Must Visit Cities in the World

1. Paris

Paris is the capital city of France. It is one of the most fascinating city in the world and is often termed as the city of love. The face of Paris is the Eiffel Tower that attracts millions of tourists from all over the world each year. The city of Paris houses a number of museums of which the Louvre is the most famous. Louvre houses the painting of Mona Lisa and the Last supper. The other museums too are iconic and grand in every aspect. Paris other than being an architectural marvel is also blessed with scenic landscapes. Various parks are famous and attract millions of visitors. Disneyland Paris is another major attraction. Apart from these various magnificent castles are also located here.

2. Rome

Rome is one of the oldest cities and dates back to 2,500 years ago with its origin. Rome is the capital city of Italy and is one of the most influential regions since ancient times when it was the headquarters for the Romans. The city is the house to religious heads of the Catholic and houses almost 900 churches. The Basilica of St. john Lateran is the city cathedral while Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore is the largest church. The Colloseum which today is among the seven wonders of the world is a major tourist attraction. The city encloses another city; Vatican City; that is house to the pope and restricted for the outsiders. Other tourist attractions include Arch of Contastine, Castle of Angelo, Catacombs, ancient market areas etc. A new comer to the list of attractions is the Trevi Fountain that is one of the grandest fountains in the world. The picture above is of the Trevi fountain.

3. London

London is the capital city of Engalnd. It is one of the biggest cities in the world and probably one of the largest too. Being located on the banks of River Thames it has a magnificent view and exotic beaches. Some of the very important monuments here are the Big Ben tower, Buckingham Palace, St. Pauls cathedral etc. The Modern architecture too is amazing with 30 St Mary Axe an engineering marvel. London’ eye is a popular ferry’s wheel that gives the picturesque view of the entire city from the top position. This is truly a great place to visit.

4. Jaipur

Jaipur is located in the state of Rajasthan in North India. It was named after its ruler Jai Singh in 17th century. This city is popularly called as the pink city. The city is filled with historical monuments. The forts here are splendid. The Hawa Mahal is a very popular site. The Nahargarh Palace still houses the royal family members. Most of the palaces have been turned to exotic hotel destinations that allow people to get a taste of royalty. The street market smell delicious with various Rajasthani sweets and mouth watering cuisine. The Lake palace have recently been opened for tourism by the royal family.

5. Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany. The geology of this city says that 1/3 of the city area is dedicated to parks , lakes, rivers etc making it a beautiful place to live in. Germany has played a very important role in the history of this world and it is seen in its architecture as well. The Brandenburg gate is a very historical landmark. It is also imprinted on the German coins. The TV tower in Alexandraplatzz is the tallest in the city offering sky view of the city. The Berlin church is another spectacular old era monument. The Museum Island which is a series of 5 museums is a world heritage site. The Berlin night life is also popular.

6. Sydney

Sydney is the capital city of Australia and one of the most magnificent cities in the country. Sydney has a perfect balance between the natural and man made tourist attractions. The city harbor is iconic in its own way. The most spectacular building is the Sydney opera house that is in true sense the face of this city. The city has many great monuments including historical buildings as well modern architectural marvels. There are plenty of parks in the city that thrives the heart of its business district. There are many beautiful botanical gardens as well heritage site of the blue mountain area. It is a must see city.

7. New York

New York is the iconic city in the United States of America. New York attracts millions of tourists from all over the world both for its exotic beaches and sky high scrapers. The Statue of Liberty can be called the face of America. It symbolizes freedom and friendship for the people of America. Another spectacular spot in this city is the Niagara falls which receives as much as 25 million visitors annually. There are museums that offer valuable information on a wide range of subjects. The architecture here is a symbol of modern world engineering and very impressive. It is indeed one of the most remarkable cities in the world.

8. Agra

Agra is one of the most popular cities in India since ancient times. During the Mughal era this city served as the capital of their empire. Due to this many historically important monuments are located here which makes this city a worth visit for any one who is fascinated by the royalty and their way of life. The city’s primary tourist destination is the Taj Mahal which is among the 7 wonders of the world. The other destinations are Fatehpur Sikhri- a fortress build by Akbar, The Agra Fort, Akbar’s tomb , Mankeshwar temple etc. The city is rich in its cuisine as well and therefore has all the elements to entertain its visitors. It is a city that is worth a visit in every sense.

