Be The Change...........

Born To Win....

2010-08-16T09:59:00.000+05:30

'Born To Win', a complete self-analysis book by Muriel James and Dorothy Jongeward. It's based on the concepts of Transactional Analysis and Gestalt Experiments. Nowhere its tells you how you should be but what it does is that it lets you realize yourself and makes you see clearly what are the implications of many of your behaviors. Not only self realization but it also helps us understand the basis of human nature and teaches us how to deal with people. In all an exciting and an interesting read.

Two States by Chetan Bhagat

2010-02-14T14:10:00.000+05:30

It's a great attempt by our newly born (only four books old) with simple english, shallow understanding to try and portray the regionalism brooding in our society. Kudos! I tried my best to avoid the book for so long but finally it got me and here I am with a review on it. Sarcastic, humorous storyline which starts off this way but after the third act its sort of he's just dragging it to the end. What I found out was that there is a clear lack of understanding of a woman in his writing.
Yet again the storyline is pretty predictable.
Overall it's yet another masala story good for beginners and a bummer for regulars.

संकोच -" Emotions of True Son"

2009-10-24T19:22:00.008+05:30

हर इन्सान में कहीं न कहीं होता तो है ही संकोच,
दूसरों को ही वोह खुशी देना चाहता है हर रोज़ ,
छिपाता है दूसरों से और सह लेता है ख़ुद दुःख,
बदले में जो भी मिले दुःख या फ़िर सुख।

वह इंसान जो भी हो , होता तो है ही महान,
दूसरों का सोचने वाला वह कर देता है कीर्तिमान।
वह ख़ुद नहीं जानता कितनी तकलीफें आएँगी और,
मदद तो करना ही है सबकी ,चाहे हो इंसान या फ़िर हैवान।

माँ की ममता में भी संकोच छिपा रहता है,
दर्द होता है यदि पुत्र कुछ सहता है।
ममता भी महानता का ही एक रूप लगती है,
यह महसूस करके पुत्र का भी अश्क निकल बहता है।

वह अश्क में क्या क्या छिपा रहता है,
यह तो सिर्फ़ वह पुत्र ही जानता है,
दया,स्नेह,आदि से भरपूर वो अश्क,
जब निकलता है तो कभी नहीं ठहेरता है।

पुत्र की स्थिती देखकर पिता उसे सहानुभूति देता है,
पुत्र सहानुभूति को भो माँ की ममता समझ लेता है,
पिता ,पुत्र और माँ का यह अनूठा रिश्ता,
भगवान् ही तो बाँध कर देता है.

Intezaar !! This poem I wrote on 20th may 2007 longing for the result!!

2009-06-15T23:53:00.003+05:30

इंतज़ार

खोया हुआ बैठे बैठे करता हूँ मैं इंतज़ार,
बोर होता हूँ लगता है मुझे सबकुछ बेकार,
लगता है वक़्त थम सा गया है सदा के लिए,
बताओ भाई क्या समय का भी होता है व्यापार?

एक क्षण बिताना भी मुश्किल सा हो गया है,
अपने आप को ऐसे देखकर मन क्रोधित सा हो गया है,
कहाँ जाऊं , क्या करूँ, किस्से बात करूँ मैं?
इस दिशा को देखकर मन विचलित सा हो गया है।

किताबों की टेबल और कुर्सी सूनी सी हो गई है,
चेहरे पर इंतज़ार और मन में मासूमियत सी हो गई है,
PET का समय आएगा जब,
तब कहूँगा , उन किताबों की फ़िर से ज़रूरत सी हो गई है।

समय तो चलता है अपनी गति से हर बार,
विश्वास है की वो समय भी आएगा एक बार,
खुशी या ग़म उस समय पता चलेगा,
जब आएगी जीत या फ़िर हार की पुकार।

क्या मालूम आगे क्या होना है?
हँसना है या फ़िर रोना है?
जो होता है अच्छे के लिए होता है,
यह मानके मन को अपने दतोलना है,
महनत का फल अवश्य ही मिलना है ,
तो फ़िर किस बात पर रोना है??

Reality........

2009-06-07T13:03:00.002+05:30

The world is here, to which i m bound

Nothing seems real, noone's around.

Whatever i feel, whatever i say,

No answers returned, all's made of clay.

When i needed love, was loaded with a cold heart,

When I needed a friend, still it's too hard.

When I needed happiness, to get from this world,

All were impassive, as if they didn't heard.

Was it too much to ask and my expectations high,

Or was it not the world, I dreamed to live by,

Or is it just a dream, reality is something else,

Or is this the REALITY?????

Aerogel

2009-05-21T20:33:00.005+05:30

Aerogel is a solid-state material with the lowest known density[citation needed]; it is derived from gel in which the liquid component of the gel has been replaced with gas. The result is an extremely low-density solid with several remarkable properties, most notably its effectiveness as a thermal insulator. It is nicknamed frozen smoke, solid smoke or blue smoke due to its translucent nature and the way light scatters in the material; however, it feels like expanded polystyrene (styrofoam) to the touch.

The flower kept on Aerogel doesn't get even a bit hotter on subjecting to a flame of 1273K from the other side.

Aerogel was first created by Samuel Stephens Kistler in 1931, as a result of a bet with Charles Learned over who could replace the liquid inside of a jam jar with gas without causing shrinkage.

Aerogels are produced by extracting the liquid component of a gel through supercritical drying. This allows the liquid to be slowly drawn off without causing the solid matrix in the gel to collapse from capillary action, as would happen with conventional evaporation. The first aerogels were produced from silica gels. Kistler's later work involved aerogels based on alumina, chromia and tin oxide. Carbon aerogels were first developed in the late 1980s.

Contents
■1 Properties
■2 Types
■2.1 Silica aerogels
■2.2 Carbon aerogels
■2.3 Alumina aerogels
■2.4 Other aerogels
■3 Uses
■4 Production
■5 Safety

Properties
A demonstration of aerogel's insulation propertiesTo the touch, aerogels feel like a light but rigid foam, something between Styrofoam and the green floral foam used for arranging flowers. Despite what their name may suggest, aerogels are dry materials and do not resemble a gel in their physical properties; the name comes from the fact that they are derived from gels. Pressing softly on an aerogel typically does not leave a mark; pressing more firmly will leave a permanent dimple. Pressing firmly enough will cause a catastrophic breakdown in the sparse structure, causing it to shatter like glass—a property known as friability. Despite the fact that it is prone to shattering, it is very strong structurally. Its impressive load bearing abilities are due to the dendritic microstructure, in which spherical particles of average size 2-5 nm are fused together into clusters. These clusters form a three-dimensional highly porous structure of almost fractal chains, with pores smaller than 100 nm. The average size and density of the pores can be controlled during the manufacturing process.

Aerogels are good thermal insulators because they almost nullify the three methods of heat transfer (convection, conduction and radiation). They are good convective inhibitors because air cannot circulate throughout the lattice. Silica aerogel is an especially good conductive insulator because silica is a poor conductor of heat—a metallic aerogel, on the other hand, would be a less effective insulator. Carbon aerogel is a good radiative insulator because carbon absorbs the infrared radiation that transfers heat at standard temperatures. The most insulative aerogel is silica aerogel with carbon added to it.

