Impoverished Women Without Identity Documents Turn to Prostitution in Sri Lanka

Marry, a Sri Lankan woman who guesses she is in her 40s, is a prostitute in
Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital. Marry knows little about herself. She does not
have a birth certificate or a National Identity Card, a compulsory document for
all adults here that must be carried at all times. So she says she made up her
own name and guesses she is around 40.
“I do not know from where I am, who my parents are, even my name,” she says.
She can speak both Sinhala and Tamil, the official languages of Sri Lanka, as
well as English. Because she knows Tamil best, she guesses her ethnicity must be
Tamil, but she has no way of knowing.
Marry says that the furthest she can remember back was working as a servant
in a rich family’s bungalow when she was 10 or 12. But a few months late she
reached puberty, and her employer started mistreating her.
“I can remember that lady did not give enough food for me,” she says. “I
started to eat whatever I stole from them. Because of that, she started to hit
and punish me every day. Finally, I decided to [leave] that bungalow.”
Marry starts to cry, then begins to speak in English.
“My story started from the date which I came out that bungalow,” she says. “I
met that heartless man at the bus stand around 6 in the evening.”
She says that at first, he treated her kindly.
“I could not remember the name of that man,” she says. “He came to me and
talk to me nicely. He promised to help me to find a job in Colombo. He asked me
to come with him, and both of us got onto a bus. After a one-hour journey, we
got down [off] the bus and went to a small room around 8 o’clock at night.
First, he gave me some food.”
But then Marry says there was a sudden change in his demeanor.
“He raped me three times in that miserable night,” she says loudly.

7 People You Must Be Friends With at Work

Since we spend a major part of our day and lives in the office, it is very important that we have a few office friends who can double up as our office angels in times of need.  Read on to find out about the 7 people you must know at work.
Receptionist: It’s always good to see a friendly smiling face when you enter the office right? And this is where the receptionist can be your “bright little ray of sunshine” at the start of the day! They can also help you by directing the food deliveries from nearby eateries to your cabin correctly, your visitors, etc. And if you don’t want to be bothered by visitors, you can count on them to put up a great act of “She’s not in today”. You never know when it might come in handy!
Security Guard at your floor: Want to send a package to your friend on the next floor? Or files to your subordinates? The security guard at your floor could be your man! They can even help with your photocopies and print outs, in case if there’s an emergency for it.
Finance Guy: “With money comes power,” and that’s what makes the financial department the most powerful silo in your office! If you have a problem with your salary statement, reimbursement, etc. you won’t have to wait for the long grueling procedures if you are in good terms with the finance guys. Also, if you happen to quit your job, you can be sure to get what you is due to you right away!
Gossip monger: They are the ones who control the office dynamics with the rumors they spread/hide! Whatever you do, you definitely don’t want to be on their hate list. For the next thing you know, a harmless conversation with the IT guy is churning in the gossip mills as a wild passionate affair! Laugh at their jokes, nod politely when they are on the “Shhh…did you hear?” spree, and they are sure to love you!
Boss’s pet: They are the ones who are always finishing the work before time, praising the boss on his shirt/tie/pant/shoes/hair/lack of hair, so it’s not at all hard to find them! They remember the boss’s birthday, throw a surprise party on his anniversary, and even ask him to wish his kids on their birthdays! Is there any suspense behind why they are the boss’s pet? If you need a holiday or two, it wouldn’t hurt to have them recommend it to the boss, right? And if they like you enough to sneak in a good word about you to the boss, brownie points to you! *wink*
Canteen guy: Late for lunch, and you just can’t do with anything else but your regular plate of egg biryani? Only your canteen guy can save the day! If you are in good terms with him, all you will need is a phone call, and rest assured!
Tech Guy: Do you have to wait for half an hour once your computer fails to get your tech guy to fix it? Well then, what you need is to go and befriend him right away! He can recover your unsaved documents, help you sneak into social websites, fix your computer, thus be your tech safety net.