9. San Francisco

San Francisco is one of the most popular cities in the United States. In the year 2011 it was polled as the 6th most popular in US while being at the 40th position in the world in terms of tourism. One of the most iconic structures in San Francisco is the Golden Gate which is a bridge build in the year 1936. The bridge is a symbol success and achievement for the people of United States and is one of the top tourist destinations in the country. The picturesque view of the city can be obtained from the Coit Tower and therefore is one of the leading tourist destinations. China town is a shopping and eating district which is very popular with the visitors. There are beautiful buildings and steep mountains that catch the attention of every tourist leaving them with a feeling to come again.

10. Amsterdam

Amsterdam is one of the most famous cities in the beautiful country of Netherlands. Amsterdam offers its visitors a perfect balance between historical monuments and modern architecture. It not only has beautiful landscapes but also well organized spacious parks and city squares. The most unique and spectacular attribute is the city’s canal system called as the canal ring which recently completed its glorious 400 years. It is an UNESCO world heritage site since 2010. The city has some great French architecture along with Royal palace, a 13th century church and some 14th century wooden buildings. A number of parks are seen throughout the city. A remarkable one among these is the Vondel park with a total of 10 million people arriving here every year. The city has a lot to offer apart from the things mentioned here.

Qualities that would make you Successful in Life

Success is not a single thing. It’s the combination of all your hard work that you have put in along with your dedication and sincerity, this will lead you to being successful. Also the most successful things are achieved after learning from several mistakes. Even luck plays as a factor in making one to be a successful person. At the end of the day, each one defines their own success definition out of their achievements.

Let’s have a look at the Top Qualities to become Successful:

1. Keep Calm and Believe in yourself:

Keep Calm and Believe in yourself’ is the key mantra to be successful and stay successful. All successful people believe in themselves, their abilities and their intuitions. Start listening to your intuitions and act accordingly. Your inner-self knows better, it knows how you can handle a situation better. Also only when you believe in yourself, you can put together all the above mentioned qualities and bring the desired outcome . There would be times when your abilities would be put to test, making you to lose your self confidence and give up. This is the deciding point. Just stop worrying and believe in yourself and everything will come on your way.

2. Keep Doing:

Keep Doing is the key mantra one needs to follow to become successful. Once you get a clear vision of what you want to do and how you are going to do it, then start doing. Only when you do it you would be able to know what the true outcome is. Always the assumption or the expected outcomes do not match with the reality. So it’s important to figure out the reality by doing stuffs. Keep Doing doesn’t mean that you need to keep on doing the same. You need to refine or improve your works by continuing the process. It’s better to start doing and improve things instead of waiting to do it perfectly.

3. Visualizing:

Visualizing or having vision about the work you do is more important as it’s the protocol or guideline which you for yourself regarding a particular work. Your visualizing should have assumptions with logic and why you arrived at it , what are the resources required to do that work ? How it would be implemented ? What are the steps that has to be taken ? What problem you are solving through that work ?  What would be the impact or outcome of it ? In other terms visualizing should comprise of the work flow or the method, strategy that you would be incorporating to make the work a successful one.

4. Good Communicator:

A Good Communicator here means someone who knows to communicate in a way that everyone understands. Sometimes people perceive things in a different way than what was communicated. So it’s very essential to make sure that others perceive it in the way that you wanted it to be perceived as. It could be assured only when you ask questions. So it’s more important to keep on asking questions as you would discover a lot of things on being questioned or answering them. It gives more clarity about the work you do and how others perceive it which stands to be very essential quality to become successful.

5. Time Management:

One who knows to manage time effectively and efficiently wins over everything. The key aspect here to be noted is that one needs to know what to do and when to do. Certain things are time based, which can’t be delayed or postponed to some other time. So it’s important to understand which things have to be done at which time to yield good outcome. Also its important to keep a track of what things dint go well at what point of time which helps to know avoid doing those things at that point of time.

