Saving democracy ..

Free expression of thoughts gets a boost in the world's largest democracy .. The news in Times of India was a great solace to all peace loving citizens  in the country. it also went to prove that some ghosts still remain only ghosts, how much ever hard their supporters in the govt and outside try to impose their writ on society..

Brilliant and bold editorial in The Hindu newspaperspeaking against the terror don ..

How the Mumbai girls silenced the Mumbai elite showering praises on a Hitler supporter, excellent article in the Firstpost newspaper ..

Kudos to Maharashtra Police for taking strict disciplinary action against the errant senior police officers and magistrate who were on the side of the oppressors and were trying to intimidate two innocent girls expressing their free and frank opinion on the Internet social networking site Facebook. Their efforts were to gag them and through them the society, to prevent free expression of thought ..

Thanks also go to the media, especially Times of India and Union minister Kapil Sibal and official machinery in Delhi, CM Chavan and the state machinery in Mumbai and to the thousands of peaceloving citizens of this great country who expressed their dissent in very strong words and who in no uncertain terms condemned the arrests and wanted stern action against the culprits. They need to be thanked by the society for fervently taking the case for the two girls (and also for saving the country) to stem such fascist roots from developing into a cancer in the society ..

India has won, Democracy has won !! 

In future, we need to sensitise the errant elements in the police and judiciary not to side with any anti-social elements acting against the basic democratic structure of the country and society..

The country is sad that a goonda leader is no more, but the grief should not be expressed by trampling on freedom of the citizens of this great nation !!

As Newsweek International editor Tunku Varadarajan said, " GOOD RIDDANCE THACKERAY. India’s now a better place”. There could no better expression of grief ..

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Catholicate centenary some snaps ..

Malankara Orthodox Catholicate centenary, kochi Nov 2012 ..

The growing acceptance of the Malankara Orthodox church beliefs is visible in the events held in the past one week in Egypt and Kochi.

Bawa Thirumeni hosting a dinner for Oriental Orthodox delegates at the Coptic papal consecration was a great success ..

The second event is the speakers themselves at yesterday's catholicate centenary in Kochi speaking at length and heaping praise on the Malankara Orthodox church for preserving their national identity and striving to retain its independence from foreign forces.

It is a real pity that the Catholic church and Patriarchate faction of the Orthodox church have failed miserably in preserving this national identity and working for a Christian belief incorporating the rich orthodoxy rooted in Indian culture and ethos in its day to day transactions and functions. The heaps of praises from HH Dalai Lama, former President Abdul Kalam, Vellapally Natesan, representing SNDP, a great social movement in Kerala and V Muralidharan from the BJP, the people who spoke the best yesterday, will not be forgotten for years to come !!

The special event of re-proclaiming the Koonen Cross Oath ( Coonen kurissu Sathyam) with the trumpets and drums in the background provided by Sruthi music group led by Fr. M P George, was the real climax of the whole programme. It took the audience back by 359 years to 1653 AD, and brought back nostalgic memories when our forefathers who assembled in Mattancherry in 1653 AD proclaimed their independence from the Papal over lordship, brought by the Portuguese on Indian Thoma Christians from 1599 to 1653 AD. ( through the misadventure of Bishop Menezes at the Udayamperoor synod).- the first proclamation of Independence from foreign domination !! ( like the first war of Independence of India in 1857 from the British..)

The need to assert our national sovereignty and love for our motherland of India resonated throughout the conference and in the speeches by the honourable speakers, which was indeed what our forefathers have been trying to do for the past hundred years by establishing the Catholicate and bringing the constitution in 1934 AD.

Thankfully there were no disturbances yesterday and the programme started right on time at 3 PM , went upto 6 PM witnessed by almost 2.5 lakh believers (and millions on TV) who poured in from different parts of the world to witness this historic occasion. Both at the beginning and the end of the programme, the singing of the national anthem, reasserted our firm faith in the Indian nation, its democracy and its rich culture and traditions and history of mutual respect, tolerance and peaceful co-existence of all religions, faiths and factions.

