Shikhandi had a son named Kshatradeva. Shikhandi was married to a Dasrana princess. 

13. Karna lost his first son Sudaman(16 year old) in Draupadi Swayamvar. He also lost his foster brother Shatruntapa(Shon) in Virat war. Both were killed cruelly by Arjuna.

14. Krishna took charge of Vrishaketu, Karna's youngest son after Mahabharata war. Krishna taught him all the divya astras but told him not to teach them to anybody else as the people of Kaliyuga would take advantage of it. 

15. Lakshmana went sati on Samba's pyre. 

16. Arjuna was unable to defend the wives of Krishna from common robbers after Krishna's departure to Vaikuntha. His bow became heavy and he forgot all his mantras. The 8 main wives committed suicide. The others were kidnapped by robbers. 

17. The 16,000 wives of Krishna were actually incarnations of Apsaras. 

18. Yuyutsu was the half-brother of Duryodhana. He was the son of Dhritrashtra's Vaishya wife. Duryodhana had appointed him as the finance minister. Later on he was appointed as Parikshit's caretaker and the regent of Hastinapura. He looked after the throne until Parikshit was old enough to rule. Yuyutsu committed suicide when he couldn't save Parikshit from Takshaka.

19. Dhritarashtra and Gandhari retired to the forest 15 years after Yudhisthira's coronation. The main reason for this was Bhima's taunts which depressed them.

20. Parikshit's wife Madravati was a frog!

21. Draupadi laughed at Bhishma in his last moments while he was giving them knowledge he possessed. 

22. Duryodhana had gone to Dwaita forest to humiliate the Pandavas with all the servants from Indraprastha. There the Gandharava Chitrasena and his apsaras were enjoying in the pond. Duryodhana asked Chitrasena to abandon the pool but as he refused, a heated argument broke out between them. Chitrasena attacked Duryodhana. The Pandavas who were nearby asked Chitrasena to let him alone. Chitrasena who was a friend of Arjuna spared Duryodhana but not before tying him with vines and setting him on his horse. Duryodhana though humiliated, thanked Arjuna and asked him what he wanted for the turn he had done to him. Arjuna said that he would ask from him some other time. 

23. During the war, Duryodhana accused Bhishma of not using his full power because he favoured the Pandavas. Bhishma in his anger took 5 gold arrows and infused them with mantras. He vowed that the Pandavas would die before sunset the next day through these arrows. Duryodhana suspected that Bhishma would never use those arrows so he kept them with him and decided to give them to Bhishma the next day on the brink of the war. Krishna on the other hand reminded Arjuna of the boon Duryodhana had promised him. He told Arjuna to ask for 5 gold arrows from Duryodhana. Arjuna did so. Duryodhana was surprised but did not grudge Arjuna and gave the arrows away. Duryodhana asked Arjuna. "Who told you that I have such arrows?" Arjuna replied. "Krishna, who else?"

24. Karna was the first person in attempting to kill Jarasandha. He did this in Bhanumati Swayamvar when Duryodhana ran away with the princess. He grabbed Jarasandha's knees in wrestling and started pulling them apart. Jarasandha immediately apologized and made Karna his friend.

25. Draupadi was asked 3 times by Duryodhana to come to the court after her husbands lost her in dicing. Draupadi kept denying and asked Duryodhana to question Yudhistira whether he staked himself first or her first. Duryodhana asked Draupadi to question her husband in court directly. Yet Draupadi refused to come and sent the attendant back. Duryodhana lost his temper and ordered Dusshasana to bring her there at any cost. 

26. The disrobing of Draupadi was instigated by Karna not Duryodhana. Duryodhana has been remarkably quiet during the entire episode except while asking Draupadi to come in court.

27. The Akshaya Patra was obtained by Yudhistira from the Sun God for Draupadi and the Brahmanas.

28. Arjuna skipped his 5 years of exile by visiting Indra for the Divya Astras. During this time the others performed a pilgrimage with the Brahmins and had their first encounter with Babreeka (Bhima's grandson). 

29. Balarama's wife Revati was from the 1st Manavantara. She was so tall that Balarama used his plough to pull her down to the right size.

30. The Upapandavas (Pandavas's sons) all died unmarried. 

31. Duryodhana expressed deep regret when Ashwatthama killed the Upapandavas in a fit of rage in their sleep on the 18th day.

