I'Am The INDIAN

Indian man single-handedly plants a 1,360-acre forest

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 09:17:00 +0000

Indian man single-handedly plants a 1,360-acre forest

Jadav Payeng turned a barren sandbar in northern India into a lush new forest ecosystem.

A little more than 30 years ago, a teenager named Jadav "Molai" Payeng began burying seeds along a barren sandbar near his birthplace in northern India's Assam region to grow a refuge for wildlife. Not long after, he decided to dedicate his life to this endeavor, so he moved to the site so he could work full-time creating a lush new forest ecosystem. Incredibly, the spot today hosts a sprawling 1,360 acres of jungle that Payeng planted — single-handedly.

The Times of India recently caught up with Payeng in his remote forest lodge to learn more about how he came to leave such an indelible mark on the landscape.

It all started way back in 1979, when floods washed a large number of snakes ashore on the sandbar. One day, after the waters had receded, Payeng, only 16 then, found the place dotted with the dead reptiles. That was the turning point of his life.

"The snakes died in the heat, without any tree cover. I sat down and wept over their lifeless forms. It was carnage. I alerted the forest department and asked them if they could grow trees there. They said nothing would grow there. Instead, they asked me to try growing bamboo. It was painful, but I did it. There was nobody to help me. Nobody was interested," says Payeng, now 47.

While it's taken years for Payeng's remarkable dedication to planting to receive some well-deserved recognition internationally, it didn't take long for wildlife in the region to benefit from the manufactured forest. Demonstrating a keen understanding of ecological balance, Payeng even transplanted ants to his burgeoning ecosystem to bolster its natural harmony. Soon the shadeless sandbar was transformed into a self-functioning environment where a menagerie of creatures could dwell. The forest, called the Molai woods, now serves as a safe haven for numerous birds, deer, rhinos, tigers and elephants — species increasingly at risk from habitat loss. Despite the conspicuousness of Payeng's project, forestry officials in the region first learned of this new forest in 2008 — and since then they've come to recognize his efforts as truly remarkable, but perhaps not enough. "We're amazed at Payeng," says Gunin Saikia, assistant conservator of Forests. "He has been at it for 30 years. Had he been in any other country, he would have been made a hero."

German firm set to finalise deal with India for supply of naval sonars

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Fri, 07 Feb 2014 06:15:00 +0000

German firm set to finalise deal with India for supply of naval sonars

Germany , India Defence deals

German defence firm Atlas Elektronik, a leading manufacturer of high-tech maritime and naval systems, is in the process of finalising a deal with India for supplying low-frequency sonar systems for Navy’s warships that will help them detect enemy submarines, warships and torpedoes from a long distance.

Atlas Elektronik officials, who spoke to a group of visiting Indian journalists at the company’s headquarters here last week, were optimistic of bagging the contract for the Active Towed Away Sonars (ACTAS) which would be mounted on six Indian Navy warships.

They said that the low-frequency sonars with active as well as passive operating systems would help vessels locate enemy submarines, torpedoes and ships from a very long range and take suitable safety measures.

India’s capabilities in developing and producing a range of sonars and a host of related systems have been rather good with the collaboration of the Defence Research and Development Organisation, Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and the Navy.

These sonars have been fitted on Navy’s front line combat ships, sources in the Navy said.

The Navy has 14 submarines but only eight are in operation at any given time. While 10 of them are Russian, others were supplied by HDW of Germany.

EXPLORING POSSIBILITIES ::
The Navy has also been exploring possibilities to increase its capabilities which got a jolt after the devastating fire and explosions that sank INS Sindhurakshak, a Russian Kilo class submarine off the Mumbai coast in August.

COST-EFFECTIVE ::
With over 100 years of experience in maritime technologies, Atlas Elektronik is likely to build more ACTAS systems later in India in partnership with BEL under Transfer of Technology (ToT) clause. Officials said that ACTAS could operate in deep as well as shallow waters.

With western India’s coastline being shallow and the eastern coastline much deeper, ACTAS would fit the bill for naval ships operating in the two regions in a cost-effective way, officials claimed.

With Scorpene submarines still a few years away, the Navy can build up its ASW (Anti Submarine Warfare) capability and upgrade its submarine fleet with new torpedoes and combat management systems.

“With capabilities of DRDO and BEL, India can develop new Heavy Weight Torpedoes (HWT) and maybe go in for a modern torpedo like SeaHake of Atlas,’’ officials said.

UPGRADING TORPEDOES ::
Atlas Elektronik is also engaged in upgrading over 64 SUT torpedoes, dubbed the most reliable and safe torpedo in the Navy’s arsenal. This will extend their life cycle by another 15 years, officials said. SUT torpedoes can be used from all Western platforms.

“German battery technology for torpedoes is inherently safe and does not trade off performance in terms of speed and range,’’ officials in Atlas Elektronik said, adding that in the aftermath of Sindhurakshak disaster India should evaluate the inherent chemical safety used in torpedo technology.

The German defence firm is also in the process of modernising the four Shishumar class submarines, bought from HDW, and while two of them have already undergone the upgrade, two others are under the process.

Last year, Atlas had set up its Indian subsidiary Atlas Elektronik India Private Limited with headquarters in New Delhi with the aim of intensifying the partnership with the Indian governmental customer and to initiate and expand cooperative ventures with Indian public and private sector units.

“Our desire is to further deepen our relationship with India and service the Navy better. We also want to integrate India into the global supply chain,” Volker Paltzo, CEO of Atlas Elektronik, told the visiting Indian journalists.

Since the 1980s, Atlas has worked closely with the Defence Ministry and the Navy, he said citing the example of delivery of four command and weapon control suites for the submarines of the Shishumar class.