Due to its hygroscopic nature, aerogel feels dry and acts as a strong desiccant. Persons handling aerogel for extended periods of time should wear gloves to prevent the appearance of dry brittle spots on their hands.

Since it is 99.8% air, it appears semi-transparent. The color it does have is due to Rayleigh scattering of the shorter wavelengths of visible light by the nanosized dendritic structure. This causes it to appear smoky blue against dark backgrounds and yellowish against bright backgrounds.

Aerogels by themselves are hydrophilic, but chemical treatment can make them hydrophobic. If they absorb moisture they usually suffer a structural change, such as contraction, and deteriorate, but degradation can be prevented by making them hydrophobic. Aerogels with hydrophobic interiors are less susceptible to degradation than aerogels with only an outer hydrophobic layer, even if a crack penetrates the surface. Hydrophobic treatment facilitates processing because it allows the use of a water jet cutter.

Types

Silica aerogels
Aerogel produced at Florida State University by Elliot Schwartz and Robert PalmerSilica aerogel is the most common type of aerogel and the most extensively studied and used. It is a silica-based substance, derived from silica gel. The world's lowest-density solid is a silica nanofoam at 1 mg/cm3, which is the evacuated version of the record-aerogel of 1.9 mg/cm3. The density of air is 1.2 mg/cm3.

Silica aerogel strongly absorbs infrared radiation. It allows the construction of materials that let light into buildings but trap heat for solar heating.

It has remarkable thermal insulative properties, having an extremely low thermal conductivity: from 0.03 W/m·K down to 0.004 W/m·K,[5] which correspond to R-values of 14 to 105 for 3.5 inch thickness. For comparison, typical wall insulation is 13 for 3.5 inch thickness. Its melting point is 1,473 K (1,200 °C or 2,192 °F).

Silica aerogel holds 15 entries[citation needed] in Guinness World Records for material properties, including best insulator and lowest-density solid.

Carbon aerogels
Carbon aerogels are composed of particles with sizes in the nanometer range, covalently bonded together. They have very high porosity (over 50%, with pore diameter under 100 nm) and surface areas ranging between 400–1000 m²/g. They are often manufactured as composite paper: non-woven paper made of carbon fibers, impregnated with resorcinol-formaldehyde aerogel, and pyrolyzed. Depending on the density, carbon aerogels may be electrically conductive, making composite aerogel paper useful for electrodes in capacitors or deionization electrodes. Due to their extremely high surface area, carbon aerogels are used to create supercapacitors, with values ranging up to thousands of farads based on a capacitance of 104 F/g and 77 F/cm³. Carbon aerogels are also extremely "black" in the infrared spectrum, reflecting only 0.3% of radiation between 250 nm and 14.3 µm, making them efficient for solar energy collectors.

The term "aerogel" has been incorrectly used to describe airy masses of carbon nanotubes produced through certain chemical vapor deposition techniques—such materials can be spun into fibers with strength greater than Kevlar, and unique electrical properties. These materials are not aerogels, however, since they do not have a monolithic internal structure and do not have the regular pore structure characteristic of aerogels.

Alumina aerogels
Aerogels made with aluminium oxide are known as alumina aerogels. These aerogels are used as catalysts, especially when "metal-doped" with another metal. Nickel-alumina aerogel is the most common combination. Alumina aerogels are also examined by NASA for capturing of hypervelocity particles; a formulation doped with gadolinium and terbium could fluoresce at the particle impact site, with amount of fluorescence dependent on impact velocity.

Other aerogels
SEAgel is a material similar to organic aerogel, made of agar.

Chalcogels are a type of aerogel made of chalcogens (the column of elements on the periodic table beginning with oxygen) such as sulfur, selenium, and other elements. Research is ongoing, and metals less expensive than platinum have also been used in its creation.

Aerogels made of Cadmium selenide quantum dots in a porous 3-D network have recently been developed for use in the semiconductor industry.

Uses
The Stardust dust collector with aerogel blocks. (NASA)There are a variety of tasks for which aerogels are used.

■Commercially, aerogels have been used in granular form to add insulation to skylights.
■Transparent silica aerogel would be very suitable as a thermal insulation material for windows, significantly limiting thermal losses of buildings. One research team (http://zerogaerogel.com) has shown that producing aerogel in a weightless environment can produce particles with a more uniform size and reduce the Rayleigh scattering effect in silica aerogel, thus making the aerogel less blue and more transparent.
■Its high surface area leads to many applications, such as a chemical absorber for cleaning up spills (see adsorption). This feature also gives it great potential as a catalyst or a catalyst carrier.
■Aerogel particles are also used as thickening agents in some paints and cosmetics.
■Aerogels are being tested for use in targets for the National Ignition Facility.
■Aerogel performance may be augmented for a specific application by the addition of dopants, reinforcing structures, and hybridizing compounds. Using this approach, the breadth of applications for the material class may be greatly increased.
■Commercial manufacture of aerogel 'blankets' began around the year 2000. An aerogel blanket is a composite of silica aerogel and fibrous reinforcement that turns the brittle aerogel into a durable, flexible material. The mechanical and thermal properties of the product may be varied based upon the choice of reinforcing fibers, the aerogel matrix, and opacification additives included in the composite.
■NASA used aerogel to trap space dust particles aboard the Stardust spacecraft. The particles vaporize on impact with solids and pass through gases, but can be trapped in aerogels. NASA also used aerogel for thermal insulation of the Mars Rover and space suits.
■The US Navy is evaluating aerogel undergarments as passive thermal protection for divers.
■Aerogels are also used in particle physics as radiators in Cherenkov effect detectors. ACC system of the Belle detector, used in the Belle Experiment at KEKB, is a recent example of such use. The suitability of aerogels is determined by their low index of refraction, filling the gap between gases and liquids, and their transparency and solid state, making them easier to use than cryogenic liquids or compressed gases. Their low mass is also advantageous for space missions.
■Resorcinol-formaldehyde aerogels (polymers chemically similar to phenol formaldehyde resins) are mostly used as precursors for manufacture of carbon aerogels, or when an organic insulator with large surface is desired. They come as high-density material, with surface area about 600 m²/g.
■The first residential use of aerogel as an insulator is in the Georgia Institute of Technology's Solar Decathlon House where it is used as an insulator in the semi-transparent roof.
■Metal-aerogel nanocomposites can be prepared by impregnating the hydrogel with solution containing ions of the suitable noble or transition metals. The impregnated hydrogel is then irradiated with gamma rays, leading to precipitation of nanoparticles of the metal. Such composites can be used as catalysts, sensors, electromagnetic shielding, and in waste disposal. A prospective use of platinum-on-carbon catalysts is in fuel cells.
■Aerogel can be used as a drug delivery system due to its biocompatibility. Due to its high surface area and porous structure, drugs can be adsorbed from supercritical CO2. The release rate of the drugs can be tailored based on the properties of aerogel.
■Carbon aerogels are used in the construction of small electrochemical double layer supercapacitors. Due to the high surface area of the aerogel, these capacitors can be 1/2000th to 1/5000th the size of similarly rated electrolytic capacitors.Aerogel supercapacitors can have a very low impedance compared to normal supercapacitors and can absorb or produce very high peak currents. At present, such capacitors are polarity-sensitive and need to be wired in series if a working voltage of greater than about 2.75V is needed.
■Dunlop has recently incorporated aerogel into the mold of its new series of tennis racquets, and has previously used it in squash racquets.
■Chalcogels have shown promise in absorbing the heavy metal pollutants mercury, lead and cadmium from water.
■Aerogel is used to introduce disorder into superfluid Helium-3.

