SSC CGL 2016 exam dates out; read the eligibility criteria, registration details

New Delhi: The Staff Service Commission (SSC) will conduct the Combined Graduate Level (CGL) examination for various positions in ministries, departments and organisations, which will be held across the country between May 8 and May 22, 2016.

The last date to fill the application form is March 14, 2016. Interested candidates are required to regular visit the SSC website for latest update on the same.
Staff Service Commission is conducting the examination for vacancies in the following departments/ ministries:
Group B
Assistant
Inspector (Central Excise)
Inspector (Preventive Officer)
Inspector (Examiner)
Assistant Enforcement Officer
Inspector of Posts
Sub Inspector (CBI)
Statistical Investigator Gr.II
Group C
Inspector of Income Tax
Divisional Accountant
Inspector
Auditors
UDCs
Tax Assistants
Compiler
Junior Accountant & Accountant
Sub-Inspector
Candidates applying for the post should hold a Bachelors degree from any recognised institution with a percentage mentioned in the notification. The age of the candidates should be between 18 to 27 years as on January 1, 2016. reed more

CD Palencia: Anatomy kit design puts Tercera Division side in focus

We've all heard players say they are willing to put their bodies on the line, but one Spanish team have gone as far as putting them on the front of their shirts.

CD Palencia will try to win promotion from Spain's fourth tier wearing a bizarre new kit that looks like something out of a biology textbook.
The Tercera Division side's strip is a detailed look at the human anatomy, with abdominals, pectorals and biceps on show.
CD Palencia - only founded in 2011 - will wear the kit for the end-of-season play-offs. reeg more

Social Media Strategy: where to begin?

Social media are a necessary part of any marketing strategy, but they should also be a part of your SEO strategy. As social media become more popular, Google and other search engines can’t ignore them any longer. Tweets and Facebook posts don’t get the highest rankings in Google, but Facebook pages and profiles for sure do. But how do you know which social media to use? In this post, I’ll walk you through the first steps of determining a social media strategy: finding the social media that suits both your business and your audience best.

Which social media suit your business?

The first step in determining a social media strategy is whether that social medium is one that you’d want to be found on. In other words, does the social medium suit the message and branding of your company? And on top of that: does this social medium offer the options and reach you’re looking for?
Social media like Facebook and Twitter offer a lot of ways to advertise and make your brand and company known beyond the scope of your followers. With other social media, this can be more difficult and would require a lot of hard work to get the same results. Make sure to think about what presence on the considered social media would mean for your company. Make sure that this aligns with how you want your business to be branded.

If God Is Just, Why All This Suffering?

 A million girls and boys trafficked for sex each year.

Millions of widows facing violence and destitution at the hands of their own family and neighbors.

Tens of millions of slaves locked in crushing labor.

Hundreds of millions of girls raped.

How do we hold in tension the truth of God’s goodness and love for justice with the reality of pandemic suffering? There are countless stories of people all over our world—people created by God for a life of wholeness and flourishing but who instead undergo a living nightmare of injustice. How do we open our eyes and see the dire needs of our neighbors while holding fast to hope in a God who rescues, heals, and restores?

Derailment in the face of suffering is far too often the norm rather than the exception. Even those of us launching forth with the deepest passion for justice and conviction of God’s goodness can lose heart and fail to persevere over the long haul. Everyone is vulnerable to derailment; injustice can breed disillusionment and doubt. Suffering can drive cynicism or, even worse, despair.

But God invites us to come to him—not in spite of doubt and derailment but in the midst of it. Woven throughout Scripture is an unguarded type of prayer known as lament. To lament is to ask “Why?” and “Why not?” as well as “What are you doing God?” and “Where are you?” To lament is to pour out our hearts, holding nothing back. It is to pray without trying to be more full of faith than we actually are. Lament is prayer that honors the honesty of pain and anger while also honoring the truth that God is the one who reigns and whose hesed love never fails. Lament holds in tension all the suffering that seems to make no sense with a determination to believe that God is just. Lament draws us near to God when we are tempted to turn away. Lament enables us to keep moving forward with perseverance in the justice calling; it is a way to remain deeply connected to the God who loves us and loves justice even when injustice makes us ask the hardest questions of God.