One of the Great INDIAN Srinivasa Ramanujan

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Sat, 19 Oct 2013 05:14:00 +0000

Srinivasa Ramanujan Biography

Born: December 22, 1887
Died: April 26, 1920
Achievements: Ramanujan independently discovered results of Gauss, Kummer and others on hyper geometric series. Ramanujan's own work on partial sums and products of hypergeometric series have led to major development in the topic. His most famous work was on the number p(n) of partitions of an integer n into summands.

Srinivasa Ramanujan was a mathematician par excellence. He is widely believed to be the greatest mathematician of the 20th Century. Srinivasa Ramanujan made significant contribution to the analytical theory of numbers and worked on elliptic functions, continued fractions, and infinite series.

Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan was born on December 22, 1887 in Erode, Tamil Nadu. His father worked in Kumbakonam as a clerk in a cloth merchant's shop. At the of five Ramanujan went to primary school in Kumbakonam. In 1898 at age 10, he entered the Town High School in Kumbakonam. At the age of eleven he was lent books on advanced trigonometry written by S. L. Loney by two lodgers at his home who studied at the Government college. He mastered them by the age of thirteen. Ramanujan was a bright student, winning academic prizes in high school.

At age of 16 his life took a decisive turn after he obtained a book titled" A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics". The book was simply a compilation of thousands of mathematical results, most set down with little or no indication of proof. The book generated Ramanujan's interest in mathematics and he worked through the book's results and beyond. By 1904 Ramanujan had begun to undertake deep research. He investigated the series (1/n) and calculated Euler's constant to 15 decimal places. He began to study the Bernoulli numbers, although this was entirely his own independent discovery. He was given a scholarship to the Government College in Kumbakonam which he entered in 1904. But he neglected his other subjects at the cost of mathematics and failed in college examination. He dropped out of the college.

Ramanujan lived off the charity of friends, filling notebooks with mathematical discoveries and seeking patrons to support his work. In 1906 Ramanujan went to Madras where he entered Pachaiyappa's College. His aim was to pass the First Arts examination which would allow him to be admitted to the University of Madras. Continuing his mathematical work Ramanujan studied continued fractions and divergent series in 1908. At this stage he became seriously ill again and underwent an operation in April 1909 after which he took him some considerable time to recover.

On 14 July 1909 Ramanujan marry a ten year old girl S Janaki Ammal. During this period Ramanujan had his first paper published, a 17-page work on Bernoulli numbers that appeared in 1911 in the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society. In 191,1 Ramanujan approached the founder of the Indian Mathematical Society for advice on a job. He got the job of clerk at the Madras Port Trust with the help of Indian mathematician Ramachandra Rao.

The professor of civil engineering at the Madras Engineering College C L T Griffith was interested in Ramanujan's abilities and, having been educated at University College London, knew the professor of mathematics there, namely M J M Hill. He wrote to Hill on 12 November 1912 sending some of Ramanujan's work and a copy of his 1911 paper on Bernoulli numbers. Hill replied in a fairly encouraging way but showed that he had failed to understand Ramanujan's results on divergent series. In January 1913 Ramanujan wrote to G H Hardy having seen a copy of his 1910 book Orders of infinity. Hardy, together with Littlewood, studied the long list of unproved theorems which Ramanujan enclosed with his letter. Hardy wrote back to Ramanujan and evinced interest in his work.

University of Madras gave Ramanujan a scholarship in May 1913 for two years and, in 1914, Hardy brought Ramanujan to Trinity College, Cambridge, to begin an extraordinary collaboration. Right from the start Ramanujan's collaboration with Hardy led to important results. In a joint paper with Hardy, Ramanujan gave an asymptotic formula for p(n). It had the remarkable property that it appeared to give the correct value of p(n), and this was later proved by Rademacher.

Ramanujan had problems settling in London. He was an orthodox Brahmin and right from the beginning he had problems with his diet. The outbreak of World War I made obtaining special items of food harder and it was not long before Ramanujan had health problems.

On 16 March 1916 Ramanujan graduated from Cambridge with a Bachelor of Science by Research. He had been allowed to enrol in June 1914 despite not having the proper qualifications. Ramanujan's dissertation was on Highly composite numbers and consisted of seven of his papers published in England.

Ramanujan fell seriously ill in 1917 and his doctors feared that he would die. He did improve a little by September but spent most of his time in various nursing homes. On February 18, 1918 Ramanujan was elected a fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society and later he was also elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of London. By the end of November 1918 Ramanujan's health had greatly improved.

Ramanujan sailed to India on 27 February 1919 arriving on 13 March. However his health was very poor and, despite medical treatment, he died on April 6, 1920.

Sethusamudram

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 12:01:00 +0000

Sethusamudram

Introduction

The above image are the satellite photographs of the Palk Straight – The ocean passage between South India and Sri lanka. The ocean floor here is shallow and is not navigable and so no ships navigate via this region. All ships which want to move from western world to the eastern world or vice versa via the Indian ocean currently take a longer route of going around the country of srilanka. Even the ships of India which have to move between the western and Indian coastlines of India take this longer route of going around Srilanka.

The Project

Now, the government of India has come up with a project (in fact it is a project which was suggested long back during the British age itself, but has reached the definitive stages of implementation only now), called the SethuSamudram Project.

The intentions of the project are good. To remove a silt of about 48 million cubic meters in the palk straight at a cost of Rs 2,427 Crore (24,270 million), and create a channel 167 km long to make the sea in this region navigable. This will shorten the distance between the east and west coasts by about 780 km for the ships! They no longer will have to take the longer route around Srilanka. This will also be a source of greater financial income to India as all international shipment now can pass through the Indian seas in this region with the benefit of this shorter distance, saving about 30 hours of time!

This new canal construction is also said to increase the Naval security of India due to the obvious reasons of making the connections between western and eastern naval sectors of India shorter and easier and more importantly independent of dependency on Srilanka!