The ecumenical unity and christian love and service echoed throughout the meeting as raised by Catholic Bishop Mar Powathil, Kaldaaya Bishop Mar Aprem and Joseph Marthoma  Bishop of Marthoma church.

The choir led by Fr M P George gave excellent support for the events throughout the programme. For people who sat at home watching the events on TV, I wish to say, you have missed a slice of history yesterday at Marine Drive, Kochi, where one of the biggest congregations of Christians ever in Kerala, gathered under one roof under the able and excellent leadership of our Catholica Bawa..

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Catholicate centenary. 1912-2012

Tomorrow at marine drive kochi about 3 lakhs are expected to assemble for the catholicate  centenary ..

The tibetan spiritual leader and nobel laurete Dalai Lama is expected to grace the occasion.

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Ponty and Hardeep shoot out.. Chattarpur farmhouse..

A funny news doing the round is the shootout near Delhi in a farmhouse where two brothers killed themselves. Ponty and Hardeep.. I do not know why the media is making such a fuss about it.  Misled brothers out of greed, kill each other. What's more to it ??

One of them is a liquor baron and has ammased loads of easy money by selling liquor.

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments, only consequences..

In this case, consequences of amassing illicit money and real estate.. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Was-Ponty-Chadha-shootout-planned/articleshow/17287108.cms

One has to suffer the consequences of his actions, be it earlier or later, that is the only question !

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Cheap low class entertainer of Mumbai ..

The cheap low class entertainer of Mumbai is no more.. (also respectfully called the paper tiger..)

Mumbai under enforced mourning..  Daadagiri even in mourning !!

His anti-migrant tyranny in Mumbai shows how narrow minded and silly people can be at times.. The anti-migrant proponent could not realise that he too was a migrant from UP many years back ..

Able to understand how a man's brazen intolerance, low IQ, narrow mindedness can bring a city to silence !! How fearful Mumbaikars are of any reprisals !! Shame on mumbaikars !!

Let another day be over and he will sadly be kicked into the dustbin of history !!

The intolerance which he promoted in his party with the followers were evident in the vandalism the supporters did on the doctor's clinic in Palghar, Thane. Some elements in the police who are Shiv Sena sympathisers may have acted in haste in arresting the girls who never did any crime or instigate hatred as much as the SS vandals who got away scotfree, but were finally arrested on public outcry..

The people of the nation are waiting for the Maharashtra CM and police dept to give a proper reply as to why different approaches were adopted in the case of the innocent girls and the shivsena goondas initially and then later corrected ..

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Mumbai daada critically ill ..

How should the Government and its people respond when an old violent Daada who terrorised the govt and the people into submission and follow his path, on false "Marathi manoos", gets ill and is taking his final breath ?

How can people forget his attacks on South Indians and North Indians in Mumbai right from the 70s ? Can such a narrow minded person and his narrow minded children and nephews, who never could open his mind to take the people of the whole country as siblings, ever get the respect from others ? With such narrow vision and outlook, they have wasted a great opportunity and  made a fool of themselves all these years..

Is the present concern shown for Bal Thackeray by the who's who of Mumbai, out of concern or fear for what nuisance and mischief his misguided and violent followers can wreck on the society to disturb communal harmony ?

Having stayed in Mumbai for six long years I am fully aware of the daadagiri this old person still continues to throw around. Soon the country will heave a sigh of relief ..

His death has caused lot of emotions and feelings to float around. Strangely he was a misfit a for a mature democracy like India.. a person who believed that he could elbow out his competitors in the political space by the basal instincts of muscle and threats over brain to control Mumbai, its people and the businesses.. Perhaps, some more education would have made him a bit more cultured and civilized to take on the world, and be remembered for generations.

Now sadly, he is being remembered for the wrong reasons which nobody would want to be remembered for ..