6. Self Control:

Self Control is something essential which every successful person should possess. One need to control their thoughts and emotions from getting distracted which would help them to stay focused on to their goals. It’s hard to keep emotions under control unless you have a strong mind and will power to control. It’s important to learn from mistakes and self control plays a vital role here in not repeating the same mistakes again and staying in control. So it’s important to have self control to become successful.

7. Good Listener:

It’s important to be a Good Listener to become successful. The key point here is that you need to listen to everything around and intake only things that is relevant to you. Being a Good listener makes you to listen carefully of what others are in need of and what they are facing which could pave a way to you to avoid those or find a solution for it. Also by listening a lot, you could understand lot of things and think more about it and try to arrive at a solution for it. A Good listener will always be an excellent speaker as he knows what to speak and when to speak which makes him a successful person.

8. Curiosity:

If you are wondering how curiousness would make you successful here you go. If you are not curious enough to know what are the qualities to become a successful then you might not have been reading this article now. Yes, curiousness is something that is essential to be successful. Being curious makes you more active and on the other hand makes you to think a lot and helps you in reasoning more and if you start understanding why things are not working and what’s stopping you from achieving and other things then it’s solely because of your curious nature which makes you to find answers for lot of things or puzzles which are yet to be unwrapped. Being curious helps you to crack and solve great problems in life.

9. Birds of a feather deal:

It’s important to have a Good Companion around who can cheer you up and support you during all your tough times and stand for you. It’s obvious for everyone to feel low when met with something unexpected. A failure in due course would surely hinder the steps in chasing for our dreams. We are humans and it’s hard for us to convince and console ourselves in a short period of time. Having a Good Companion around at that time will be helpful for you as you would have a strong sense of feel that you have someone for you to share your burden.

10. Enthusiasm:

Enthusiasm is more important for one to be successful. But the bottom line is the fact that enthusiasm helps only to certain extent and can’t really be the only factor to  help you to be a successful. In other words being enthusiastic is like forming the base of the successful building. Losing enthusiasm would surely make the successful building collapse at any time. It’s important to keep yourselves very enthusiastic as it gives a new vision, a vision of seeing things in a positive way. It gives new and fresh energy which is the base to make something great happen.

Richest CEOs in the World 2015

1. Larry Ellison – Net worth: 51.5 Billion

This 70 year old billionaire is the CEO of Oracle. He is also one of the company’s co-founders. On July 2 2009, for the fourth year in a row, Oracle’s board awarded 7 million stock options. Under his leadership, the company acquired Sun Microsystems

2. Charles Koch – Net worth: $41.9 Billion

This 78 year old billionaire is the chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, a post he has held since 1967. With sales of $115 billion, Koch Industries is the second largest private company in the US. He and his brother David own 84 percent of the company.

.3. Jim Walton – Net worth: $35.3 Billion

This 66 year old billionaire is the chairman and CEO of Walton family’s Arvest Bank Group, Inc. The bank is worth approximately $1.8 billion. Its net profit was around $100 million in 2012.

4. Mark Zuckerberg – Net Worth: $33.8 Billion

This 30 year old self made billionaire is the chairman, CEO and co-founder of the immensely popular social networking website Facebook.

5. Bernard Arnault – Net Worth: $32.7 Billion

This 65 year old billionaire is the chairman and CEO of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, a post he has held since 1989. He is considered one of the world’s ultimate taste-makers.

6. Sheldon Adelson – Net Worth: $31.7 Billion 

This 81 year old billionaire is the chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands, an American casino and resort operating company based in Paradise, Nevada, US. His shares in Las Vegas Sands are worth more than all other US casino companies combined.

  7.Larry Page – Net Worth: $31.7 Billion 

Larry Page is the CEO of the technology behemoth Google, whose stock continues to trade at record highs, up about 50 percent year-over-year as of mid-February 2014.

8. Jeff Bezos – Net Worth: $31.5 Billion

This 50 year old self made billionaire is the CEO of online retailing giant Amazon.com. In October he bought the Washington Post for $250 million. Jeff Bezos founded online book store Amazon in 1995. Today Amazon sells anything to anyone.