Sethusamudram Canal History & Facts

Hindus believe that the stretch of limestone shoals between Dhanushkodi near Rameshwaram in Southern India and Mannar in Northwest Sri Lanka are the remains of an ancient bridge built by Lord Rama, as described in the holy epic, Ramayana.

Recent NASA satellite images show clear pictures of a broken bridge under the ocean floor. The heritage of the bridge and the story of Lord Rama are extremely sacred to Hindus.

The ocean floor between India and Sri Lanka near the Mannar coast is very shallow and is not navigable. It does not allow ships to pass. This means that. India does not have a continuous navigational channel linking the east and west coasts. Ships coming from India's west and heading to Bangladesh or Indian ports on the east coast have to go around Sri Lanka because the waterway in the sea dividing the two countries is shallow.

Therefore, the Government of India has proposed the dredging of the sea to create a shipping canal to save up to 780 km of sailing distance and 30 hours of sailing time for ships plying between the east and west coasts of India.

Indian officials say the canal, which is called the Sethusamudram project, will also boost the national economy besides speeding up the movement of Indian Navy and Coast Guard vessels as well.

Hindu groups say this may be true but such economic progress cannot be at the expense of Ram Sethu, as they refer to Adam's Bridge, located at the southern end of the Sethusamudram project.

This is where an estimated 48 million cubic metres of silt will be removed over the next two years.

The construction of the canal immediately led to wide protests in India by Hindu leaders. Several holy men have gathered together to launch a campaign of protest.

In March 2007, over ten Hindu umbrella organizations from around the world joined together to launch the Save Ram Sethu Campaign (Ram SethuBachaoAndolan) to increase the profile of the issue amongst the international communities.

The campaign hopes to convince the Government of India to reconsider the construction of the canal as it will hurt religious sentiments of millions of Hindus and also pose a great risk to the environment of the region and the livelihood of local fishermen.

Ancient India

Now a bit about ancient India. The ancient Indian text Ramayana talks about a bridge being built in the seas of Palk Straight by the then king Rama of North India who wanted to take an army to the kingdom of Srilanka. This bridge is said to have been built from Dhanushkodi, a place in South Indian coastal region near the sea facing Srilanka, to Mannar in Srilanka.

Satellite Photographs

The satellite photographs at the top of this article are of the Palk Straight. Clearly visible to a naked human eye can be seen a line connecting the main land of India to Srilanka in these photographs. This is exactly at the same place where Ramayana talks about a bridge being constructed by Rama and his army to cross over into Srilanka. It is visible from Dhanushkodi of India to Mannar in Northwest Srilanka and is about 48 kilometers long.

Controversy

The Hindus call this bridge Ram Sethu and is a sacred structure for them since it is mentioned in their ancient texts. The proposed SethuSamudram project is going to destroy this structure. It is a different question as to whether this is a man made or god made or natural structure. (Well, for a hindu everything natural is God made!). The issue here is that this project in its current proposed format is definitely going to destroy this structure. The controversy is that do we need to have economic progress at the cost of our cultural heritage? In this materialistic world some people might look at everything in terms of money. But the spiritual center of the world, the Indian masses don’t look at it that way.

Let me make it clear, it is totally a different question as to whether this bridge is man made or is it a natural formation, the answer for that question has to come from a thorough unbiased scientific investigation by a committee of national and international experts on the subject. The need to save this structure is that it has been mentioned in the ancient texts and hence definitely is of a cultural value and has historical significance.

Man made or Natural?

Before going deep into any related scientific evidence of whether it is man made or natural, let us see what common sense says. Can a natural formation so precise as 100 m occur all across the way from Indian to srilankan coast line? Is there any other such geological landmark on this planet? How did this happen? What is the scientific evidence for a natural formation like this?

Or if it is not natural, then what is the scientific evidence that this is a man made construction? If it is mad made, then the material which this bridge is made up of should not have its origin in the seas.

Here is what the Department of Earth Science of the Government of India has to say about it
The Geological logging of the bore holes drilled in the inter tidal areas of Ram Sethu reveals very interesting details. In all the bore holes the top portion is seen to be occupied by recent marine sands. In almost of all the boreholes between 4.5 and 7.5m the borehole intersected hard formations, which have been found to be calcareous sand stones and corals. It is to be pointed out here that Corals are comparatively less dense, compact and somewhat easy to carry.

The Corals normally grow atop compact to hard formations for the purpose of stability, and as the sea level rises, the Coral colony grows up vertically to maintain water depth of 1 to 2 m, which is essential for their survival. In the case of Ram Sethu area, we observe that the Coral formations hardly occur 1 to 2.5m in length and resting on loose marine sands. Most of these coral rock pieces are seem to be rounded pebbles of corals. These things appear to point these coral rock pieces and pebbles have been transported and placed in these areas. Since the calcareous sand stones and Corals are less dense than normal hard rock and quite compact, probably these were used by the ancients to form a connecting link to Sri Lanka, on the higher elevations of the Ram Sethu ridge and this is analogous to modern day causeway.

In support of these observations there are many archaeological and geoarchaeological evidences on the south east coast of India around Rameswaram, Tuticorin and the western coast of Sri Lanka. There are raised Teri formations that supported a rich assemblage of mesolithicmicrolithic tools indicating the presence of strong human habitation and activity in these areas as early as 6000 to 7000 years BCE and as recent as 2000 years BCE. On Sri Lanka side there are indications of human habitation extending to late Pleistocene (about 11,000 BCE) based on bone and fossils of human and animal form. All these point to a flourishing human activity on both side of Adams Bridge and probably when the sea levels were just right the link between India and Sri Lanka could have been established.

Arguments

The very first argument in favor of a man made bridge is the ancient references to this structure in the ancient texts of India.

Then comes the nature of the structure. Can natural accumulation be so precise? Look at the photograph again. It defies common sense to say it is natural unless and until one is extremely biased for whatever reasons OR unless one provides a very concrete scientific evidence of how it occurred. Not just use some pseudo-scientific language like It is natural sand and coral formation. From where, why so precise? Did the corals decide to build a bridge?