Production
Silica aerogel is made by drying a hydrogel composed of colloidal silica in an extreme environment. Specifically, the process starts with a liquid alcohol like ethanol which is mixed with a silicon alkoxide precursor to form a silicon dioxide sol gel (silica gel). Then, through a process called supercritical drying, the alcohol is removed from the gel. This is typically done by exchanging the ethanol for liquid acetone, allowing a better miscibility gradient, and then onto liquid carbon dioxide and then bringing the carbon dioxide above its critical point. A variant on this process involves the direct injection of supercritical carbon dioxide into the pressure vessel containing the aerogel. The end result removes all liquid from the gel and replaces it with gas, without allowing the gel structure to collapse or lose volume.

Aerogel composites have been made using a variety of continuous and discontinuous reinforcements. The high aspect ratio of fibers such as fiberglass have been used to reinforce aerogel composites with significantly improved mechanical properties.

Resorcinol-formaldehyde aerogel (RF aerogel) is made in a way similar to production of silica aerogel.

Carbon aerogel is made from a resorcinol-formaldehyde aerogel by its pyrolysis in inert gas atmosphere, leaving a matrix of carbon. It is commercially available as solid shapes, powders, or composite paper.

Safety
Silica-based aerogels are not known to be carcinogenic or toxic. However, they are a mechanical irritant to the eyes, skin, respiratory tract and digestive system. They also can induce dryness of the skin, eyes and mucous membranes. Therefore, it is recommended that protective gear including gloves and eye goggles be worn whenever handling aerogels.[20]

However, safety depends on the material from which the aerogel is made – it will be carcinogenic or toxic if the solid component has such characteristics.

THE PAIN OF REJECTION

2009-05-18T12:15:00.000+05:30

Have you ever loved a girl? If the answer to the question is positive you have surely hit a jackpot.

As a matter of fact, each and every guy that I have known to exist has been smitten by a girl at some point of time in his life but out of this lot only a meager amount has confessed to their lady love. Can u guess why? What stops a man from baring his heart in front of the woman he loves? It’s nothing but ‘THE PAIN OF REJECTION’. What if she says no? What if she rejects me out rightly? These kinds of questions brew up in a lover’s mind.

Men simply can’t take the humiliation of being discarded by a girl. Instead of pondering over the process men fear the result. Don’t bother about the reply just say what your heart says. If the answer is yes, then awesome and if it’s a no then I must tell you that you are very lucky because what makes a difference is how you carry ‘THE PAIN OF REJECTION’.

Usually people get bogged down and depressed after being rejected, they loose the reason and motive to live. They find new imperfections in themselves and feel inferior to others.
But if you want your girl you’ll have to rise above the pain of being rejected and roll up your sleeves to get her.

You’ll have to ask yourself the question that ‘What was lacking in me so that she had to overlook me’? Then through an introspecting session and your conscience come up with the flaws in you and try to improve upon them. Then with a new polished and improved version of yourself hit back again to woo the woman of your life but beware u may get more negative replies ( as no one has a control over the matters of heart but god ). But you don’t give up and try until she is impelled to like you. You’ll find that in doing so you have excelled and achieved a great deal in life.

If you don’t believe me I have a petite and true story for you……..

A man named Rajiv Bhatia loved a girl from the deep depths of his heart. He proposed to the girl and she rejected him for a guy named Akshay Kumar. Rajiv was heart broken. But then he decided to do something substantial in his life and show her what she had lost. Now we know this Rajiv as the actor ‘AKSHAY KUMAR’.

So guys don’t sit back dreaming and fantasizing about the girl you love, sweep her by the feet looking into her gleaming eyes & enchant those magical words into her lovely ears hoping to be accepted and if you are not then you have a very good chance of becoming the next ‘AKSHAY KUMAR’ of India.

BY
NIPUN GUPTA
(Straight from the heart)
B-TECH (1st year)
PULP AND PAPER ENG.
IIT ROORKEE

Mother- a Special Gift of God!

2009-05-10T15:06:00.006+05:30

Nothing is impossible in this world if one person is with u,nothing can be taken from u if that person is with u,no one can cause u any damage, if that person is with u, even if u r sleeping , then also one person is there who is luking after u, u may be anywhere in this whole world, one person always wishes u to be successful, u may not be with that person, but her wishes, her help, her care ,her support will always be with u, u may forget her, but she can't even think of this , whenever u become sad, there is always one person who becomes more sad than u r and that person is your MOTHER.

Mother , this is a wonderful word in every person's life. Each person is closely attached to his/her mother and why not , after all this attachment is like an eternal relation.It's the greatest gift of God a person can ever have.Mother , mummy, mom, ma, etc are the most wonderful syllables a person have,these words r attached to the bottom of their hearts.

The relation between son and the mother is actually the attachment of their souls.They r so attached that a slightest of the troubles to one person produces great distress to the other.
Right from the childhood, when the child is not able to walk, speak, then it is the mother who luks after the child.She is so much concerned that at nights when the child starts crying she wakes up and then does not sleep until the child sleeps peacefully. She is always concerned abt the child, and always wants her child to be happy evertime and for giving that happiness to that child, she is able to do that which a person can't even think of doing.She does'nt ask for anything from God but the happiness of her child,this shows how greatly concerned she is.It is something which a person even if he wants can't do. This is an extraordinary gift and we must be thankful to God for providing such a divine relationship .

Ma, a monosyllabic word has more than just a sound.It is one of those wonderful words that makes the life on this world a great great one to live for.The mother always wants to hear those words and it gives her that utmost happiness which even the biggest of the gifts can't provide.
Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salaried jobs, since the payment is pure love and this payment is the most difficult to get.Tears start coming out when a person tries to think wat his mother has done for him all these years.It is an incredible work she has done, she has gone through those sleepless nights just to give you that peaceful sleep, she has missed her past just to secure your future, just to make u stand where u r, she has lost her enjoyable days just to ensure u r gearing up in the rite direction, she has been so helping and caring just to ensure that u get all the happiness in this world, when u become sad, she is the one who supports u, when u do some wrong thing, she is the one who teaches u , when u get wat u wanted , she is the most happiest person in the world, when u are saddened, she too gets saddened, when u want something, it is she who provides u, when u are going through the difficult times , it is she who provides u the much needed encouragement and makes u believe that u will overcome this thing and that too very soon.

She is ur support which does'nt decrease with time, she is ur helping shoulder , which is always there, she is ur best friend who enjoys ur success, she is the dearest relation one can ever get, and she is the most precious gift of God to a person and above all

SHE IS YOUR MOTHER!

Happy Mother's day Mumma!!

मजाक बन गया मैं .