How to Deal with Hunger Pangs

With all the energy you devote to shedding kilos, you might actually know very little about the why most diets fail — hunger pangs. It’s never easy to resist that third serving of pizza even if you are bursting out of your seams. The guilt always strikes after the damage is done. Know the signs of hunger, the cues for stress eating, and what triggers your cravings to tame yourself when hunger strikes.
The culprit
You’ve been working since 10 in the morning and consistently thinking about the deadline. Too busy to eat,there is a chance you would suffer from starvation. “Hunger is your body’s cue to eat. Due to habits such as erratic timings and long gaps between meals, hunger cues get out of sync, leading to severe hunger pangs,” says clinical wellness expert Namita Jain.
A simple solution
Firstly, understand your body clock. Know the difference between actual hunger and stomach contractions. Also, at times you may be misguided by people around you. “You may feel that eating less is better but it isn’t true,” says John Gloster, fitness expert, The Pilates and Altitude Training Studio. “Starvation is never a great survival strategy. Eat less but eat more often,” he adds.

Is it hunger or thirst
Figure out whether you are hungry or thirsty? Sometimes your body can send off signals to the brain that you are hungry. This is because food has lots of fluid contained within it. However, you don’t want to be confused with taking on-board unwanted calories when you simply haven’t had enough to drink. The key is to ensure you keep your fluid intake up over the course of a day.

What to eat and when to eat
If you’re following a particular diet, you will always prefer to carry a lunch box to work. A wheat bread sandwich, idlis (four to five), unpolished rice ( a bowl) and curd, a roti roll filled with vegetables or two to three fruits are apt options for the day. For mid-night  hunger pangs, foods like salad sandwich are a big no-no. You would certainly not wish to sleep with a heavy stomach that leaves you restless all night. Instead, eat a fruit and drink a glass full of water over it.

The Bottomline
To make sure you don’t experience hunger pangs when on a diet, use top quality meal replacement drinks like coconut water, green tea and butter milk (chaas) and get your hands on whatever snacks are allowed in the diet programme like soy nuts or energy bars. Eat a healthy balanced meal that doesn’t leave you feeling hungry, and this way you’ll get to snack on some treats when you want to!

How to Choose the Right Perfume for Winter

No woman is completely dressed without a fragrance on her. The changing season means new perfumes to compliment the cooler weather. Different seasons have different fragrances. Summer and spring are all about light, floral fragrances. Come winter and it’s time to go musky, woody and oriental. While summer fragrances are meant to make a woman feel calm and cool, winter’s all about sexy heat.
During the winters, heavy clothing and the fall in the temperature does not emanate the fragrance as easily as it would in the summer or the spring season. Winter perfumes depend on one’s body chemistry. If your skin is dry and dehydrated, your body needs a fragrance which has an essence that is warm and intense, as compared to other seasons. Fragrances linger well on skin that is not dry and enhances the staying power of the fragrance.
Choosing what perfume to wear can be confusing. To make it easier, here’s an option: If you have a carefree nature, opt for musky fragrances. It would match your mood. The romantics should go for the fruity ones. The effect of perfume works distinctly for each women. Select those perfumes which remind you of the season.
The effect of perfume works distinctly for each woman. The same scent will produce a different result on each person. What smells good on one person may smell entirely different on your body. Test not more than three different brands at one go, else the different aromas may confuse your nose.
When choosing a winter perfume scent, select those scents which remind you of the season.
Know your scent 
> Give yourself five minutes between smelling each perfume to give the fragrance a chance to settle down.
> If you spray the perfume on your wrist, do not rub your wrists together, this will destroy some of the top notes.
> It’s a fact that the same perfumes smells differently on individuals. This is because of our body chemistry, which reacts with the components of fragrance.
Choosing winter perfumes 
Scents are known to evoke seasonal fragrances and moods. Winter perfumes should have rich scents along with sweet notes like amber, vanilla and cinnamon. There are various perfumes which combine sweet fragrances like oranges, caramel, lemon, honey and fruits.
What’s your fragrance?
Woody: An ideal choice for cooler months and evenings, earthy tones are the feature of woody fragrances. These perfumes usually feature such scents as sandalwood, patchouli and cedar to give a rich and natural fragrance. Woody perfumes are easy to wear and versatile.
Greens: Where woody perfumes capture the essence of forests and woodland, green perfumes have tones more reminiscent of cut grass and crisp spring growth. Lighter and suitable for casual wear as well as evening and business wear, these are generally funky and contemporary and can be worn for all occasions.
Oriental: These perfumes are the strongest of all. With sensual overtones and rich undertones, this scent makes for quite heavy blends, but they are complemented by the fine scents of sweet vanilla, musk, sumptuous flowers and oriental resins. Most oriental perfumes have a wonderful crossing-over of qualities from all the other categories from the spicy fruit tones to warm woody tones and this makes them a superb choice for corporate environments, evening events and special occasions.
Floral: These have strong overtones of flowery fragrances. Overtones like rose, jasmine and lavender work perfect for the winter season. These scents are feminine without being overpowering and are suitable as a day wear.
Fruity: Fruity fragrances are spicy and fresh. They are quite youthful in their scent and apt for cool weather. In the winters, they invoke a sense of warm desserts and cider. They are an excellent choice for women who like classic fragrances but also want to add a little flair.
Day and evening perfumes 
Fragrances are even categorised by day and evening. Normally, during the day it is important to choose a fragrance which is lighter and fresh than in the evening which should be warm and more intense. Layering is a very important factor to prepare your skin for the day and evening. During the day, wearing cologne or a Eau de Toilette will act as a top note, where the focus is more on the ingredients that are in the first notes that one can experience. These fragrances are much lighter compared to intense fragrance like Eau de Parfum worn during the evening.