The Heart of Lament

Lament is a gift. In the midst of everything going wrong around us—whether in the world at large or in the lives of people whose names and faces we know and hold dear—lament is a gift given to help us hold fast to God. God invites lament because he knows our temptation to turn away rather than toward him in the heat of hardship. Some of us turn away by not talking to God when we experience pain in our lives or see the suffering and evil of oppression at work in the world. Others turn away by pretending they can simply press on with their lives and shelter themselves from the pain they feel or see, seeking to avoid the tension of wrestling with a good God who reigns over a world that is festering in grief. Lament is only the beginning of our journey toward God in hope, but it is a beginning that we can hardly plumb too deeply. Even as we station ourselves to wait upon the Lord and determine to rejoice in the midst of trembling, in the face of injustice we need to return again and again to lament  (read more)

Hope on the Refugee Highway: A Special Report on Christians in Iraq and Greece

 Just beyond the still-under-construction ring road on the outer edge of Erbil, a group interview turns into a mutiny.

“You already understand why we are here,” says one of the 15 displaced Christians and Muslims who have gathered at a World Vision food distribution site in the capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region. “Everyone in America should know about our crisis by now: ISIS.”

This group is weary of telling NGOs and journalists why they fled their homes, and how hard and fragile life is among Erbil’s abandoned buildings.

They are especially weary because this will be their second winter of displacement. Meanwhile, food aid has decreased from $25 to $16 to now $10 per month. Most refuse to give interviews, despite the fact that their stories could spur Westerners to send more aid. If their current visitors are not there to increase food vouchers, then, they say, everyone is wasting their time.

Some in the group fidget with 11 oz. bottles of water bearing blue caps and the word life spelled in red. The i is an upside-down exclamation point, a marketer’s attempt at fun in a sad setting.

But such a mark fittingly punctuates the refugee crisis. The numbers—1 million refugees entering Europe by the end of 2015—surpassed comprehension long ago. The question is whether they have now also surpassed compassion.

The world now has more displaced people than during World War II. Beyond Europe, another 2.5 million refugees are in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, while 4.5 million people remain displaced within Syria and Iraq, where ISIS is most active.

As winter approached, Christianity Today traveled to Iraq and Greece to witness how Christian leaders are working along the “refugee ...(read more)

Indian student wins Noor Inayat Khan Prize

 Geetakshi Arora, a PG student of the South Asia Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, won the £1,000 prize.

An Indian student is the winner of the first Noor Inayat Khan Prize for 2016, the London-based Noor Inayat Khan Memorial Trust announced on Saturday.

Geetakshi Arora, a post-graduate student of the South Asia Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, won the prize — which consists of £1,000 and a certificate — for her dissertation on “Goddess Myths in Graphic Novels: Reimagining Indian Feminity”.

The Trust awards the annual prize to a post-graduate student from SOAS, University of London, working in the area of gender studies and South Asian history.

Ms. Arora said that she was “humbled” by the award. “Noor has always inspired me to stand up for the values of peace, education and respect for all individuals irrespective of race, gender and religion. I will always try to live up to her legacy,” she told The Hindu.

Of Indian descent, Noor Inayat was a secret agent in the Second World War, who was sent to Nazi-occupied Paris in 1943 from where she worked as a wireless operative sending intelligence reports to the Allies. Though betrayed to the Gestapo, tortured and ultimately killed at the Dachau concentration camp, she defied her captors to the very end.

“We hope the annual award keeps the memory of Noor Inayat Khan alive in the student community. We felt that SOAS was the natural choice to locate this prize given its long tradition of promoting South Asian culture and history” said Shrabani Basu, founder and chair of the Noor Inayat Khan Memorial Trust, and author of the biography of Noor Inayat, The Spy Princess.

A campaign by the Noor Trust resulted in the unveiling by Princess Anne in 2012 of a bust of Noor Inayat in Gordon Square, a tranquil lung space close to a cluster of institutions including SOAS.