9. Aliko Dangote – Net Worth: $24.4 Billion

This 57 year old billionaire is the CEO of Dangote Group, which is one of the most diversified business conglomerates in Africa. He is the richest man in Africa.

10. Harold Hamm – Net Worth: $20.6 Billion

This 68 year old self made billionaire is the chairman and CEO of the oil company Continental Resources. He owns around 70 percent of the company.

11. Michael Dell – Net Worth: $19.1 Billion

This 49 year old self made billionaire is the chairman and CEO of Dell. He took his namesake company private in a $24.9 billion deal in October 2013. Today he has unquestioned control of the company, which he founded 30 years ago in a University of Texas dorm room.

12. Masayoshi Son – Net worth: 19.7 Billion

This 57 year old billionaire is the founder and CEO of Asia’s leading internet venture Softbank. In October, his company picked up stakes in US mobile phone distributor Brightstar and Finnish game-maker Supercell.

13. Robin Li – Net Worth: $16.6 Billion

This 45 year old self made billionaire is the founder of CEO of NASDAQ-listed Baidu, China’s number one online search company. In August, Baidu bought app store 91 Wireless for $1.9 billion. Robin Li founded Baidu in 2000.

Prophet Muhammad - The Most Influential Man in History

The following is from Michael Hart's book and lists Prophet Muhammad as the most influential man in History. A Citadel Press Book, published by Carol Publishing Group
Ranking of the twenty from the list of 100:

1. Prophet Muhammad
2. Isaac Newton
3. Jesus Christ
4. Buddha
5. Confucius
6. St. Paul
7. Ts'ai Lun
8. Johann Gutenberg
9. Christopher Columbus
10. Albert Einstein
11. Karl Marx
12. Louis Pasteur
13. Galileo Galilei
14. Aristotle
15. Lenin
16. Moses
17. Charles Darwin
18. Shih Huang Ti
19. Augustus Caesar
20. Mao Tse-tung