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CAG, 2G and 1.76 lakh crore ..

Naturally the people of the country are interested in knowing what happened to the Rs. 1.76 lakh crore loss raised by the Comptroller Auditor General on 2G spectrum sale conducted in 2008. Why the sudden loss of face for the govt and the CAG now ?

Vinod Rai, does he owe an apology to the nation ?

After the 2G spectrum auction conducted by the government recently on SC orders, following the apolitical CAG's political report on 2G spectrum sale in 2008, the central govt was shocked to find that less than one sixteenth of the speculative loss of rs. One lakh seventy six thousand crores, ie rs. 9500 crores, had been raised from auctions.

The reasons for the flop show as evident from the editorial from The Hindu, could be that the same buoyant conditions did not exist in the Economy now as in 2008, moreover the  teledensity had got to 70% perent from 25 percent then, with the consequent average revenue per user (ARPU) falling from approximately Rs 350 to less than Rs 100 now, and it is no more lucrative for telecom companies to bid at 3G rates of 2010, which amassed about Rs. 70,000 crores for the country. There was a time in 2010 when the number of subscribers were growing at a rate of 20 million a month, for the first time, in the past few months we have seen a negative rate of growth in mobile subscribers coming to less tha 10 million subscribers a month.. The country now has almost 900 million mobile subscribers, three times that of US and approximately 10 times that of England, Germany, France etc... Read this link

Times of India editorial goes this way ..

Does CAG owe an apology to the nation ? First Post article..

The big doubt in people's mind is : Has the public of the country been taken for a ride by CAG Vinod Rai when he took political sides or failed to grab the bigger picture of the commercial aspects of technology or the dynamic market forces behind any decison of the government. It is sad that the CAG is trained to work and comment only with accounts and numbers, he has failed to understand technology and its implications.

How can such a person holding a high constitutional post act in an immature fashion and jump the gun in shooting his peurile comments ?

Being an apolitical appointee of the former government was he too eager to show his concern for the country, its people and the party by his immature presumptive reporting of losses to the country, because of an earlier govt policy of spectrum sale and not auction ?

The CAG needs to be given a dressing down by the President  for having acted in great haste and not doing enough homework and not being technically qualified and competent to pass a crucial comment on a technical issue, misleading the people of the country. He gave an impression to the people as being unduly pressurised by some forces. Did he act for the greater common good or just wanted to raise an issue and score points ?

3G technology (moving data at high speeds) cannot be compared to 2G technology as it is more advanced and its commercial repercussions cannot be underestimated. Had he not just looked at the accounts and numbers and taken advice from technical experts, more so done some reading himself on the complex technology and the vast commercial opportunities with moving data at high speeds compared to 2G, CAG would have shown muted enthusiasm and would not have lost his face like now.

What a colossal waste of time, effort of the people because of a CAG who acted with some unknown vested interests ?

Let not such incompetent officers take the people of the country for a ride in future, at least .. !!! His continuing at the position only reinforces the common man's doubt whether political appointees can cling to such crucial constitutional positions in the country after committing such great blunders !!

Let us not belittle the post of CAG for the ill deeds of one man !! In future let not any constitutional figure give political fodder to parties based on incorrect, erroneous, presumptive facts and figures due to the indiligent arrogance and sheer ignorance of the person holding this high post..

As TOI editorial says, let us not waste time pointing fingers at each other. Instead let us work to improve telecom infrastructure and bring transparency in policy implementation. Policy making is government's turf, let not the CAG or courts interfere in them. At most they can point out the flaws and help to rectify them.

Ge..

Nature's way of rejuvenating the earth ..

These days in the mornings on my way to work, it is really pleasant to see mist covering the landscape, reducing visibility to about 10 metres in Chandapura, Anekal area.

Mist is another way of nature gifting us the abundance of life, moisture. Without moisture or water, life ceases on planet earth..