32. Flowers rained on Duryodhana when he was felled on the 18th day by Bhima.

33. Bhima had one surviving son named Sarvaga by Balandhara who was not given the throne despite being much elder to Parikshit. He became the ruler of Kashi(his mother's land) instead. 

34. Bhanumati and Balandhara were cousins who were married to the two fierce rivals in Mahabharata.

35. Drupada had 10 more sons in addition to Dhristadyumna. 

36. Satyaki's real name was Yuyudhana. 

37. Draupadi asked for Ashwatthama's Chintamani when Arjuna and Bhima catch him on the last day of the war. She says that she shall not eat or sleep until her wishes are fulfilled. The mani is then fixed onto Yudhistira's crown.

38. Yudhistira learnt to play dice from the Sage Vrihadaswa who narrated the story of Nala and Damayanti in their exile. 

39. Raja Janaka the ruler of Mithila(Videha) was still alive when Balarama visited him while chasing Satadhwana for the Syamantaka jewel.

40. Kichaka was 30 years old when he proposed Draupadi. Draupadi herself was 50!

41. Duryodhana was born on Ashwin Krishna Dashmi. His Nakshatra was Bharani.

42. Yudhistira was born on Kartik Shukla Panchami. He was two years elder to Duryodhana. His Nakshatra was Jyeshtha.

43. Akrura (Kansa's charioteer) enjoyed the power of the Syamantaka Mani for 52 years before Krishna caught him out. Still, he was allowed to keep the jewel as it was proving to be beneficial to all.

44. Draupadi was carried off to be burnt on Kichaka’s pyre by his 100 brothers after his gruesome death. Bhima saved her and killed all the 100 brothers. The only other time this kind of an act was attempted was in Draupadi Swayamvara when the Kshatriyas declare that Draupadi should be burnt to death for insulting all of them. 

45. Draupadi sends Bhima to pick out the Saugandhika flowers when they are staying with sages near Badrikashrama during their exile. She does not want the flowers for herself but for Yudhistira. 

46. Bhima drank 8 pots of amrita in Naagloka (after Duryodhana poisoned him and threw him in the river) and this gave him the strength of 10,000 elephants.

47. Bhima killed all the 100 sons of Dhritrashtra. He felt intense remorse on killing Vikarna. (Vikarna was the one that defended Draupadi during the dice game.) 

48. Arjuna was beaten up by Lord Shiva who was disguised as a Kirata when he was performing tapasya to gain the Pashupata astra. 

49. Arjuna bestowed the epithet “Parthasarthy” on Krishna. 

50. Nakula could direct his chariot in rainfall without getting wet. 

51. Kalyavana was the son of Sage Garga. Sage Garga had specially produced Kalyavana due to his anger against the Yadavas who had laughed at him because he (Garga) was proclaimed as a eunuch.

52. After the War, the Pandavas come to Dhritrashtra and Gandhari to seek their blessings. The old couple was filled with grief and hence Dhritrashtra attempts to kill Bhima by crushing him. Lord Krishna substitutes the real Bhima with an iron statue of Bhima that Duryodhana used to practice with. Dhritrashtra apologizes for his behaviour. Gandhari’s fiery gaze chars Yudhistira’s toes black and the Pandavas cower behind Krishna. Krishna appeals to Gandhari to forgive her nephews. 

53. Gandhari gains a spiritual eye when she visits the battlefield to mourn the dead, which enables her to see everything. She describes the lamentation of the Kuru women.  The most heart-breaking description is of her daughter Dusshala who is wandering like a mad woman searching for her husband’s missing head. 

54. Lord Krishna loses his sleep over Arjuna’s vow of killing Jayadratha before the sunset. He gets up in the middle of the night and summons Daruka (his charioteer) telling him that if Arjuna fails in accomplishing his task, he (Krishna) would have to break his vow of not fighting. Daruka is instructed to keep Krishna’s chariot ready loaded with weapons and if he hears the Panchajanya conch, he should come on the battlefield with the chariot. 

55. Bhanumati was the daughter of King Chitrangad of Kalinga. She was abducted by Duryodhana from her Swayamvar. She was the mother of Laxman and Lakshmana.

Note: This list will be updated every time I discover newer information. :) So please keep checking back! 

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