Why you need more ‘risky’ equities in your pension pot

Wealthier employees are being shoehorned into unsuitable pension arrangements   that expose them to too much risk when they are young, but invest much too   cautiously as they hit retirement.
That is the finding of a report from Cass Business School in London, which   examined the strategies adopted by typical defined purchase pension schemes   across Britain.

The report, Optimal Funding and Investment Strategies in Pension Plans, by   Professor David Blake, concludes that the one-size-fits-all nature of   default funds in workplace money purchase schemes means millions of   higher-rate taxpayers are investing in the wrong types of assets throughout   their lives.

For Prof Blake, the problem centres on the fact that default funds assume that   everyone in them is going to use all their pot to buy an annuity on the day   they retire. While this may be the right solution for the majority of   people, who cannot afford the risk or advice costs of income drawdown, for a   substantial  minority a 100pc switch out of equities is unsuitable.

Research from the Pensions Policy Institute shows that 25pc of defined   contribution pension savers over 55 have sufficient assets to consider   income drawdown, yet anyone planning to do so should not be entirely   invested in bonds.

Existing default funds are not just unsuitable for wealthier pension   investors, but they expose people of all income groups to too much risk in   their late forties and fifties, says the report.
Prof Blake said: “The problem with default funds is they start switching   people out of equities too late, but, when they finally do so, it happens   too fast and it goes too far.”
With money purchase pension schemes, it is the individual who is exposed to   stock market risk. To avoid the risk that a 30pc drop in the stock market   the day before you retire translates to a 30pc drop in pension income, as   happened to some individuals in 2008, most pension funds operate an   automatic de-risking system. This gradually switches tranches of your fund   out of equities and into bonds, gilts or cash. This process, called   “lifestyling”, usually happens in the five or 10 years preceding your stated   retirement date.
Prof Blake’s research concludes that the switch away from risky assets should   start much sooner, gradually moving investors out of equities when they are   in their late forties. But rather than reaching retirement age 100pc   invested in bonds, wealthier people should still have between 20pc and 50pc   left in equities.
Andy Cheseldine, of pension consultancy LCP, said: “Lifestyling only works for   the 80pc of people who are going to end up buying an annuity. It is a very   blunt instrument and if you know that you will not be buying an annuity when   you retire with the whole of your fund, then you should not be 100pc in   bonds or gilts when you reach retirement age.”