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Bangalore water woes .. citizenmatters.in

DEPT OF MINES AND GEOLOGY ON WATER

Bengaluru's stark water shortage can get worse: new study

As if persistent warning bells were not enough, in a new study, city based geologists are showing that the region's groundwater table may be sucked dry soon, and over 2.4 million citizens may be stranded.

By Samuel Jacob

08 Nov 2012, Citizen Matters

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Over 2.4 million (24 lakh) people in Bengaluru face the prospect of severe water shortage in the near future, a study by the Department of Mines and Geology has reported. In fact, going by the growth in population of the city and the water requirement per person per day, the city harbours about 2.2 million (22 lakh) more people than there is piped water to supply them. This is before the commissioning of the Cauvery Water Supply Scheme's Stage IV, Phase 2, project. This project if it meets the target of 500 million liters a day (mld), will marginally improve the situation, provided growth of city's population stagnates at current levels.

As per the 2011 Census, the population of Bangalore urban district grew by a whopping 46 per cent from 65,37,124 in 2001 to 95,88,910 in the last decade. This is by far the fastest rate of growth for any city in India. It also means that the city faces unprecedented challenges with respect to infrastructure and amenities.

Pic: Sankar C G

Of all the amenities, water is the most critical. Unfortunately, it is also the resource most taken for granted by citizens as well as administrators. The study, by G V Hegde and K C Subhash Chandra, both geologists at the Mines and Geology department, shows how the situation can spin out of control if the current scenario persists.

Over-exploitation of groundwater, poor recharge of ground water due to a mosaic of concrete structures and asphalt roads, wastage of available water, usurpation of lakes by layouts and real-estate development, shrinking of the rivers that supply water due to encroachment and silting, non enforcement of water harvesting and recycling initiatives; all these factors in combination can lead to an explosive water shortage situation.

According to the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) data, Bangalore urban district is served by a major (Banded Gneissic Complex or BGC is geological name) hard rock aquifer system covering an area of 2114 sq. kms. A smaller granite aquifer system cuts across through an area of 67 sq. kms of Bangalore Urban and 341 sq. km of Bangalore rural. Rural Bangalore is also served by a smaller laterite aquifer system of 23 sq. kms. It is from these aquifers that the lakhs of borewells draw their water.

The demand for water is calculated at 140 liters per day (lpd) per person. For the current population, the requirement works out to 1,342 million liters per day (mld). Capacity of water from the Cauvery (Stages I to IV, Phase I) and Arkavathy (Hesarghatta and Tippagondanahalli reservoirs) river sources works out to 975 mld. Conveyance and other losses reduces the effective supply by 30 per cent to 682 mld. The shortage therefore works out to 660 mld.

Demand for water: 1342 mld

Requirement litres per day (lpd) per person	140
Bangalore population	95,88,910
Total requirement in million liters per day (mld)	1342.44

 

Supply from various sources (post Cauvery Stage IV, phase 2), minus losses: 1373 mld

To meet part of the deficit, BWSSB exploits 7,000 borewells to supply 35 mld. There are about 1,05,500 private borewells registered with BWSSB, from which an estimated 106 mld requirement is met. Then there are over 2 lakh unregistered private borewells from which another 200 mld is drawn. The total supply from groundwater sources is therefore estimated at 341 mld./p>

Taken together, the overall supply of water from the cauvery river as well as ground water sources to the city is at 1023 mld. On a total demand of 1342 mld, that still leaves the city with 319 mld less than the requirement or over 22 lakh people without their average quota of water.

The picture looks even more grim when we take into account the groundwater recharge.

The Mines and Geology department study estimates the current groundwater recharge scenario. Using standard estimation methodology, the rainfall infiltration to groundwater aquifers is considered at 2 per cent for built-up area (concrete paved areas and asphalt roads) and 6 per cent for open areas. For Bangalore this amounts to the equivalent of 25 mld and 33 mld respectively for built-up and open areas for a normal annual rainfall (NAR) of 830 mm over 800 sq km. Recharge from 96 perennial tanks is considered at 25 mld. (To avoid confusion annual rainfall infiltration has also been tabulated into million liters per day and so has the recharge from lakes.) Then there is recharge from 721 mld sewage load that the city discharges. One per cent of this is taken as the recharge which amounts to 7 mld.