Some people argue that it is not a real bridge. Well, yes, nobody is saying that Rama had built a concrete bridge like we build today, a real motor-able bridge with supporting pillars etc. Even ancients texts say that this bridge was built using sand and rock boulders! Rocks from the mountains were transported to the construction site using machines says the original text valmikiramayana

Hastimaatraanmahaakaayaahpaashaanaamshachamahaabalaahparvataamshchasamutpaatyayantraihparivahanti cha 2-22-58, Valmiki Ramayana
which means Vaanara with huge bodies and mighty strength uprooted the elephant sized rocks and mountains and transported them using machinery!

Let me be frank. Till I saw this photograph and realized that this was a shallow sea between India and Srilanka where Rama is said to have built the bridge, I was thinking that the bridge is actually a myth. My thought was how can once construct a bridge across a sea by a few thousand people throwing sand and rock boulders into the sea water?

But now on looking at the photograph and realizing that it is a shallow sea and not a narrow straight, it doesn’t really seem like an impossible task to do one such construction. Note that as per the ancient texts, the bridge was said to have been built not as a permanent structure to connect the two lands, but only to serve one single two-way journey for an invading army from India into Srilanka.

Some people say that the ancient Indian texts are nothing but a mythology. Well, anybody who says this I must say, either

has not read these ancient Indian texts (look at some of the scientific explanations in these ancient texts in other parts of this blog) OR
is totally prejudiced in believing what he believes than in what it is OR
has no general knowledge and is not aware about the recent archaeological findings. For instance, earlier they thought the story in Mahabharatha of Dwaraka being flooded by the seas after the war was a myth, until the ancient city of Dwaraka was found submerged in the seas of Gujarat. They used to say that the river Saraswathi mentioned in these ancient texts was a myth, unless dried up river bed of this river was discovered in North India.

My question is what if we today destroy this Ram Sethu, the bridge, and then tomorrow find a proof that this was indeed a man made construction? Will we get back the bridge, by paying all the money that India has earned by destroying this bridge? Can the lost heritage be brought back?

According to one Oceanographer, the construction of the SethuSamudram Channel may also increase the risk of tsunamis on the coasts of South India as this shallow water has been protecting the calm sea on this side of the Gulf of Mannar from the wild sea of Bay of Bengal! See this article .

Another issue is that the world’s 30% Thorium reserves are found in the coasts of Kerala. Exposing the Kerala coastline to the rough sea will wash away most of this Thorium into the sea! The fast breeder Thorium based nuclear reactors that Indian scientists are trying to build are based on the fact that we have these large deposits of Thorium which we can use to remove our dependency on other countries like USA and Austrialia for nuclear fuel like Uranium to our nuclear reactors. What will be the result if this monumental blunder project washes away all our Thorium reserves? Will the project be an economic gain then? Even if the Thorium deposits don’t get washed away immediately, the next tsunami in this region will definitely take most Thorium with it into the sea!

It has to be noted that this narrow straight and shallow waters and Ram Sethu is what saved the shores of Kerala from a major disaster during the December 2004 Tsunami!

Awareness

It is interesting to observe that be it Ram Sethu, or the Dwaraka in the seas, etc it is always that the western science, researchers, archaelogists, etc that have been telling the Indians, see here, you have a great tradition, science and culture. The government of India or Indians have done very little to dig into our past history and culture. Forget even structures outside the mainland, there are still numerous un-excavated territories in the main land of India itself! If not for the NASA satellite photographs, the SethuSamudram channel would have been built, without us even being aware about the destruction of this structure nor the existence of it!

Great INDIAN Scientist Srinivasa Ramanujan

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 05:31:00 +0000

Srinivasa Ramanujan Biography

Born: December 22, 1887
Died: April 26, 1920
Achievements: Ramanujan independently discovered results of Gauss, Kummer and others on hypergeometric series. Ramanujan's own work on partial sums and products of hypergeometric series have led to major development in the topic. His most famous work was on the number p(n) of partitions of an integer n into summands.

Srinivasa Ramanujan was a mathematician par excellence. He is widely believed to be the greatest mathematician of the 20th Century. Srinivasa Ramanujan made significant contribution to the analytical theory of numbers and worked on elliptic functions, continued fractions, and infinite series.

Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan was born on December 22, 1887 in Erode, Tamil Nadu. His father worked in Kumbakonam as a clerk in a cloth merchant's shop. At the of five Ramanujan went to primary school in Kumbakonam. In 1898 at age 10, he entered the Town High School in Kumbakonam. At the age of eleven he was lent books on advanced trigonometry written by S. L. Loney by two lodgers at his home who studied at the Government college. He mastered them by the age of thirteen. Ramanujan was a bright student, winning academic prizes in high school.

At age of 16 his life took a decisive turn after he obtained a book titled" A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics". The book was simply a compilation of thousands of mathematical results, most set down with little or no indication of proof. The book generated Ramanujan's interest in mathematics and he worked through the book's results and beyond. By 1904 Ramanujan had begun to undertake deep research. He investigated the series (1/n) and calculated Euler's constant to 15 decimal places. He began to study the Bernoulli numbers, although this was entirely his own independent discovery. He was given a scholarship to the Government College in Kumbakonam which he entered in 1904. But he neglected his other subjects at the cost of mathematics and failed in college examination. He dropped out of the college.

Ramanujan lived off the charity of friends, filling notebooks with mathematical discoveries and seeking patrons to support his work. In 1906 Ramanujan went to Madras where he entered Pachaiyappa's College. His aim was to pass the First Arts examination which would allow him to be admitted to the University of Madras. Continuing his mathematical work Ramanujan studied continued fractions and divergent series in 1908. At this stage he became seriously ill again and underwent an operation in April 1909 after which he took him some considerable time to recover.