2009-05-04T18:43:00.006+05:30

आज मैं आपको अपने बारे में कुछ बता रहा हूँ,
ध्यान एकत्रित करने के लिए कुछ समय मांग रहा हूँ,
माफ़ कीजियेगा अगर मज़ा न आए ,
परन्तु उदासी को भी मज़े के साथ बता रहा हूँ।

बात थी एक ज़माने की ,
थे हम अकल के कच्चे,
मजाक बनाया हमने ज़िन्दगी का,
क्या करें थे नन्हे बच्चे।

आया एक बार शेर मेरे सामने ,
राम राम कह पत्थर उठाकर लगा मैं कांपने,
बलवानों की तरह फेका पत्थर उसकी पीठ पर,
मजाक बन गया मैं जब पता चला की लगा पत्थर कुत्ते की रीढ़ पर।

एक बार लग गया मैं नदी में नहाने में,
नहाते नहाते आ गया जोश गाना गाने में,
आया बहार नदी के पानी में नहाकर,
फ़िर मजाक बन गया मैं जब पता चला आया बहार नाले में छलांग लगाकर।

और अजीब और गरीब किस्से आपको मैं बताता हूँ,
तो सुनिए और मज़ेदार किस्से अब मैं फरमाता हूँ।

था एक ज़माना मैं घुढ़सवारी कर रहा था,
घोडे पे सवारी करना मज़ा बन गया था,
घोडे वाले की बात सुन कर मैं अचम्भे में पड़ गया था,
क्योंकि गधा सवारी करके मैं गधा बन गया था।

उपर लिखे किस्सों से मैं मजाक बन गया था ,
पता नहीं क्यों मेरी नज़रों से मुझे धोखा मिल गया था ?
पता नहीं क्यों हँसी का पात्र बन गया था ?
फ़िर मजाक बन गया मैं जब याद आया की मैं अपना चश्मा लगना भूल गया था।

2009-05-03T17:03:00.003+05:30

This is a nice video which shows the innovation converted to a new technology.It's great!!
Less space usage to open the gates and how well it can be done!! Amazing!!

Life- it's all about our thinking!!

2009-05-01T17:12:00.003+05:30

This article is based on my experience .After living for this much of time , what I have got to know about life is what I am trying to explain in this post.

Life- what it is?? When people say that my life is good, my life is great etc. etc., I tend to think sometimes what makes the life great, what makes the life so interesting? I asked this question to many people and the ans was great. And then when I asked how ? they told just "aisehe". Infact people have developed this habit of saying that I am really enjoying, well It's great to enjoy but what makes your life this enjoyable is what my query is. What's the reason for you enjoyment?,and how far will you be enjoying?? How do you define fun? How does one define enjoyment??

To proceed, I would say that there is nothing called excitement, nor enjoyment nor boring not sadness. These are all the terms invented by some of the minds who just changed the meaning of life and then tried to associate these words with the lives.If a person pretends that he is happy, one assuumes vow man, what life is he having! Vow what life Amitabh Bachan has!
Kash meri bhi life aise hoti, etc. etc. Well, guys if anyone of you thinks like that then certainly you need to read this article.

According to me , life is nothing but the outcome of what one does.As you sow so shall you reap- a famous quote. Well, this defines what will be the outcome but still one question remains, what makes the life interesting?It may be the case that the reason for enjoyment for one person may not be for another one.Like for example, if one is getting the food everday he thinks that he is happy, but if you go to the rich people, they don't beleive happiness lies in having food everday but what they beleive in is having good food ,no tension etc.etc. for their happiness.So in short, Life's happiness is defined separately by one's choice.A person can redefine the word happiness and can have the most wanted happiness.If one redifines the meaning of these words peace, happiness, enjoyment etc then certainly he is there to enjoy (not only in his own definitions but also in other's as well.)

So friends, Life is great if you are satisfied with what you have or what you are getting day by day.

But this does not mean that you should not aim too high and must be satisfied with where you are :P. enjoy!!

GO ON AND ENJOY BUT ALWAYS AIM HIGH AND DON'T BE SADDENED WITH WHAT YOU DON'T HAVE.

wake up..

2009-01-21T17:51:00.000+05:30

सपने में कोई अपना

सोच में डूबा हुआ मैंने सोचा एक सपना,
था उसमे एक अजीब इंसान कोई अपना,
उसका चेहरा देखने ke लिए मैंने अनेक सहारे लिए,
मेरे ह्रदय ने मुझसे उस वक्त लाखों प्रशन किए .

पुछा मैंने उससे उसका नाम था,
जानना चाह मैंने उसका काम था,
उत्तर देने से पहले चला गया वोह,
खो गया जैसे की कोई आसमान था।

फ़िर आया वोह उसी तरह अगली रात,
की उससे उसदिन मैंने मुलाक़ात,
उत्तर दिया और बहुत समझाया उसने मुझको,
दे गया वोह मेरे दिल को मात .

samajhaya उसने भविष्य के बारे में,
आदेश दिया छोड़ने को भविष्य उसके सहारे में,
बताया उसने की वोह मेरा भविष्य था,
बनाया मुझे उसने अपना शिष्य था।

आँखें खोल दी उसने जाते ही साथ,
चैन मिला उसके शब्दों से उस रात,
अच्छे और बुरे की पहचान आ गई मुझमें,
हो नहीं पाई फिरसे usase मुलाक़ात।

उसने मेरे कर्मों का वर्णन किया था,
मैंने कौनसे कौनसे ग़लत कामों को किया था,
उसने अपनी शिक्षा से शिक्षक का नाम लिया था,
उसने मुझे अच्छा इंसान बना दिया था .

Life and death

2009-01-18T21:17:00.000+05:30

जीवन और मृत्यु

एक जानवर की देखी मैंने तस्वीर थी,
मेरे हाथों में उसकी तकदीर थी,
एक तीर चला दिया मैंने,
टूटी हुई जीवन रेखा उसके हाथों की लकीर थी.

मर गया वोह मेरे क़दमों में ,
खो गया वोह मेरी यादों में,
सामने निकला वोह एक रात,
हो गया मुझसे उसदिन अपराध।

बदकिस्मती में आती हैं मुश्किलें सभी,
मरना था उसे कभी न कभी,
अपनानी पड़ेगी मुझे यह कड़वी सच्चाई,
नहीं हो पायेगी मेरे दिल की भरपाई।

मानना पड़ेगा यही सच है,
मारा है जो वह एक गज है,
छोड़ दिया चलाना तीर मैंने आज से,
अमर हो गया वोह पेच्ली रात से।

अपराध करके पा लिया मैंने अंजाम,
शायद यही है जीवन मृत्यु का नाम.

Tell Me Who I Am

2008-10-24T02:55:00.000+05:30

Restless I rise, formless I fall
I am ugly and I make you cry
Your dams I break, your floods I stall
I am faceless... I'm the morning sky

Your friend in the dark, your foe before
I am a cherub you fail to hate
Your fire on the rocks, your moon on the shore
I am a nimbus... forever pregnant in state

Your canvas to colour, your tumbler to fill
I am a riddle you live and breathe
Your Sirius, your sun, your distant hill
I am vapor... and I never cease to seethe

Formless I fall, restless I rise
I am a djinn who drags you by
Your slave and your master, your constant guise
Wonder, say, whoever am I?

???? to life......