PROPHET MUHAMMAD  (S...), No. 1 

The 100, a Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History
by Michael H. Hart
My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world's most influential persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular levels. Of humble origins, Muhammad founded and promulgated one of the world's great religions, and became an immensely effective political leader. Today, thirteen centuries after his death, his influence is still powerful and pervasive. The majority of the persons in this book had the advantage of being born and raised in centers of civilization, highly cultured or politically pivotal nations. Muhammad, however, was born in the year 570, in the city of Mecca, in southern Arabia, at that time a backward area of the world, far from the centers of trade, art, and learning. Orphaned at age six, he was reared in modest surroundings. Islamic tradition tells us that he was illiterate. His economic position improved when, at age twenty-five, he married a wealthy widow. Nevertheless, as he approached forty, there was little outward indication that he was a remarkable person. Most Arabs at that time were pagans, who believed in many gods. There were, however, in Mecca, a small number of Jews and Christians; it was from them no doubt that Muhammad first learned of a single, omnipotent God who ruled the entire universe. When he was forty years old, Muhammad became convinced that this one true God (Allah) was speaking to him, and had chosen him to spread the true faith. For three years, Muhammad preached only to close friends and associates. Then, about 613, he began preaching in public. As he slowly gained converts, the Meccan authorities came to consider him a dangerous nuisance. In 622, fearing for his safety, Muhammad fled to Medina (a city some 200 miles north of Mecca), where he had been offered a position of considerable political power. This flight, called the Hegira, was the turning point of the Prophet's life. In Mecca, he had had few followers. In Medina, he had many more, and he soon acquired an influence that made him a virtual dictator. During the next few years, while Muhammad's following grew rapidly, a series of battles were fought between Medina and Mecca. This was ended in 630 with Muhammad's triumphant return to Mecca as conqueror. The remaining two and one-half years of his life witnessed the rapid conversion of the Arab tribes to the new religion.
When Muhammad died, in 632, he was the effective ruler of all of southern Arabia. The Bedouin tribesmen of Arabia had a reputation as fierce warriors. But their number was small; and plagued by disunity and internecine warfare, they had been no match for the larger armies of the kingdoms in the settled agricultural areas to the north. However, unified by Muhammad for the first time in history, and inspired by their fervent belief in the one true God, these small Arab armies now embarked upon one of the most astonishing series of conquests in human history. To the northeast of Arabia lay the large Neo-Persian Empire of the Sassanids; to the northwest lay the Byzantine, or Eastern Roman Empire, centered in Constantinople. Numerically, the Arabs were no match for their opponents. On the field of battle, though, the inspired Arabs rapidly conquered all of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine. By 642, Egypt had been wrested from the Byzantine Empire, while the Persian armies had been crushed at the key battles of Qadisiya in 637, and Nehavend in 642. But even these enormous conquests, which were made under the leadership of Muhammad's close friends and immediate successors, Ali, Abu Bakr and 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, did not mark the end of the Arab advance. By 711, the Arab armies had swept completely across North Africa to the Atlantic Ocean There they turned north and, crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, overwhelmed the Visigothic kingdom in Spain.
For a while, it must have seemed that the Moslems would overwhelm all of Christian Europe. However, in 732, at the famous Battle of Tours, a Moslem army, which had advanced into the center of France, was at last defeated by the Franks. Nevertheless, in a scant century of fighting, these Bedouin tribesmen, inspired by the word of the Prophet, had carved out an empire stretching from the borders of India to the Atlantic Ocean-the largest empire that the world had yet seen. And everywhere that the armies conquered, large-scale conversion to the new faith eventually followed. Now, not all of these conquests proved permanent. The Persians, though they have remained faithful to the religion of the Prophet, have since regained their independence from the Arabs. And in Spain, more than seven centuries of warfare, finally resulted in the Christians reconquering the entire peninsula. However, Mesopotamia and Egypt, the two cradles of ancient civilization, have remained Moslem, as has the entire coast of North Africa. The new religion, of course, continued to spread, in the intervening centuries, far beyond the borders of the original Moslem conquests. Currently it has tens of millions of adherents in Africa and Central Asia and even more in Pakistan and northern India, and in Indonesia. In Indonesia, the new faith has been a unifying factor. In the Indian subcontinent, however, the conflict between Moslems and Hindus is still a major obstacle to unity.
How, then, is one to assess the overall impact of Muhammad on human history? Like all religions, Islam exerts an enormous influence upon the lives of its followers. It is for this reason that the founders of the world's great religions all figure prominently in this book. Since there are roughly twice as many Christians as Moslems in the world, it may initially seem strange that Muhammad has been ranked higher than Jesus. There are two principal reasons for that decision. First, Muhammad played a far more important role in the development of Islam than Jesus did in the development of Christianity. Although Jesus was responsible for the main ethical and moral precepts of Christianity (insofar as these differed from Judaism), St. Paul was the main developer of Christian theology, its principal proselytizer, and the author of a large portion of the New Testament. Muhammad, however, was responsible for both the theology of Islam and its main ethical and moral principles. In addition, he played the key role in proselytizing the new faith, and in establishing the religious practices of Islam. Moreover, he is the author of the Moslem holy scriptures, the Koran, a collection of certain of Muhammad's insights that he believed had been directly revealed to him by Allah. Most of these utterances were copied more or less faithfully during Muhammad's lifetime and were collected together in authoritative form not long after his death. The Koran therefore, closely represents Muhammad's ideas and teachings and to a considerable extent his exact words. No such detailed compilation of the teachings of Christ has survived. Since the Koran is at least as important to Moslems as the Bible is to Christians, the influence of Muhammad through the medium of the Koran has been enormous. It is probable that the relative influence of Muhammad on Islam has been larger than the combined influence of Jesus Christ and St. Paul on Christianity.
On the purely religious level, then, it seems likely that Muhammad has been as influential in human history as Jesus. Furthermore, Muhammad (unlike Jesus) was a secular as well as a religious leader. In fact, as the driving force behind the Arab conquests, he may well rank as the most influential political leader of all time. Of many important historical events, one might say that they were inevitable and would have occurred even without the particular political leader who guided them. For example, the South American colonies would probably have won their independence from Spain even if Simon Bolivar had never lived. But this cannot be said of the Arab conquests. Nothing similar had occurred before Muhammad, and there is no reason to believe that the conquests would have been achieved without him. The only comparable conquests in human history are those of the Mongols in the thirteenth century, which were primarily due to the influence of Genghis Khan. These conquests, however, though more extensive than those of the Arabs, did not prove permanent, and today the only areas occupied by the Mongols are those that they held prior to the time of Genghis Khan. It is far different with the conquests of the Arabs. From Iraq to Morocco, there extends a whole chain of Moslem nations united not merely by their faith in Islam, but also by their Arabic language, history, and culture.
The centrality of the Koran in the Moslem religion and the fact that it is written in Arabic have probably prevented the Arab language from breaking up into mutually unintelligible dialects, which might otherwise have occurred in the intervening thirteen centuries. Differences and divisions between these Arab states exist, of course, and they are considerable, but the partial disunity should not blind us to the important elements of unity that have continued to exist. For instance, neither Iran nor Indonesia, both oil-producing states and both Islamic in religion joined in the oil embargo of the winter of 1973-74. It is no coincidence that all of the Arab states, and only the Arab states, participated in the embargo. We see, then, that the Arab conquests of the seventh century have continued to play an important role in human history, down to the present day. It is this unparalleled combination of secular and religious influence which I feel entitles Muhammad to be considered the most influential single figure in human history.

