SansSans

फेसबुक, ट्विटर जैसी सोशल मीडिया वेबसाइट्स आज लोगों की जिंदगी का हिस्‍सा बन गई हैं। यदि इन सभी से आदमी थोड़ी देर के लिए भी दूर होता है तो वह बेचैन हो जाता है। सोशल मीडिया का प्रयोग भले ही आपको दोस्‍तों के संपर्क में रहने के लिए अच्‍छा लगता हो। लेकिन इनका ज्‍यादा इस्‍तेमाल आपके स्‍वास्‍थ्‍य और रिश्‍तों पर विपरीत असर डालता है। image courtesy : sanssans images

Is the person peeping out of the profile picture column with a big smile on facebook the same as the person looking back at it? Technology and social media have such a huge impact on the society as a whole that we don’t know the difference between the real and virtual life anymore. Virtual life works on a sufficiently greased engine, as a result of which, it always seems brighter and smooth in comparison to the real life which goes on without much planning and mostly unexpectedly which results in a lot of hiccups and breaks along the way.

How different are people online and offline? This is a question which does not has a definite answer. Social media is a platform people use to connect with the entire world, a very technologically developed and fancy platform. It sets a benchmark for the standard of living,  forcing people worldwide to get obsesses with the picture perfect life, anything below which makes a person feel how pathetically miserable life they are leading. Matching up to the benchmark created by social media is neither practical nor feasible. It gives out a representation of a perfect, fairytale life which does not exist, and the benchmark forces the majority to try and try to match up with the non-existent reality. The virtual life or the life represented by social media is mostly shiny, striking and without the cruel realities life, whereas the reality is very much dissimilar. Real life is stressful, demanding, and real. As a matter of fact, these harsh realities of the real life is what makes a person so drawn towards the easiness of the virtual life.

On social media we only sees what the person wants to show us. People create a brand, a tag for themselfves using social media, The tags and brands which might or might not be true. For instance, there can be a serial killer updating bible verses on Facebook, and making the rest of the world to tag his a follower of peace and sprituality.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India has approved explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp's (ONGC) plan to buy its 51.1 percent stake in state-refiner Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL), a government source said on Wednesday, as New Delhi seeks to create a large integrated oil firm.

India has about a dozen state-owned oil and gas companies, with significant overlaps in operations. Alone they do not have the financial power to rival global oil majors in bids for overseas exploration and production assets.

India, the world's third-biggest oil consumer, imports about 80 percent of its crude needs and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a target to cut dependence on oil imports by 10 percent by 2020.

The proceeds from the HPCL stake sale will also help the government pay for welfare programmes. Asia's third-largest economy aims to raise 725 billion rupees ($11.24 billion) through government stake sales in various companies.

The finance minister Arun Jaitley announced in February the plan to form a giant national oil company by combining other state-owned firms.

"The benefits of synergy would be huge," ONGC Chairman Dinesh K. Sarraf told Reuters.

"Today crude prices are down, so ONGC's profitability is down while gross refining margins and marketing margins of refiners are up so it makes a lot of sense for ONGC to make this acquisition," Sarraf said.