2008-07-27T03:45:00.000+05:30

Another Bomb Blast

Another bomb, 30 killed,
100s injured, it happens almost every day,
scarcely makes the headlines,
so we shrug and say
“how terrible” and go our way.
But stop. Think. Imagine it,
for it is real —
flesh splattered on walls, guts spilling,
pavements slippery with gore,
stench of blood, still warm,
flowing red in gutters,
children, limbs torn, heads severed,
dead and dying everywhere,
screams and groans. That is the reality —
lives lost or wrecked,
loved ones gone, for ever and ever,
unending loss and pain
for those who mourn
sons, daughters, sisters,
husbands, brothers, wives — who cares?

Not those who carried out this sin
against humanity, this monstrous
obscene act, so far removed
from all that’s human,
warm and good,
from laughter, light and love;
they are not human so we cannot know
what’s in their minds —
it must be hate, for it is not love,
and hate it seems whose twisted skeins
are wrapped in strands of poisoned ideology
for men are most dangerous when
obsessed by ideas, simple
and extreme. Mix in religion, then
you’ll find they’ll kill, and all in the name of God.

Pete Crowther

I broke into silence...........

2008-07-26T23:51:00.000+05:30

When I was hurt,

By this world cruel,

I broke into silence........

When I noticed,

But got ignored,

I broke into silence........

When I demanded,

And got no response,

I broke into silence........

When I loved,

But received denial,it pained,

I broke into silence........

When I agnized,

To bear the pain,

I broke into silence........

To the Top of the Ladder

2008-07-22T14:37:00.000+05:30

I was a scared little mouse

Hiding in the little hole.

Sometimes I would peak

And step out a bit.

But the Big cat would scare me

So I ran right back in

My lonely but safe home.

One day the cat got in

My little hole.

I still don’t know how, But boy!

Did I ever ran out!

You took me in your hands

To a strange place.

You showed me the ladder

To enter the big World

Oh! Did it seem so high

For a little mouse like me

But you promised to hold

My hand

I first hesitated

And didn’t cooperate.

But you never left me

I slowly climbed up.

Sometimes I’d trip

But I got right back up

So now I’m less scared

And almost at the top.

I could climb to the clouds,

I might trip and fall down

But I’d get right back up

Thanks to your hand.

Soon I’ll let go of your hand

And meet my fellows

In the big and noisy place

Called Society.

I’ll be with my fellows,

But I’ll never forget you.

Someday I’ll be the one to hold

Their hands

To lead them the way to the

Big place called Society

It’s been a long but worthy time

I’m almost to the last step.

You’re slowly letting go of my hand…

Oh! It’s getting scary!

But I will make you proud

Because I’ll make the Society

A safe and warm place.

Thanks to your caring

And warm hand.

I’ll be the One

To change the world

A Dream...............

2008-07-21T23:41:00.000+05:30

Its still night
And I am lurking around,
Searching for a dream
To leave me astound.

A dream of a lifetime
A dream to chase,
A grip of it
Shall bring me praise.

There I saw
An aurora it appeared,
I ran like hell
But in dark i was steered.

The demon flared up
Casting fire all over,
As it looked at me
I ran for a cover.

It was late...........
I felt as if dead,
But soon i woke up
Still on my bed.

And still the same........
(This poem deals with the story of a person fighting with this world to achieve something and due to his needs drifted into criminal activities for monetory gains but gets late in realising that .............but all's well as he realises he just saw a dream and he is yet the same old person. Hope you enjoy this metaphor........)

Burgers to blame for most of the global warming

2008-07-21T15:28:00.000+05:30

WASHINGTON: A report by the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has stated that 18 per cent of greenhouse gases are coming from animal agriculture - meat and dairy, used in making burgers.

According to Environmental News Network , the 408-page report states that what many people are eating is contributing more to global warming than the entire transportation sector of the United States.

The report said that the Earth, and all who reside here, are in grave peril like never before. It added that everybody has a moral, ethical responsibility and imperative to face up to the truth, even if it means changing their daily habits.

There has never been a time in man's existence when it is so critical to move away from the Standard American Diet (SAD) and embrace an Earth-friendly and sustainable plant-based diet - a vegan diet, the report said. By switching to a plant based diet, mankind will instantly eradicate nearly 20 per cent of the global warming problem. If that isn't amazing enough, this simple yet profound change would greatly curtail further deforestation, top soil erosion and even the ever-worsening tainting of the world's waters.

Also, high cholesterol and heart disease, hypertension, obesity, adult-onset diabetes, kidney disease and many cancers would virtually disappear. But, the great news is that people don't have to give up on eating burgers, they just have to make them from plant-based ingredients. Veggie burgers have the taste, smell and texture of the traditional burger, but without the harmful ramifications.

Want to lose weight? Have chocolates!

2008-07-21T15:18:00.000+05:30

Here’s some good news for all those chocolate lovers trying to lose weight – instead of shunning your favourite sweet, dig into it for breakfast.

Wondering how this is going to help you shed those extra pounds? Well, eating chocolates is part of the new ‘Big Breakfast’ weight-loss plan that requires you to take 700-calories of carbohydrates when you wake up.

Along with 30g of chocolate, you will also have to dig into a glass of milk, two slices of cheese, 85g of lean meat and two slices of buttered whole-grain toast every morning.

Doctor Daniela Jakubowicz, who has used the diet on her patients for 15 years, told the Daily Express that the breakfast works because it helps curb hunger cravings later in the day. "Very low carbohydrate diets are not a good method to reduce weight. They exacerbate the craving for carbohydrates," she said.

NEW LIGHT IN COUNTRY DOOM

2008-07-21T01:15:00.000+05:30

Reported by Waste from Planet IITD, in customary disarray

Sassi ka Dhaba, 8.30 PM, 20^th January, 2008

Hi. I write this on my laptop as I wait for my plate of Maggi at Sassi, and everyone around is staring at me as if I am some peculiar specimen of alien life. Presently I light myself a smoke, and suddenly there is a collective sigh of recognition. Oh, all right, he’s one of us, they say. Us, dear reader, refers to the inhabitants of Planet IITD, and if you aren’t a member, you probably have no business reading this. (But you might as well go on and get some of your theories verified. Trust me, if you manage to reach the end of this article, you’ll be clapping yourself on the shoulder and shouting, “Hey, I was always right! IITians really are geeks from outer space!”)

Smoking kills, I know. But anyone who’s more than “just tried it out” knows that not smoking can kill just as effectively. So it’s a Catch-22 situation and so I am caught up on one side of it, so what? Well, let me tell you what. I had seven hours at college today, four of them in a workshop jammed with metal, grease and sweat, and the rest in impossibly packed antiquated classrooms. This is my third cigarette since then, and guess what, I’ve already wiped myself of half of those hours. Plus I feel curiously free, stupid as that sounds. So, Momma Mia, could I care less?

Okay, I guess that’s enough, you know I am a smoker, and you know I am an IITian (not necessarily in that order, but they sound about the same, anyway) and I know this is not really going anywhere. But then, what is? So tough luck; I’ll stay.