On 14 July 1909 Ramanujan marry a ten year old girl S Janaki Ammal. During this period Ramanujan had his first paper published, a 17-page work on Bernoulli numbers that appeared in 1911 in the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society. In 191,1 Ramanujan approached the founder of the Indian Mathematical Society for advice on a job. He got the job of clerk at the Madras Port Trust with the help of Indian mathematician Ramachandra Rao.

The professor of civil engineering at the Madras Engineering College C L T Griffith was interested in Ramanujan's abilities and, having been educated at University College London, knew the professor of mathematics there, namely M J M Hill. He wrote to Hill on 12 November 1912 sending some of Ramanujan's work and a copy of his 1911 paper on Bernoulli numbers. Hill replied in a fairly encouraging way but showed that he had failed to understand Ramanujan's results on divergent series. In January 1913 Ramanujan wrote to G H Hardy having seen a copy of his 1910 book Orders of infinity. Hardy, together with Littlewood, studied the long list of unproved theorems which Ramanujan enclosed with his letter. Hardy wrote back to Ramanujan and evinced interest in his work.

University of Madras gave Ramanujan a scholarship in May 1913 for two years and, in 1914, Hardy brought Ramanujan to Trinity College, Cambridge, to begin an extraordinary collaboration. Right from the start Ramanujan's collaboration with Hardy led to important results. In a joint paper with Hardy, Ramanujan gave an asymptotic formula for p(n). It had the remarkable property that it appeared to give the correct value of p(n), and this was later proved by Rademacher.

Ramanujan had problems settling in London. He was an orthodox Brahmin and right from the beginning he had problems with his diet. The outbreak of World War I made obtaining special items of food harder and it was not long before Ramanujan had health problems.

On 16 March 1916 Ramanujan graduated from Cambridge with a Bachelor of Science by Research. He had been allowed to enrol in June 1914 despite not having the proper qualifications. Ramanujan's dissertation was on Highly composite numbers and consisted of seven of his papers published in England.

Ramanujan fell seriously ill in 1917 and his doctors feared that he would die. He did improve a little by September but spent most of his time in various nursing homes. On February 18, 1918 Ramanujan was elected a fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society and later he was also elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of London. By the end of November 1918 Ramanujan's health had greatly improved.

Ramanujan sailed to India on 27 February 1919 arriving on 13 March. However his health was very poor and, despite medical treatment, he died on April 6, 1920.

Great INDIAN Scientist Vikram Sarabhai

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 05:27:00 +0000

Vikram Sarabhai Biography

Born: August 12, 1919
Died: December 31,1971
Achievements: Considered the Father of the Indian space program; instrumental in establishing the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) in Ahmedabad in November 1947; was Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. He along with other Ahmedabad-based industrialists played a major role in the creation of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Vikram Sarabhai was one of the greatest scientists of India. He is considered as the Father of the Indian space program. Apart from being a scientist, he was a rare combination of an innovator, industrialist and visionary.

Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai was born on August 12, 1919 at Ahmedabad in an affluent family of progressive industrialists. He was one of eight children of Ambalal and Sarla Devi. He had his early education in a private school, “Retreat” run by his parents on Montessori lines. Some of the great men of India such as Gurudev Rabindranath, J. Krishna Murthi, Motilal Nehru, V. S. Shrinivasa Shastri, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarojini Naidu, Maulana Azad, C. F. Andrews, C. V. Raman et al. used to stay with the Sarabhai family when they visited Ahmedabad. Mahatma Gandhi also once stayed at their house while recovering from an illness. Visits by such great men greatly influenced Vikram Sarabhai.

After his matriculation, Vikram Sarabhai proceeded to Cambridge for his college education and took the tripods degree from St. John's college in 1940. When World War II began, he returned home and joined as a research scholar under Sir C. V. Raman at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore His interest in solar physics and cosmic ray led him to set up many observation stations around the country. He built the necessary equipment with which he took measurements at Bangalore, Poona and the Himalayas. He returned to Cambridge in 1945 and completed his Ph.D in 1947.

Vikram Sarabhai was instrumental in establishing the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) in Ahmedabad in November 1947. The laboratory was established in a few rooms in M.G. Science Institute of the Ahmedabad Education Society, which was founded by his parents. Subsequently, it got support from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Department of Atomic Energy.

Vikram Sarabhai did research on the time variations of cosmic rays and concluded that meteorological effects could not entirely affect the observed daily variations of cosmic rays; further, the residual variations were wide and global and these were related to variations in solar activity. Vikram Sarabhai visualized a new field of research opening up in solar and interplanetary Physics.

The year 1957-1958 was designated as International Geo-physical year (IGY). The Indian program for the IGY had been one of the most significant ventures of Sarabhai. It exposed him to the new vistas of space science with the launching in 1957 of Sputnik-I. Subsequently, the Indian National Committee for Space Research was created, of which Vikram Sarabhai became Chairman.

With active support from Homi Bhabha, Vikram Sarabhai, set up the first Rocket Launching station (TERLS) in the country at Thumba near Thiruvananthapuram on the Arabian Coast, as Thumba is very close to the Equator. The first rocket with sodium vapour payload was launched on November 21, 1963. In 1965, the UN General Assembly gave recognition to TERLS as an international facility.

After the sudden death of Homi Bhabha in an air crash, Vikram Sarabhai was appointed Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission in May 1966. He wanted the practical application of science to reach the common man. He decided to acquire competence in advance technology for the solution of country’s problems based on technical and economic evaluation of its real resources. He initiated India’s space programme, which today is renowned all over the world.

Dr. Vikram Sarabhai was awarded with Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Medal in 1962 and Padma Bhushan in 1966. Vikram Sarabhai passed away in his sleep on December 31,1971.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Wed, 02 Oct 2013 11:10:00 +0000

Happy Birth Day To Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Mohandas Gandhi - October 2, 1869(1869-10-02) - January 30, 1948 (aged 78)

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement. Gandhi is commonly known in India and across the world as Mahatma Gandhi: Maha-tma ("Great Soul") and as Bapu ("Father").

