The World Organization of the Scout Movement he founded estimates more than 500 million women and men from most countries and cultures in the world will have promised to live by the Scout Promise and Law by 2007, the official centenary year. The body describes World Scouting as the largest youth organisation in the world, with more than 28 million scouts in 216 countries and territories.

The centenary dates from Baden-Powell’s experimental camp on Brownsea Island in Dorset, England, for 20 young boys from different social backgrounds.

Baden-Powell was the sixth son and eighth of 10 children of an Oxford University professor, who died when he was three. He grew up in straitened circumstances, but found his way to a distinguished career in the Army. He served in India, Afghanistan and South Africa with the 13th Hussars. Promoted at 40 to the 5th Dragoon Guards, he found opportunity to polish the scouting and stalking skills of his soldiers.

In 1903 he returned to England as Inspector General of Cavalry and found that a book he wrote for his soldiers, ‘Aids to Scouting,’ was being used by youth leaders and teachers all over the country.
Rewritten for boys, the book became the backbone of the Brownsea Island experiment, the official start of the movement. It was the first of his 32 books.

The first international Scout Jamboree took place at Olympia, London in 1920.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may reconsider its decision to suspend former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharti from the party, following a meeting between the disgruntled lady and former prime minister minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Uma met Vajpayee at his residence on Tuesday night before leaving for Kedarnath.

The half-hour meeting with Vajpayee comes barely three days after BJP president L K Advani’s statement at the party’s national executive in Ranchi that the party was willing to talk to her after her return from vacation in Kedarnath.

Once back in the party fold, Uma is likely to lead the BJP’s agitation against the Shankaracharya’s arrest.

BJP president L K Advani had already paved the way for her re-induction at the party’s national executive meet in Ranchi by refusing to accept that she had been suspended. No show cause notice or a suspension letter was ever given to her, say party leaders. But her entry could restart the turf war within the BJP.

Sushma Swaraj has just returned after meeting the Shankaracharya in Vellore and she too is hoping to play a major role in the party’s campaign on the issue. “They want to destroy the institution by using the media,” said Swaraj.

Jump, founded in 1981, sells over 1.5 million pieces of clothing annually. It has 56 outlets in the country and it employs 300 people through logistics and sale points.

Two Ukraine stores were launched in Kiev and one in Odessa. These outlets are located at big shopping malls and Jump had invested Euro4,00,000 (US $5,26,000) in them.

Jump’s fall and summer 2007 collections will be available at Eastern Europe outlets. Region is expected to have 12 such stores before 2009.

According to CEO Menachem Kopitz, Jump has set up organizational infrastructure suitable for international activities under its expansion plan.