I am facing the main thoroughfare, and the crawl of the vehicles is slow enough for me to glimpse a face inside, every now and then. In the ghostly half-light inside their cars, some faces are happy, some are frowning, some bilious about the obvious mismanagement of road traffic (courtesy our very own PWD), some in outright rage about it, but most are just weary. Yeah, just weary. And suddenly the same ghost light switches on inside my head, as if some dormant circuit has just been joggled and juiced up. It stays for just a moment, but quite enough for me to register what it showed: I can be anyone of those faces; maybe am, already. I can’t really tell. I can’t really tell a lot of things, and that doesn’t only mean the stuff about three-phase autotransformers I was forced to swallow on this, the zillionth day I attempted to attend class. Sure, I can’t even begin on that, but who gives a flying fuck when you can pass with no mean measure of respectability with no more than getting hold of the professor’s bag of tricks? Try dangling the world’s juiciest carrot before me (like a promise of a night with Jolie, maybe) and my answer would still be “not me”.

Here’s my range of can’t-really-tells. I can’t really tell professors from Mr. Bean, and sometimes from Old Heckles who could have had birds. I can’t really tell laboratories from hockey fields, and I can’t really tell IITD from Pornographer’s Paradise. I can’t really tell lilac from lavender, I am that canned. I also can’t really tell how I ended up here, in this giant dungeon of the country’s most… ahem… brilliant dragons. I know I took an absurdly hyped examination roughly one year ago, the same day I took a crap. As to which served me better, I can’t really tell.

Hold up ahead, my Maggi’s arrived. I puff one last time on stick no.2 of this sojourn, and snuff it out under my sneakers, mentally admonishing the fat guy with the ear-stud who’s brought me my dinner. All for wasting a good smoke. Yeah, I am into it, neck and all, I know. I know I’ll die someday soon. I also know I am an IITian. Someone told me that kind of makes up for everything else.

More claptrap later. I have so much to say.

The Temple of Technology, 10.15 AM, 27^th February, 2008

Okay, this is it. I felt I’d been too harsh on my alma-mater writing all kinds of shit about it at Sassi, but it turns out I was woefully wrong. I tried not to continue, I swear. But just as the pump turns on in ecstasy, so it sometimes does in frustrated ennui.

I am in class for a course that claims to cater to my core requirements. Sounds rich, but I tend to disagree. My girlfriend’s seated next to me, you see, and talking of core requirements, I feel positive she can take much better care.

Moments back the technological genius (who also happens to be the worst teacher on earth) uttered “squirrel cage” and I almost looked up from my reverie. Next breath he came up with “transformer”, and my head plopped back down. Now he’s going on again with something that seems to be meant exclusively for the first two rows of the lecture theater, and I feel bullwhipped into writing shit again.

A cartoon drawn on my desk catches my eye. It has a gravestone with the following epitaph: “In loving memory of the child who died waiting for this class to end”. I’ve seen that one before, but never appreciated it as much as now. It’s been done very expertly; I can tell by the strokes. I think I know who drew it, and if I am right, dear God, this piece is the righteous mother of destiny.

The guy who I figure is the artist is dead. He hung himself from the ceiling fan in his room a week back. He left a suicide note saying: “I have failed for the first time.” I wager he was being figurative, but I’d say he had solid facts to back him. He had had a remarkable first semester, and he’d been well on his way to making this semester nearly as remarkably disastrous. Until, finally, he decided to wave his final goodbye; all of which is quite reasonable, I am sure. I guess if you got an avalanche when all you asked for was a castle in the clouds, it does a number on your head.

I know I sound like a sick, twisted bastard saying it, but if this piece of art was his last work, I’d say bravo!, he made much neater use of his talent than this castle could ever have.

Look, don’t get me wrong. It’s not as if I hate being at this place; far from it, actually. I never saw no dreams about green green grass, never came expecting no palace on the plains, let alone a castle in the clouds. So no issues there. Not sure if you’ll actually believe what I am about to say after all I seem to think, but you know what? I love it here. Its one hell of a ride, maybe not one of those classic college merry-go-rounds your life is supposed to get on, but one rollercoaster of its own cast nonetheless. So baleful brickbats are not my point, provided one exists.

So why not let the spades be the spades and the king be the king? Is fun not the king, is it not the real thing? Hell, yes, it is. But hey, wait a waver, I have some more on that. What fun is a place haunted by ghosts of kids dead on account of things not excluding the place itself? You can say the kids were weak. You can say they caved in when the heat was on. You can say all that, sure, but listen up when I say they were kids nonetheless. College doesn’t suddenly turn everyone into a robust ranger or a double humped camel right out of some Persian fable you heard as a kid. Some people are still kids, some people still yearn for those fables, and when you load them with all kinds of gibberish in the name of God and technology, and maybe ride them (and whip them while at it), sometimes the knees give up and the load slips off the camel’s back. Sometimes the camel escapes, but if it’s still a kid, you manage to hold on, and whip it some more. You know what happens then? Then you have a kid one moment, and next moment you have a dead kid. That’s not fun, no sir, that’s manslaughter.

I don’t really give that much of a damn about the kid. He was a nutcase, as far as I am concerned, but maybe I am not the only one concerned. And maybe that’s the whole point.

Coming back to this lecture, I feel almost as one with him. I know what you are thinking. No, I won’t hang myself tonight. I have a pot session with some seniors, and then maybe a drinking binge. And later, if things are sober enough, some wild oats to sow. Too much to let go of, if you ask me. And too little time to live.

I know I give the impression of a confused mind, and deep inside I know it’s not just an impression. The professor’s livid with all the distracted actions around the class, and he’s singled me out a couple of times. For all my inner rebellion, I don’t like to be thrown out in front of a hundred other kids my age. So I’ll stop, and seeing how very pointless all of this seems, I don’t know if I’ll bother finishing what I wanted to say in the beginning. I’ll need some help remembering too, I will.

The Reading Room, 12.30 AM, 30^th April, 2008

I guess it’s been a million years or so since I last modified this file. And one hell of a million it’s been too. Ups in drips and downs in deluges. That hardly belongs here, though. What does belong here is an end, a tail to the monster’s head I birthed one smoky, dreamy evening a long, long time ago. Seeing I am far more proficient eschatologically than academically (as it seems), I decided to deliver the knockout blow on a fitting note. I have a Major on Applied Mechanics seven and a half hours from now. I figure I could have seven and a half light years and a pumpkin pie for good measure, and I would flunk all the same. Down Glory Road to Pussy Palace, it’s the same ol’ story. Might as well furnish an end meanwhile.

Okay, so I left off in a haughty huff, or so it seemed. I am not really good at conveying the subtleties of my emotions, but you were right if you thought I was thinking I had my institute by the balls with that dead kid theory of mine. How time can make even the most stolid of statements seem gauche and sheepish. I went overboard with some things, I did. And worse I painted an utterly befuddled picture of my thoughts. Let’s do some summing up then.

I am currently seated in a corner of the legendary room of retards, also known as R2. Around me is my group of cronies, some sleeping, some chatting, some trying to come to terms with the mysteries of gravitation and rotational mechanics, a la IIT Delhi. I am writing, of course, and listening to some soul-searching death metal on my plastic monster of a cellphone. All of us buddies have one thing in common: we have given up. We might be trying, yes, for human nature fails to recognize failure until, well, until you’ve actually flunked. But deep within, naked in a vaunted realm of utter honesty, we have all accepted defeat. All done, dusted and doomed. Hail King Mechanics!