Great INDIAN Scientist mokshagundam visvesvaraya

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Wed, 02 Oct 2013 11:00:00 +0000

M. Visvesvaraya Biography

Born: September 15, 1860
Died: April 14, 1962
Achievements: Architect of Krishnarajasagar Dam; devised steel doors to stop the wasteful flow of water in dams; honored with Bharat Ratna.

Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya was an eminent engineer and statesman and played a key role in building of modern India.

Sir M. Visvesvaraya was born on September 15, 1860 in Muddenahalli village in the Kolar district of the erstwhile princely state of Mysore (present day Karnataka). His father Srinivasa Sastry was a Sanskrit scholar and Ayurvedic practitioner. His mother Venkachamma was a religious lady. He lost his father when he was only 15 years old.

Visvesvaraya completed his early education in Chikkaballapur and then went to Bangalore for higher education. He cleared his B.A. Examination in 1881. He got some assistance from the Government of Mysore and joined the Science College in Poona to study Engineering. In 1883 he ranked first in the L.C.E. and the F.C.E. Examinations (equivalent to B.E. Examination of today).

When Sir M. Visvesvaraya cleared his engineering, Government of Bombay offered him a job and appointed him Assistant Engineer at Nasik. As an engineer, he achieved some marvelous feats. He planned a way of supplying water from the river Sindhu to a town called Sukkur. He devised a new irrigation system called the Block System. He devised steel doors to stop the wasteful flow of water in dams. He was the architect of the Krishnaraja Sagara dam in Mysore. The list is endless.

Sir M. Visvesvaraya lead a very simple life. He was a strict vegetarian and a teetotaler. He was known for his honesty and integrity. In 1912, Maharaja of Mysore appointed Visvesvaraya as his Dewan. Before accepting the position of Dewan of Mysore, he invited all his relatives for dinner. He told them very clearly that he would accept the prestigious office on the condition that none of them would approach him for favours. As Dewan of Mysore, he worked tirelessly for educational and industrial development of the state. When he was the Dewan many new industries came up. The Sandal Oil Factory, the Soap Factory, the Metals Factory, the Chrome Tanning Factory , were some of them. Of the many factories he started the most important is the Bhadravati Iron and Steel Works.

Sir M. Visvesvaraya voluntarily retired as Dewan of Mysore in 1918. He worked actively even after his retirement. Sir M. Visvesvaraya was honored with Bharat Ratna in 1955 for his invaluable contribution to the nation. When he reached the age of 100, the Government of India brought out a stamp in his honor. Sir Visvesvaraya passed away on April 14, 1962 at the age of 101.

Some of the honours and laurels conferred on Sir M. Visvesvaraya

1904: Honorary Membership of London Institution of Civil Engineers for an unbroken period of 50 years
1906: "Kaisar-i-Hind" in recognition of his services
1911: C.I.E. (Companion of the Indian Empire) at the Delhi Darbar
1915: K.C.I.E. (Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire)
1921: D.Sc. - Calcutta University
1931: LLD - Bombay University
1937: D.Litt - Benaras Hindu University
1943: Elected as an Honorary Life Member of the Institution of Engineers (India)
1944: D.Sc. - Allahabad University
1948: Doctorate - LLD., Mysore University
1953: D.Litt - Andhra University
1953: Awarded the Honorary Fellowship of the Institute of Town Planners, India
1955: Conferred ' BHARATHA RATNA'
1958: 'Durga Prasad Khaitan Memorial Gold Medal' by the Royal Asiatic Society Council of Bengal
1959: Fellowship of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle{GSLV}

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Wed, 02 Oct 2013 10:53:00 +0000

Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle

Variants

GSLV

GSLV Mk I (a)

This variant had a 125 t (S-125) first stage and was capable of launching 1500 kg into geostationary transfer orbit. This is retired.

GSLV Mk I (b)

This variant had 139 t (S-139) first stage and improved fuel in the strap-on boosters & second stage. This variant can launch 1900 kg into geostationary transfer orbit.

GSLV Mk I (c)

This variant has a 15 tonne third stage. GSLV-F06 (flight 6) is the only attempted launch of the Mark I(c) version to date.

GSLV Mk II

This variant uses an Indian cryogenic engine and is capable of launching 2500 kg into geostationary transfer orbit. Previous GSLV vehicles (GSLV Mk.I) have used Russian cryogenic engines.

GSLV Mk III

This rocket is the technological successor to the GSLV, however is not derived from its predecessor.

Launch history

All GSLV launches have been conducted from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.

Flight	Launch date/time (UTC)	Variant	Launch Pad	Payload	Payload Mass	Result	Note(s)
D1	18 April 2001 10:13	Mk I(a)	First	GSAT-1	1,540 kg	Failure	Developmental Flight, payload placed into lower than planned orbit, and did not have sufficient fuel to reach a usable orbit.
D2	8 May 2003 11:28	Mk I(a)	First	GSAT-2	1,825 kg	Success	Developmental Flight
F01	20 September 2004	Mk I(b)	First	EDUSAT	1,950 kg	Success	First operational flight^]
F02	10 July 2006 12:08	Mk I(b)	Second	INSAT-4C	2,168 kg	Failure	Both rocket and satellite had to be destroyed over the Bay of Bengal after the rocket's trajectory veered outside of permitted limits.
F04	2 September 2007 12:51	Mk I(b)	Second	INSAT-4CR	2,160 kg	Partial failure	Successful Launch,^[ apogee lower and inclination higher than expected, due to minor error in guidance subsystem. Eventually the 2160 kg payload reached the designated geostationary transfer orbit. Minor error in orbit inclunation corrected by satellite mission operators. Satellite is fully operational and full design life of ten years will be achieved. It completed 5 years in orbit successfully
D3	15 April 2010 10:57	Mk II	Second	GSAT-4	2,220 kg	Failure	First flight test of the ISRO designed and built Cryogenic Upper Stage. Failed to reach orbit due to malfunction of Fuel Booster Turbo Pump (FBTP) of the Cryogenic Upper Stage.
D4	25 December 2010 10:34	Mk I(c)	Second	GSAT-5P	2,130 kg	Failure	First flight of GSLV Mk.I (c) Destroyed by range safety officer after loss of control of liquid-fueled boosters.