Beware the default fund

Default funds have stayed in the thrall of the cult of equities long after   years of good performance stopped masking poor asset allocation.
Investment experts agree that equities are absolutely the right asset class   for younger investors because they have historically returned more on   average than bonds for longer periods. But over shorter time investment   horizons the chances of them outperforming fall.
The Barclays Equity/Gilt study has been collecting data on the relative   performance of different asset classes since 1899. Of the 94 discrete   18-year periods since the end of the 19th century, equities outperformed   cash for 93 of them and beat gilts on 83 occasions.
But consider a 10-year time horizon and you don’t have to look far to find   cash and gilts outperforming equities. In the so called “lost decade for   equities”, the 10 years to 2010, UK equities generated on average a return   of 0.6pc a year, compared with 2.4pc for gilts and 1.1pc for cash.
Prof Blake argued that while equities were expected to outperform, the risk   they will not do so grows as the investment horizon shortens. For this   reason investors need to start moving at least some of their assets into   bonds in their mid to late forties.
“Depending on how risk averse you are, you should have between 20pc and 50pc   of your fund in equities on the day you retire,” he said. “This is because   you are going to live for possibly another 30 years, so want to attempt to   achieve some of the higher potential returns available from equities.”
Rather than plain vanilla equity funds, Prof Blake preferred diversified   growth funds that offer access to a range of growth asset classes such as   property, currency, infrastructure, private equity and debt as well as   traditional equities, which are designed to give equity-like performance but   with lower volatility.
Once in income drawdown, investors should continue the strategy of taking risk   out of their portfolio gradually.
This is because the nearer you approach your likely age of death, the better   rate of return you get from an annuity, making annuities increasingly   attractive compared with income drawdown . This effect, known as “mortality   drag”, means your investments have to return around 6pc a year by age 75 for   your drawdown pot to keep pace with what an annuity would pay you. By age 80   the figure is a difficult-to-achieve 7.4pc.
Most experts agree that this strategy is pretty close to the sort of solution   that wealthy people paying for professional advice would receive.
Andrew Herberts, investment director at Adam Investment Management, said: “Dr   Blake’s approach more or less describes what we do for our clients at the   moment.”
Another advantage of phasing annuity purchase in this way is that it reduces   the risk of buying one at the bottom of the market. “Making a   once-in-a-lifetime switch into an annuity at age 65 is not optimal because   you could be at the bottom of the interest-rate cycle,” said Prof Blake.   “Phasing your annuity purchase hedges you against that interest-rate risk.”
Billy Burrows, a director of Better Retirement Group, said: “If you want to   phase your annuity purchase, there are two ways to do it. If you already   have several pension policies, you can use them to buy annuities one at a   time.
“Alternatively, you can put your entire fund into a low-cost Sipp and take   chunks out as and when you want to. Another advantage of waiting is that the   older you get, the more chance you can get an enhanced annuity on grounds of   ill health.
“And you will find it easier to pass on the assets still in your Sipp in the   event that you die. But you will face a cost each time you transfer money   from your Sipp, as well as the cost of advice on your annuity purchase.”
Defined contribution pensions are risky enough as it is – so it is worth   making sure you are taking risks only when it is in your interests to do so.

Jacqueline Fernandez: Boycott horse-drawn carriages

As she affectionately pats a horse while standing on a beach wearing a bikini
and next to the words “Put Horse Carriages Out to Pasture – Boycott Horse-Drawn
Carriages,” Sri Lankan actor and model Jacqueline Fernandez stars in a brand-new
ad for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India.
The ad was shot by ace photographer Anushka Menon. The ad is being released
in the wake of a recent incident in which a horse collapsed after being forced
to pull a carriage of eight people near theGateway of India – an all-too-common
occurrence among horses who are used for “joy rides” in the city. It is also
being released following the Mumbai High Court’s landmark decision to crackdown
on unlicensed stables housing carriage horses. PETA India is calling on BMC to
ban horse drawn carriages outright.
“I have observed so many … heartbreaking incidents, and I can’t be a silent
spectator to this abuse anymore,” Fernandez wrote recently in a letter to the
Municipal Commissioner of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. “Horses
simply don’t belong on the streets, and they certainly don’t deserve to be
forced to pull carriages beyond the point of exhaustion.”
Jacqueline won the Miss Sri Lanka Universe title in 2006. She received an
International Indian Film Academy Award and Stardust Award for Best Female Debut
in 2010 for her role in the Indian film, ALADIN, and she plays the lead in the
just-released Bollywood thriller, MURDER 2.
Fernandez joins a growing list of actors – including Hema Malini, John
Abraham and Glee star Lea Michele – who have teamed up with PETA India to call
for an end to horse-drawn carriages in Mumbai’s streets.

Most powerful Arab woman in Colombo

Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid bin Sultan Al Qasimi, the most powerful Arab woman in the world according to Arab Business and Forbes magazines, who is also the Minister of Foreign Trade of United Arab Emirates, arrived in Sri Lanka today, on a three-day official visit amidst renewed bilateral trade efforts between Sri Lanka and the UAE. She is visiting Sri Lanka, based on a special invitation extended to her by Rishad Bathiudeen, Minister-Industry and Commerce.
The picture shows Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid casually going through the 2012 Expo invitation that was handed over to her by Minister Bathiudeen