Therefore total recharge of groundwater from all these sources is about 90 mld. Against a withdrawal of 341 mld from the ground, the recharge is 90 mld. In other words, the current overdraft of water from the ground is a massive 378 per cent!

Not surprisingly, it is because of this substantial withdrawal of groundwater that all the three aquifer systems serving Bangalore are classified as "Over Exploited". Moreover, the granite and BGC aquifer systems for Bangalore Rural have reached a "critical" stage, according to the study by Hegde and Subhash.

How long can this be sustainable? If these aquifers run dry, another 24 lakh people are under risk of severe shortages.

A recharge well in common storm water drains with filter. Pic: RWC.

What do the scholars recommend?

The study recommends that the 467 mld of storm water which is currently being drained along with sewage, if it is protected and conserved, can take care of the requirements of about 23 lakh people. Further, if at least 70 per cent of the sewage load is treated up to the tertiary level and recycled, it can take care of the needs of another 26 lakh people.

It also recommends that groundwater aquifers should be allowed to revive and should not be exploited beyond 60 per cent of its annual recharge. Groundwater should in fact be a stand-by resource and not the main source of supply like is being used today.

According to the CGWB, there is an urgent need for sustainable and scientific management of groundwater resource. It recommends construction of artificial recharge structures in areas covered by over-exploited aquifers.

The geologists also recommend an umbrella agency to monitor/coordinate and to provide capacity building in rainwater harvesting and artificial recharge schemes being implemented by various agencies, NGOs/ VOs, industries, commercial establishments etc., since many of the implementing agencies are not having the scientific background nor knowledge base for effective implementation and at times there is a duplication of work by different departments.

References

Availability for water supply to Bangalore City, Karnataka; by GV Hegde, KC Subhash Chandra; published in Current Science, April 2012 issue.

Aquifer Systems of Karnataka, Central Ground Water Board, Ministry of Water Resources, GoI. Sept. 2012. Census of India, report 2011.

Samuel Jacob

08 Nov 2012

Wolfram alpha and your facebook report ..

Wolfram is the company which gives us Mathematica, one of the greatest Mathematical computation software ever written ..

The same company has come up with www.wolframalpha.com, The computational search engine or answer engine.. Here is the link from wikipedia

Wolfram Alpha (also styled WolframAlpha and Wolfram|Alpha) is an answer engine developed by Wolfram Research. It is an online service that answers factual queries directly by computing the answer from structured data, rather than providing a list of documents or web pages that might contain the answer as a search engine might.^[4]

Type facebook report, share your facebook data and see what all data it throws back at you ..

Marvellous !!  Do try out with different types of queries too ..

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Xi Jin Ping in China..

With the re-election of Obama in US, tomorrow China also is witnessing a change.. Xi Jin Ping is taking charge and will be Pres in april of PRC.

Does Xi Jin command the respect of 1400m people? can he control dissent with an iron hand ?

Is China playing with fire ??

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Windows 8 desperate for sales ..

These days when I log in to read the Times of India, I am received by a huge screen sized banner ad of Windows 8.

As if fooling people with Windows XP and some later releases, Microsoft finding its revenue streams dwindling is now coming up with new releases every year.

And a gullible public, out of ignorance fall in the trap laid by these giants in IT field. So sad and I feel so much of pity for my friends who fall in for these.

I also read from some sources that one could download for free a simple lite version of windows for free use., though I am yet to come across any such site. It is again a pointer to the fact that Microsoft is feeling the pressure from Free and Open source competitors and from Apple, Solaris and others..

Let the world be a more free place where people have the choice to select their OS and work with it.

Go open source and long live Free Software ..!!

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