Planned launches

19 August, 2013

Mk II

Second

GSAT-14

1,980 kg

Postponed

Due to leakage of fuel in second stage

Second flight of GSLV with indigenous cryogenic upper stage(CUS) developed by ISRO’s Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) at Mahendragiri, Tamil Nadu.

Just an hour and 14 minutes before the lift off, a leakage was reported and the launch was halted.

Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV)
GSLV was declared operational (GSLV Mk.1) after both its developmental test flights conducted in April 2001 and May 2003 were successful. In its first operational flight, GSLV-F01, successfully launched the 1,950 kg G-SAT 3 on September 20, 2004.
In its present configuration, the 49 metre tall, 414 tonne, GSLV is a three stage vehicle. The first stage, GS1, comprises a core motor with 138 tonne of solid propellant and four strap-on motors each with 40 tonne of hypergolic liquid propellants (UH25 and N204). The second stage has 39 tonne of the same hypergolic liquid propellants. The third stage (GS3) is a cryogenic stage with 12.5 tonne of Liquid Oxygen (LOX) and Liquid Hydrogen (LH2). The Aluminum alloy GSLV payload fairing is 3.4 m in diameter and is 7.8 m long.

The GSLV (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle) uses lower stage closely derived from the PSLV, with a new cryogenic third stage replacing the third and fourth stage of PSLV. In place of small solid strap-on boosters used in the PSLV, the GSLV uses four liquid boosters that are derived from the PSLV second stage. The same solid first stage and liquid second stage are carried over from the PSLV. The third stage is a cryogenic hydrogen/oxygen upper stage. Seven stage are manufactured by Khrunishev/Russia. The GSLV payload fairing is made of aluminium and is manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics.

The three-axis attitude (orientation) stabilisation of GSLV is achieved by autonomous control systems provided in each stage. Single plane Engine Gimbal Control (EGC) of the four strap-ons of the first stage are used for pitch, yaw and roll control. The second stage has EGC for pitch and yaw and hot gas Reaction Control System (RCS) for roll control. Two swivellable vernier engines using LH2 and LOX provide pitch, yaw and roll control for the third stage during thrust phase and cold gas system during coast phase. The Inertial Guidance System (IGS) in the Equipment Bay (EB) housed above the third stage guides the vehicle till spacecraft injection. The closed loop guidance scheme resident in the on-board computer ensures the required accuracy in the injection conditions. GSLV employs S-band telemetry and C-band transponders for the vehicle performance monitoring, tracking, range safety/flight safety and Preliminary Orbit Determination (POD).
GSLV employs various separation systems such as Flexible Linear Shaped Charge (FLSC) for the first stage, pyro-actuated collet release mechanism for second stage and Merman band bolt cutter separation mechanism for the third stage. Spacecraft separation is by spring thrusters mounted at the separation interface.
The third stage of GSLV is cryogenic. The initial flights of GSLV (GSLV Mk.1) use Russian supplied cryogenic stage. CUSP envisages design and development of the indigenous cryogenic upper stage to replace the Russian supplied cryogenic stage in GSLV (GSLV Mk.2).

		Orbital launches	Period	Last launch
GSLV	Mk.1	2	2001 - 2003
GSLV	Mk.1+	4	2004 - 2010
GSLV	Mk.2	1	2010

The Indian Space Research Organisation will develop a new GSLV Mark III, its heaviest, tallest and most powerful rocket. The 42.4-metre-tall rocket will have a lift-off weight of 630 tonnes and can put a four-tonne satellite into the geo-synchronous transfer orbit (GTO) or a 10-tonne satellite into a low-earth orbit. In comparison, the GSLV flight of May 8, belonging to the first generation of GSLVs, put a 1.8-tonne satellite in the GTO. The GSLV Mark II can put 2.2- to 2.4-tonne satellites into the GTO.
GSLV Mark III is not derived from the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) or the presented GSLV. Although it is called Mark III, it is a totally new vehicle. Its upper stage will be powered by a cryogenic engine developed at the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) at Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu and codenamed C-25. It will have 25 tonnes of propellants - liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen - which will develop a thrust of 20 tonnes.
Besides the cryogenic stage, GSLV Mark III has a core stage of two engines powered by 110 tonnes of liquid propellants and two huge strap-on motors strung around the core.
Each strap-on motor of the Mark III will be 3.4 metres in diameter and they will be 25 metres tall. The challenge here is that India will develop a huge booster with 200 tonnes of solid propellants, and a cryogenic stage with 25 tonnes of propellants.
The development work on Mark III began in October 2002. New facilities will be established at Sriharikota and Mahendragiri to develop the solid boosters, the core liquid stage and the cryogenic stage. A massive plant will come up at Sriharikota to produce solid propellants for Mark III. This will be in addition to the existing Solid Propellant Booster Plant (SPROB) facility at SHAR, one of the biggest plants of its kind in the world. The private and public sector industries taking part in the project too have to augment their facilities for the realisation of Mark III hardware.

LVM3 (GSLV-Mk.3)
LVM3 is envisaged to launch four tonne satellite into geosynchronous transfer orbit. LVM3 is a three-stage vehicle with a 110 tonne core liquid propellant stage (L-110) and a strap-on stage with two solid propellant motors, each with 200 tonne propellant (S-200). The upper stage will be cryogenic with a propellant loading of 25 tonne (C-25). LVM3 will have a lift off weight of about 629 tonne and will be 42.4 m tall. The payload fairing will have a diameter of 5 metre and a payload volume of 100 cubic metre.