On the table next to ours, lost in the world of dysfunctionally smooth pulleys and harmlessly academic collisions, are two people who, taken in one gilded frame of common purpose, officially epitomize success in IIT Delhi. They are the king and the queen, stamped forever with the blood-red ink of genius. Ask them about the peak of the world, and they’ll say Mount Ten-Point-Zero faster than you can spell humbug. They’ll rock tomorrow, just as they’ve been rocking all year.

So much for rhetoric. You might think I am green with loserly envy, but this time you’d be wrong. I actually appreciate these kids’ single-minded pursuit of whatever they think is the most important. They are the best of their lot, and that, at this place, is one lot indeed. So far, so good. I’ll bet my battered bottom they’ll set these Majors on fire, but go and ask them, pray, to tell you of their impression of a world without grades, and you’ll probably come back branded a zany jerk.

Their bad? I don’t think so. I’ll risk the cliché. I’ll risk being baked on a spit over a thousand years in fact, but I wouldn’t fall back on blaming the system for it. Yes, that’s it, that’s the alpha and the omega of it, that’s the one word that gets thrown around like rat-fink in a hurricane, and yet that’s the only word that can, though only just, bring all my babble to rhyme and meter.

Maybe I am blind, or maybe those kids’ are stupid. I do admit there is something to the “work hard” theory. But here’s another notion I borrowed with my precious ass for collateral (seem to be making a habit of it, don’t I?): if you roast your butt on a barbecue, you better do it right. Work hard, true, but work the right way.

The right way. The right way. Man, I could say that a hundred times and still not make it mine. Yes, I am blind. I was born blind. I guess everyone is. You come out crying, thrashing mad, and you come out seeing black. And then, somewhere along the way, the black turns off and you find a color for yourself. Thing is, but for the luckiest ones, you need a tuner to go. Some people never find that tuner, and they die seeing black. Some do, and they party. Sounds like cheese with a bit of salt and a bit of pepper, doesn’t it? But not to be, Buddy-O, for some people find a bad tuner, and that, for all I know and all I don’t, is the worst.

If you’ve ever been at the receiving end of a broken promise, you know what I mean. That’s exactly how the bad tuner operates. All black. And then, POOF! You suddenly see purple, and what’s more, it comes with a mouthwatering free gift of tinsel and glaze. And then, just as you begin to smile… POOF! Back to black, Jack, just kidding.

I would never admit in public, but I do hope those two darlings of our famed academia don’t turn out, in a couple of years’ time, as babes lost in woods of their own making. I think I can safely say that for all of us who share this common fate of being an IITian in Delhi, no comments, came expecting to find our tuners, subconsciously or otherwise. Some of us have succeeded, and a vast majority of these are people in the same exalted league as the crown and his lady in waiting. Tuned to waste no time, tuned to keep their heads buried in text or work for as long as they can, tuned to procure the creamiest of garlands for their non-stop academic ass-busting. Tuned good, you say? Bah!

There are some others who know more of their colors now, and I risk saying they belong to the “luckiest” category I mentioned in passing. They didn’t need a tuner, and in fact, (and I say this strictly off the record) they rejected the offer from our beloved institute to be theirs. In my still blind eyes, these are the people who make a difference, the ones whose brilliance of skill and strength of character is claimed by brand IIT as its own. I state unabashedly that I have failed in my quest to be one of them, at least so far. And I know, in spite of my current state of total and absolute hopelessness, that it’s a dream I’d love to live.

And so the cat is belled. So I sign off, listening to Ozzy Osborne’s Suicide Solution on my headphones, vaguely recollective of the point where I began this ill-fated tale of a hundred hairpins and volte-faces. Around me my gang of hara-kiri hustlers from Country Doom are all snoring now, my girlfriend among them. I take her hand and stroke her hair for a bit, drawing comfort from all the affection I feel for her.

People around are staring at me as if I am an alien, again. Déjà vu? Hah, you bet! I quit smoking some time back, after I realized it’s the worst habit. It’s much like the bad tuner, showing you dreams that would most likely never be. But that’s not the only reason I keep my extraterrestrial act up. More than anything, I don’t feel the need to be one of them anymore. All that I feel about this place holds true, but I don’t really need those feelings anymore. What I need is freedom, and a little bit of peace. What I need is change. It’s time, it seems, to abandon idle prattle and step up from denouncing geeks to announcing myself in the league of extraordinary gentlemen. In other words, to be a true IITian, lost as the term sounds.

I don’t quite know whether this is still more hollow trope, only time can tell. No saving me from tomorrow’s thrashing, however. You might as well expect Atlantis to rise from the ocean, palm trees waving.

Kiran Bedi.....inspiration for all...........

2008-07-20T19:34:00.000+05:30

Kiran Bedi is an Indian social activist and a retired Indian Police Service(IPS) officer. She became the first woman to join the Indian Police Service(IPS) in 1972, and was last posted as Director General , BPR&D (Bureau of Police Research and Development, Ministry of Home Affairs). She retired from IPS in December, 2007, after taking voluntary retirement.
During her service, she was also remained the Inspector General Prisons of Tihar Jail, - one of world's largest prison complexes, with over 10,000 inmates , from 1993 to 1995 , and her prison reforms policies lead to her winning, the 1994 Ramon Magsaysay Award.
Subsequently, she has founded two NGOs in India: Navjyoti for welfare and preventive policing in 1987 and India Vision Foundation for prison reforms, drug abuse prevention, child welfare in 1994.
In 2007, she applied for seeking voluntary retirement from service, and the application was accepted by the government.

Navajyoti (which literally means New Enlightenment), set up in 1987, and India Vision Foundation, set up in 1994, are the two major voluntary organizations established by her with the objectives of improving the condition of the drug addicts and the poor people. Her efforts have won national and international recognition, and her organizations was awarded the Serge Soitiroff Memorial Award for drug abuse prevention by the United Nations.
She also started one site named http://www.saferindia.com to log complaint regarding any crime if the police at the concerned area denies to accept complaint. Then the NGO behind this site mails complaint to the DGP of concerned area.This mail can also be used as the legal document in case of filing a case in the court of judgement.
She has written her autobiography, 'I Dare. It's Always Possible', which was released in 1998 .

Kiran Bedi has received a number of Awards, including the following:

President’s Gallantry Award (1979)
Women of the Year Award (1980)
Asia Region Award for Drug Prevention and Control (1991)
Magsaysay Award (1994) for Government Service
Mahila Shiromani Award (1995)
Father Machismo Humanitarian Award (1995)
Lion of the Year (1995)
Joseph Beuys Award (1997)
Pride of India (1999)
Mother Teresa Memorial National Award for Social Justice (2005)

THOUGHTS bring INNOVATIONS.................

2008-07-20T12:50:00.000+05:30

"Those who know how to think needs no teachers."
-Mahatma Gandhi

THINKING...........I have always stressed upon this key word, the word which gave us the power to develop, to understand the earth and the universe and to understand GOD. We all know it but with a different name, 'DHYAAN'(Meditation), which this world has considered to be a property belonging only to those who have commited their lives to God. It is not true, we all should meditate, we all should think. Thinking gives one the power to reach the top, the chance to find the ultimate truth of life.It's thinking that created science because without thinking one cannot start doing something.