Keywords: Noor Inayat Khan Prize for 2016, Noor Inayat Khan Memorial Trust, South Asia Institute, School of Oriental and African Studies read more

5 Tips for Killing It at SXSW and Other Conferences

The spring conference season is about to hit full swing.

Austin, Texas, will be abuzz March 11-20 for SXSW. This year’s featured speakers include renowned director J.J. Abrams; Jim Bankoff, CEO of Vox Media; and Biz Stone, co-founder of Medium, Twitter and Jelly.

Thousands of business professionals in industries from venture capital to advertising to software development are expected to attend, and if previous attendance figures hold true, about 23 percent of SXSW Interactive attendees in executive positions will be CEOs.

If SXSW isn’t your style, don’t fret. March is jam-packed with the Adobe Summit, MarTech, CRM 2016, Build 2016 and 4A’s Transformation conference.



Related: The 10 Best Worldwide Conferences for Entrepreneurs

With so many conferences coming up, don’t forget to brush up on your networking skills. To maximize your next conference experience, follow these tips:

1. Focus on helping others.
I once made a complete fool of myself at a conference by approaching a speaker only to blast him with every detail I could about my company and my product. In less than two minutes, I’d quashed what could have been a great relationship by acting like a self-promotional robot.

When you meet someone, instead of blasting him with your accomplishments, ask yourself, “What is one thing I can do for this person?” The law of reciprocity is a powerful tool in business, and the person to whom you offer help is much more likely to remember you in a positive light. Jessica Herrin, founder and CEO of Stella & Dot, once told me, “Every time you meet someone new, ask yourself, ‘Are they going to be a domino or a linchpin in my success story?’”

Related: 9 Networking Blunders That Undermine Your Reputation

2. Aim for quality over quantity.
When I began building my company, I devoured every business-building book I could get my hands on. But one networking book offered me terrible advice -- it urged me to go out there, shake hands and collect as many business cards as possible at every event. Unfortunately, desperately collecting contact information is annoying at best and creepy at worst.

Instead, focus on making three genuine connections at an event. Ignore the pressure to “work the room”; instead, engage in deep, enjoyable conversations. Relationships are the foundation of networking, so dig in and move past surface-level chatter. Fellow entrepreneur Sue Olsta Crockett Mason, owner and gynecological surgeon at Virtuosa Gyn, encourages conference-goers to build trust by showing vulnerability through sharing their personal stories. Let others into your life, and they’ll let you into theirs.

3. Ask for what you want.
A dear friend and fellow entrepreneur Shuly Oletzky impressed me with her ability to take initiative at conferences.

Shuly recently attended the GrowCo Conference. After the CEO of Spark City, Lisa Hendrickson, spoke about pricing strategies at a recent conference, Oletzky approached Hendrickson, thanking her for the valuable session. Oletzky asked whether Hendrickson would be willing to discuss a few of the topics in greater depth, and the two quickly bonded. Then, after the conference was over, Oletzky reached out to Hendrickson, and so began their tight-knit relationship.

4. Take initiative.
Think in advance about how you’ll demonstrate leadership, foresight and generosity at the conference. For example, a colleague of mine impressed me by making a 10-person advanced dinner reservation for the evening of the conference.

As she met interesting people during the day, she invited them to dinner. At the meal, she worked to break the ice with her fun personality. Her dinner company left with full stomachs, an appreciation for her leadership and new connections of their own.

Related: Become a Networking Beast by Following This 5-Step Plan

5. Don’t hide your personality.
Sue Kallamadi, owner of Trunk Up, likes to start her conference prep with her suitcase. She chooses bright colors or fun patterns to complement her vibrant personality. According to Kallamadi, a well-thought-out wardrobe shows people you’re confident and true to yourself, making them feel more comfortable networking with you. Design unique business cards or bring a few samples of your product to be both on-brand and on-style.

Forging meaningful connections with strangers is scary, and I’ve felt more than a few nervous butterflies at big conferences. But you didn’t attend the conference just to collect a few new business cards. If a speaker piques your interest, don’t be afraid to approach her, and be sure to stay connected after the conference. Take the initiative to improve your skills, and make 2016 the year you master conference networking.