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The following is from Michael Hart's book and lists Prophet Muhammad as the most influential man in History. A Citadel Press Book, published by Carol Publishing Group
Ranking, list of 100 most influential persons in history:

1. Prophet Muhammad
2. Isaac Newton
3. Jesus Christ
4. Buddha
5. Confucius
6. St. Paul
7. Ts'ai Lun
8. Johann Gutenberg
9. Christopher Columbus
10. Albert Einstein
11. Karl Marx
12. Louis Pasteur
13. Galileo Galilei
14. Aristotle
15. Lenin
16. Moses
17. Charles Darwin
18. Shih Huang Ti
19. Augustus Caesar
20. Mao Tse-tung
21. Genghis Khan
22. Euclid
23. Martin Luther
24. Nicolaus Copernicus
25. James Watt
26. Constantine the Great
27. George Washington
28. Michael Faraday
29. James Clerk Maxwell
30. Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright
31. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier
32. Sigmund Freud
33. Alexander the Great
34. Napoleon Bonaparte
35. Adolf Hitler
36. William Shakespeare
37. Adam Smith
38. Thomas Edison
39. Anthony van Leeuwenhoek
40. Plato
41. Guglielmo Marconi
42. Ludwig van Beethoven
43. Werner Heisenberb
44. Alexander Graham Bell
45. Alexander Fleming
46. Simon Bolivar
47. Oliver Cromwell
48. John Locke
49. Michelangelo
50. Pope Urban II
51. Umar ibn al-Khattab
52. Asoka
53. St. Augustine
54. Max Planck
55. John Calvin
56. William T.G. Morton
57. William Harvey
58. Antoine Henri Becquerel
59. Gregor Mendel
60. Joseph Lister
61. Nikolaus August Otto
62. Louis Daguerre
63. Joseph Stalin
64. Rene Descartes
65. Julius Caesar
66. Francisco Pizarro
67. Hernando Cortes
68. Queen Isabella I
69. William the Conqueror
70. Thomas Jefferson
71. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
72. Edward Jenner
73. Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen
74. Hohann Sebastian Bach
75. Lao Tzu
76. Enrico Fermi
77. Thomas Malthus
78. Francis Bacon
79. Voltaire
80. John F. Kennedy
81. Gregory Pincus
82. Sui Wen Ti
83. Mani
84. Vasco da Gama
85. Charlemagne
86. Cyprus the Great
87. Leonhard Euler
88. Niccolo Machiavelli
89. Zoroaster
90. Menes
91. Peter the Great
92. Mencius
93. John Dalton
94. Homer
95. Queen Elizabeth
96. Justinian I
97. fJohannes Kepler
98. Pablo Picasso
99. Mahavira
100. Niels Bohr

The non-Muslim verdict on Muhammad (PBUH) If a man like Muhamed were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness.