Japan's Tragedy and Crisis

Japan the land of rising Sun has now become the land of tragedy and crisis. The earthquake of magnitude 9 on the richter scale had shaken Japan enough to feel cold. Then tsunami devastated already bleeding Japan. These disasters not only had shaken Japan but also its economy too. And the Nuclear (N) crisis has sent the ripples of fear across the borders. After two days of natural disasters and N-crisis, volcanic eruption took place in the Southern Japan. I can't think of any other disaster to happen. Every kind of disaster has hit Japan. I feel very sad about the situation and empathize with Japanese people.

Sendai, Japan on April 4, 2010. Satellite image courtesy of GeoEye.

Sendai, Japan on March 12, 2011. Satellite image courtesy of GeoEye.

The satellite view taken after tsunami makes hard to believe that tsunami hit area was a city. Now it has become empty land with scars on it. This has become the worst tragedy after World War 2 (WW2) for Japan. N-crisis has brought back the painful memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now Japan is on the verge of another "Chernobyl". The workers on the Fukushima plant are trying hard to avert the N-disaster. The N-radiations are very high in Fukushima due to exposed fuel rods in reactors and lack of water in the reactor No. 4 which keeps the spent rods submerged. Most of the equipments are not functioning due to damaged power lines and broken back-up diesel generators. In such situations workers at N-plant are racing against the time and life to avert the N-meltdown, which will not only save Japanese but also people in other parts of the world. Kudos to those heroes.

The survivors of Fukushima and adjacent regions are in worst situations. They couldn't even overcome the shocks of the earthquake and tsunami; and now they are under house arrest due to radicactive leakage from the seething N-plant.

I pray may God give them patience to face such crisis and strength to overcome it.

Wish the Vish

The Universal Champ, Vishy is defending his World title against challenger Topalov. I wish Vishy all the best for World Chess Championship. For more than two decades Indians are proud of him. He has given every reason to be proud of him. Vishy has achieved far more than India would have expected him to achieve in sports and then to in a non-cricket field. Vishy not only lived up to the hopes of 1 billion people but also excelled beyond that; by winning all format world championships.

In India Vishy is such an icon to chess like Sachin is to cricket (Obviously I am not comparing Vishy and Sachin. And I can’t compare.). Vishy go! And make us proud once again!

I also wish Sachin a very happy B’Day. To me, Sachin- a reason to watch cricket!

Gomat Giri Temple

On the way to Gomat Giri Temple

After a long wait of almost one and a half years I went to my home. I was very happy and excited to go home. I was so happy that I didn't realize when the journey got over. Though 27-30 hours journey by train is quite long and tiring, but I guess I am use to it now and spirit of going home makes it bearable. Recently, I developed hunger for visiting temples and religious places, whenever I go to Indore. This time when I went to Indore I visited famous “Gomat Giri” temple. I went along with my family. It is a Jain temple situated on the top of the hill. It is very peaceful and beautiful place.

View from the top

This time (14^th August) when I went to Indore the weather was good. The day we went to the temple, the sky was covered with clouds and the Sun was playing hide-and-seek. When we reached at the top of the hill, cold breeze welcomed us. I enjoyed the breeze there.

Gomat Giri Temple

Gomat Giri is a big religious place. It has one giant idol of Lord Mahavir along with other 23 idols of Tirthankars (Jain Gods). All idols are situated in the series of room adjacent to each other. We worshiped all the idols one by one. After worshiping all the idols I felt content.

Papa and my niece 'Mahy'

Navagrah Jinalaya

Gomat Giri is such peaceful and beautiful place; I was just amused by the beauty of the nature there. People come along with the family for pick-nick trip. When I was kid even we used to come for pick-nick.

On the return Journey

While returning I took the snaps and thanked God for everything. Finally I left the place with a peaceful mind.

The "Vish"

Vishwanath Anand, popularly known as Vishy among the chess fans, has made Indians proud again by retaining the World title. 

World witnessed a scintillating performance by Vishy in Bon (October 2008). This is unprecedented performance in the Chess. In Mexico 2007 Vishy won World title in style without losing a single game and secured the first place before the final round. Even here in Bon World Chess Championship he retains the title before the final round. This shows his strength and his command on the game. Winning the World Championship before the last round and then too he did it twice is just phenomenal. When Anand won World title in 2000 critics said knock-out format favored Vishy as the players have to play fast (which results in blunder) and Vishy is Rapid King. Then again he won in Mexico 2007 in double round robin format; critics said he is not champion of classical format and true test of a champion is classical format. And he outplayed the “classical format” champion Vladimir Kramnik in every aspect of the game. Now he is the champion of all formats. He is the truely “Universal Champ”. He made Indians proud again. He is the complete player and he has all the World titles of every type Rapid game, Blindfold game, Classical game…… you name it. 

Winning the World Title 

Comments from former World Champ Garry Kasparov:

“It was a very well-played match by Vishy. Except for the loss of concentration in the tenth game he played consistently and managed to enforce his style. His choice to open with 1.d4 was excellent. He reached playable positions with life in them, so he could make Kramnik work at the board. Anand outprepared Kramnik completely. In this way it reminded me of my match with Kramnik in London 2000. Like I was then, Kramnik may have been very well prepared for this match, but we never saw it. I didn't expect the Berlin and ended up fighting on Kramnik's preferred terrain. 

A great result for Anand and for chess. Vishy deserved the win in every way and I'm very happy for him. It will not be easy for the younger generation to push him aside.”

Where is the party tonight.......

    The entire team : Kasim, Peter Heine, Surya, The Vish, Aruna and Radek

The Club Cabana

For long time we didn’t have team outing so we all were eager to go out and have a bash. Finally the day came and we all went for team outing. Our team is small team of 9 people namely Anand, Amit, Niranjan, Nandkishore, Sarath, Ullas, Vasavi, Shilpa and last but not the least myself :P. 

The plan was to start early and reach the club around 9 am, play sports and leave early around 5:30 pm. This seems to be quite simple plan. But unavoidable circumstances (people know very well) made us felt that the plan was too perfect to follow. So we reached late around 10:30 am. We all had breakfast and we were ready to rock! Another ideal part of the plan was the 'day'; we decided ‘Friday’ as outing day, thinking that Friday being a weekday won’t be crowded. But presence of the crowd made us felt that Friday is no more a weekday rather part of weekend. 

The Enterance!

  

Warm Welcome 

 

The club has lots of games both indoor and outdoor. We all enjoyed playing lawn tennis a lot! Sarath’s is Ace when it comes to serve. Anybody who is picking up Sarath’s serve can be disguised by his physical appearance. Soon we started feeling hungry. After having good lunch near the Tide waves arena we joined the water sports. 

Nothing can beat the enjoyment when it comes to water sports. For me water slide was the top among the water sports. We all enjoyed like anything. Nandkishore and Anand were flocking together in the water slide. Given the number of rounds they did together in the water slide (with tube) made us think other way about their chemistry ;-). I found high tea ecstatic during the water sports. ‘Tide waves’ was fantastic. I was almost doing surfing with the tube on the waves. Great fun! ‘Lazy water’ has its own taste. In Lazy water the water flows in a narrow channel which goes around the park and touching the other water sport’s arena. I and Anand were taking rest on tube during our trip in the Lazy water. 

In the last we played ‘Bowling’. Everybody was waiting for bowling. We split into two groups, five people in first group and four people in second group. The ambience was fundoo! The combination of bowling, music and team was marvelous. It was fun watching people screaming, dancing and making funny actions over their bowling. In my first turn I turned all the bottles down. Bingo!! Great way to start! In the remaining frames I turned down 9 bottles in the first chance of the two chances in a frame. I finished first with a score of 76 followed by Niranjan(46) and Shilpa(46). Sarath was ‘Foul King’. He topped among us by achieving highest number of fouls. 

In the return journey we played ‘Dum Charades’ as journey was quite long. And considering the traffic conditions in Bangalore the journey time increases beyond the imagination. Anand wasn’t so spirited about the game. He was acting like a moron but Shilpa and I persuaded him to play. Only four of us were playing, Anand and Shilpa in one team and I and Vasavi in another. Shilpa gave the movie names which were as easy as pie. Even I was able to crack down with ease (My knowledge of movies is so limited that even ‘Pachavi Class Baccha’ can beat me ;-)). Movie ‘Hadd kardi apne’ given by Shilpa to me was cracked in nanoseconds and I didn’t have to even act for that. This was height (‘hadd hai’ Shilpa haina). Dum Charades was a good time pass. We all enjoyed the day till the last. The outing is memorable especially for Anand. We all will remember the outing.

 

Innovation and India’s Role in the Knowledge Economy

"India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all".

- Will Durant (American historian)

I read the article written by Dr. A.P.J. Kalam and liked it, so thought of putting it here.  Following are the few recent achievements speak volumes about our great India. 

Innovation in IT: We all know about the recent rise of India’s IT sector. Today the IT sector employs more than 2 million persons and contributes roughly 25% of India’s exports. The IT sector also contributes around 4% to India’s GDP. When you consider that the IT sector employs just 0.2% of the population, you can see that the IT sector is contributing many times its share to the Indian economy. Indeed it is not wrong to say that the IT sector, perhaps single-handedly, changed the world’s perception about India. IT is not the only area where India is innovative. 

Innovation in Consumer items: The sachet of shampoo that costs just Rs. 2, or about five cents! Imagine producing something for five cents that includes not just the aluminum for the sachet, but also its contents, not to mention the cost of distribution. Yet these sachets can be found everywhere in India. 

Innovation in Cell phone Business model: Today villagers are all speaking on cell phone. India has the cheapest telephone rates in the world, for both land lines as well as cell phones. India also has the fastest growing telecom market in the world, adding roughly eight million cell phones every month! This amazing growth has been made possible because the Indian cell phone service providers have a number of innovative business models, such as free incoming calls, prepaid calling cards, etc. We should remember that innovation in business models is also innovation! 

Innovation in Election system: India’s democratic society also benefits from Indian innovation. We see here an Electronic Voting Machine used in our elections. Foreigners are often surprised to find out that in Indian elections, 100% of the voting is through EVMs. In recent times doubts have been raised about the reliability of the software used in electronic voting machines in some other countries. Our EVMs are based on push button technology (rather than touch screen technology) which makes them absolutely tamper-proof. Moreover, it is also possible to have a “recount” in the case of close contests, without any difficulty. In some regions, Election Commission carrying EVMs on elephant back particularly in Northeastern area is by itself an innovation in transportation. 

Innovation in Nuclear Science: On 11 May 2008, I was with the members of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) on the occasion of the National Technology Day celebrations-2008 and distributed the DAE Awards-2006. I have seen 400 scientists who have shown excellent performance in Science, Engineering and Technology in Department of Atomic Energy. Their innovations in the nuclear science and technology will have tremendous potential; I would like to particularly mention a few, such as

v   Carbide fuel processing in the nuclear Fast reactors at IGCAR, DAE;

v   Reduced use of uranium to attain the same level of performance in power generation DAE;

v  Indigenous design and development of an unique variable low energy positron beam system to enable depth-resolved defect studies at surfaces and interfaces of materials;

v BHABHA-TRON – the first indigenous tele-cobalt machine;

v Design and development of optically pumped infrared molecular gas lasers producing output at 16 micron for molecular uranium isotope separation are some the innovative research which I have witnessed.

Innovation in other Science and Technology departments: Dear friends, our scientists in multiple scientific departments have worked for self-reliance and have succeeded. Some of the innovative examples such as

v  Making the cryogenic engine; Successful launch of 10 satellites in one go and Successful Satellite Recovery Experiment by ISRO;

v  Anti Ballistic Missile System and Indigenous Ring Laser Gyro based INS with high impact accuracy in Agni-III by DRDO

v  Flight control system for LCA by AD

  Are some of the innovative achievements which stand today as witness to Indian innovations in science and technology.

So can we ask: What drives innovation in India? India has a unique blend of ingredients. We have a shortage of capital, so we have to be very innovative to stretch our limited capital. By and large, the general perception is that the government agencies are not able to deliver citizen services effectively, at any level, be it national, state, or regional. But fortunately, we have had democracy, so that individual citizens have been free to evolve local solutions for local problems. Until now our local innovations have not been able to spread outside India excepting in certain sectors such as pharmaceutical, Banking, IT Enabled Services, Software and Automobiles and recently the nano car. Now is the time, for all of us to work together to make Indian innovation to become globalized and have a world wide impact.  

The info on following topics can be found in Dr. Kalam's website.

Innovation in Rural transformation through Jatropha, Innovation in Genetic Mapping of Indian Population and Innovation in healthcare. 

Is non-violence relevant in 21st Century?

Non-violence is not the reflection of weakness or sign of defeat. On the contrary it is the powerful and peaceful language of protest. Non-violence is always been a part of Indian culture. However, Gandhiji demonstrated its power and effectiveness in his lifetime.

Non-violence has added many feathers in its cap. Many movements like Quit in India movement of 1942, America civil rights movement of 1960, movements led by Nelson Mandela in South Africa and many more, which changed the world, were driven by non-violence.

Its two decades now India is facing terrorism in Kashmir (Indians are enough tolerant!). We now ought to raise the question that how much non-violence can help the world which is split by violence. Could we change the minds of the terrorists by giving roses in return of bullets? Try changing the mind of Osama by going on a fast! Sometimes we need stringent actions to control the situation. Strict actions are immediate and effective but a temporary solution. We need the combination of the non-violence and the strict actions and use them depending upon the situation. In the end the aim is to build the peaceful and healthy ambience.