Let me share with you all a experience from my life itself............I am currently studying at IIT Delhi and live in a hostel. People are always asking me that 'What difference I find between IIT and any other college which makes IIT...IIT?' I always tell the same thing..............'IITs are IITs mostly due to the students. IIT can be thought of as a place where highly intellectual people, people who dare to think beyond today, gather, live together, study together and THINK together. Its the thinking power that seperates an IITian from the masses and that is why everybodies expectations from these students are high.'

Thousands come and go, spending their lives just in gossiping the life. You become the one who could bring a significant change. Become the one to lead the world to a better future.'Thoughts' give birth to 'Innovations'. So keep thinking...............and

BE THE CHANGE....................

Creativity - The power of thinking

2008-07-17T22:42:00.000+05:30

I'm always thinking about creating.

My future starts when I wake up every morning.

Every day I find something creative to do with my life.
-Miles Davis

Innovation and creativity play a critical role in an organization's success. While many organizations continue to focus on downsizing, rightsizing, reengineering, streamlining, cost-cutting to achieve short-term results, the smart managers are always searching for new ways to create value for their organizations and increasing customer service. In the new land that you need the right culture and mindset for success. So what do you do?

When was the last time, your managers discussed an innovation strategy? What could an innovation strategy look like in your organization? This is a fundamental component of any innovation initiative. So what is stopping you? Times may be tough in the Forest Service, but when the going gets tough…the tough get going!

All of us have days when things just don't seem to go our way, when we face more challenges than usual. An innovation strategy is tough. You can help foster a culture that embraces innovation. So how exactly can you get going when the going is tough? Consider these ideas:

v Think of problems as possibilities for improvement…Since problems are inevitable, you might as well make the most of them. Think of them as opportunities to learn new things and improve. It's often by working through difficult situations that people discover strengths they didn't know they had.

v Remind yourself of recent successes…There is nothing wrong with giving yourself a pat on the back now and then. Don't underestimate the power of what seems like small accomplishments…they are part of your success. Remembering how you solved a problem in the past can help you feel confident, motivated and more creative.

v Remember you are not alone…Talk to your peers and colleagues…you know those trusted friends in your life. Chances are, they have experienced similar problems and can offer a new perspective, idea, useful advice, or even a helping hand.

Isn't it time to bring innovation to life in your organization? Have you planted the seeds of innovation? Have you institutionalised innovation?

Space and Time

2008-07-13T22:04:00.000+05:30

Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity had set the speed of light as the universal speed limit of sorts, and showed that time and distance are not faithfully absolute but are affected by one’s rate of motion. A clock which is in motion always appears to run slower when compared to one at rest. This is because time is always relative to the speed at which a body is moving. This means that you could actually do a bit of time travel, but of course you need to have a really fast spaceship. Consider an astronaut traveling into space for six months at a speed that is close to speed of light, and then taking another six months to return to Earth. He would land in the future! While it would be only a year that has elapsed on the astronaut’s clock, back on Earth, tens of thousands of years would have passed, depending on how close to the speed of light the austronaught was traveling.

In a nutshell, the laws of physics allow for time travel, but the law which relates to time and space as proposed by Einstein, may have to be revised a bit by incorporating the unusual rules of quantum theory. Quantum theory illustrates the microscopic randomness which fills the universe, at the subatomic level. At these nano scales, gravity tends to go a little bit haywire, and physicists have a tough time predicting gravitational. It is theorized that space and time could eventually collapse, but the conventional notion that time will run in reverse when the universe collapses has run into somewhat of a roadblock. New researches suggest that the universe doesn’t necessarily go though a sequence of expansions and contractions and then ending up in a uniform state.

It is speculated that the universe started out in a disorderly state, then expand and finally collapse into the same very randomness that it started with. Physicists have been long puzzled about the two “arrows of time” which point in identical directions. In our everyday life, entities wear out over the course of time, for example, cups fall and shatter, but they never reassemble impulsively. In the expanding universe, the future is actually the direction of time when the directions of time of the galaxies are further part. Years ago, it was suggested that the arrows might be linked; this would mean that if the expansion of the universe is reversed, then the daily arrow would also reverse, which means broken cups would reassemble themselves, which might seem absurd to laymen, but is faintly possible in the eyes of a quantum physicist. Recently, the concept of arrow reversals has been incorporated into quantum physics. The arrow of time was associated with the so-called “collapse of the wave function”.

Some physicists have tried making this quantum description of reality and symmetry in time; they did it by coupling the original and closing states into one single mathematical equation. Of course this all sounds like science fiction, but relativists have taken the possibility of time travel very seriously, even to the point that they have proposed that there must be a law which prevents time travelers from creating paradoxes. However, nobody has the faintest idea how such a law would operate. The classic paradox is that of going back in time to alter things in such a way as to prevent one’s own birth, for instance killing one’s ancestors, or making sure that their parents never meet each other. These things simply go against common sense, argue the skeptics, so there must be a theoretical law that prevents these types of things from happening.
So what happens when Einstein’s laws are pushed to the limits? As one would expect, the possibility of time travel involves black holes. Since Einstein’s theory is a theory that deals with space and time, it shouldn’t comes as a surprise that black holes may offer a way to travel thorough time, as well as space. However, any black hole won’t do. A black hole formed out of a non-rotating lump of material would simply be devouring anything that comes near it. At its heart is a dot referred to as a singularity. This is where time and space supposedly cease to exist and matter is crushed to infinite density. In a rotating black hole things are a bit different, a singularity still forms, but it’s shaped like a ring, an ideal analogous to this would be mints which sport a hole in the middle.

At least in theory, one would be able to dive into the ring and emerge at another place at another time. In the 1980’s, Kip Thorne of CalTech and his colleagues, exasperated with trying to tackle time travel realities, set out to prove once and for all that Einstein’s equation doesn’t actually allow for time travel. They did some intense studying of the situation from a variety of perspectives; they were surprised to find that nothing in the equation actually barred time travel. They found that what would be needed is the technology to manipulate black holes. Then there are the geographically setup black hole time machines described as “wormholes”, these connect black holes at one place and time with another which is at another place and time via a “throat”.

Michio Kaku, a professor of physics in New York, has set forth an interesting depiction of a time machine. It comprises of two chambers, each with two parallel metal plates. An intense electric field created between the two pairs of plates (the intensity created would have to be larger than anything possible with today’s technology) it literally rips apart the space-time fabric, thus creating a hole in space which connects the two chambers. According to Einstein’s equation, time runs slower for a moving object. Taking advantage of this fact, one of the chambers is taken on a long, rapid journey and then brought back. Time would vary at different rates at the two ends, and anyone falling into the wormhole at one end would be instantly hurled into the past or the future. However, creating a wormhole the size of a spacecraft, and keeping it stable long enough to move one end of it into place, would require the energy equivalent of many times that which can be produced in a lifetime. Construction of wormholes would also require a rare substance known as “negative matter”, which though is not known to be totally impossible, is yet to be found to exist in a state useful for wormhole construction. Therefore it’s highly unlikely that such a device would ever be created, even with some of the most extreme technologies man can dream of, or will develop in the future.