Vehicle Description
Boosters
The boosters used on the GSLV-III will be the S200, which is also designated Large Solid Booster, or LSB, which is a solid propellant stage with a mass of 200 tonnes. Two boosters will be used. Each has a diameter of 3.4 metres and a length of 25 metres. Each booster generates 517 tonnes-force (5.15 MN) of thrust at lift-off. The Solid booster S-200 was successfully tested in January 2010.
Core stage
The core stage will be the L110 restartable liquid stage which has 110 tonnes of liquid propellant and a diameter of 4-metres. It will be the first Indian liquid engine cluster design, and will use two improved Vikas engines, each producing 75 tonnes of thrust. The improved Vikas engine will use regenerative cooling, providing improved weight and specific impulse, compared to earlier rockets.
Upper stage
The upper stage will be the C25, which is a cryogenic stage fuelled by 25 tonnes of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. It has a 4-metre diameter and is 8.2 metres long. The stage will produce 20 tonnes of thrust.

History

The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) project was initiated in 1990with the objective of acquiring an Indian government launch capability for Geosynchronous satellites. Until then, India depended on the former Soviet Union for the launch of heavy satellites.

GSLV uses major components that are already proven in the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) launchers in the form of the S125/S139 solid booster and the liquid-fueled rocket engine Vikas engine. The first development flight of GSLV Mk.I (GSLV-D1) was launched on 18 April 2001. GSLV-F04 is the fifth flight of India's Geosynchronous Satellite launch Vehicle (GSLV), launched INSAT-4CR satellite, into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) of 170 km perigee and 35,975 km apogee with an orbital inclination of 21.7 degree with respect to equator on September 2, 2007. Subsequently, the satellite was manoeuvred into geostationary orbit using its own propulsion system.

The 49 metres (161 ft) tall GSLV, with a lift-off mass of 415 tonnes (457 tons), is a three-stage vehicle with solid, liquid and cryogenic stages. The first stage of GSLV, one of the largest in the world, uses Hydroxyl Terminated Polybutadiene (HTPB) based propellant. The second stage and the four strap-on motors surrounding the first stage use liquid propellant 'Vikas' engine burning UH25 and Nitrogen Tetraoxide. The third stage is a cryogenic stage using liquid Hydrogen as fuel and liquid Oxygen as oxidiser. GSLV employs S-band telemetry and C-band transponders for enabling vehicle performance monitoring, tracking, range safety / flight safety and Preliminary Orbit Determination.

The payload fairing, which is 7.8 metres (26 ft) long and 3.4 metres (11 ft) in diameter, protects the vehicle electronics and the spacecraft during its ascent through the atmosphere It is discarded when the vehicle reaches an altitude of about 115 km.

The Redundant Strap Down Inertial Navigation System/Inertial Guidance System of GSLV housed in its equipment bay guides the vehicle from lift-off to spacecraft injection. The digital auto-pilot and closed loop guidance scheme ensure the required attitude manoeuvre and guide injection of the spacecraft to the specified orbit.

GSLV, as all other satellite launch vehicles of India, is launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota, the spaceport of India. The maiden flight occurred in 2001 carrying GSAT-1, however the launch failed to reach the correct orbit. Attempts to save the payload, by using its own propulsion system to manoeuvre it into the correct orbit were unsuccessful as it ran out of fuel several thousand kilometres below geosynchronous orbit.

The GSLV became operational after a second development flight, which successfully placed GSAT-2 in 2003. In its first operational flight in September 2004, GSLV launched EDUSAT - India's first dedicated satellite for educational services. However, the second operational flight, GSlV-F02, conducted on July 10, 2006 did not succeed in placing the satellite INSAT-4C into orbit.

A replacement satellite, INSAT-4CR was launched in September 2007. The launch was a partial failure, with the satellite being placed into a lower-than-planned orbit, but unlike GSAT-1 it was able to correct its own orbit, at the expense of several years' operational life.

Two launches in 2010 both failed; the first, in April, was the first flight of the GSLV Mk.II, with an Indian-developed third stage engine replacing the Russian engine used on earlier flights. The third stage failed to ignite. The next launch, in December, used the Russian engine, however the vehicle went out of control during first stage flight and was destroyed by range safety.

India asks China to withdraw border troops

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:30:00 +0000

India asks China to withdraw border troops

Foreign ministry asks China to pull back troops who allegedly advanced into disputed territory claimed by India.

India has accused Chinese soldiers of launching an incursion far into Indian territory, the latest flare-up of tension between the two Asian giants over their de facto boundary in the Himalayas.
"Chinese troops entered 10km into Indian territory on April 15 and pitched tents in the Depsang valley in the Ladakh region of eastern Kashmir," an Indian official said on Tuesday.
Indian army commanders have met at least two times with their Chinese counterparts, but Chinese troops remain in Indian-claimed territory, said Tsering Angchuk, a civil administrator in Ladakh. "They have not vacated the position so far,'' he said.
India's foreign ministry said it had asked China to withdraw troops from the territory.
"We have asked the Chinese side to maintain the status quo in this sector [of the western border]," spokesman Syed Akbaruddin told a briefing. "By this I mean the status quo prior to this incident."
China dismissed reports of an incursion as Indian media speculation and said the border region has been peaceful.
"The two parties have maintained good communication and coordination on the border issue,'' Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Tuesday.
A day earlier, Hua said Chinese troops had "patrolled the border line and did not go one step across the Line of Actual Control,'' the unofficial boundary between the two countries.
India says Chinese troops have repeatedly crossed the boundary in recent years, leaving trash with Chinese markings as evidence of their presence.
However, Indian officials said the new incursion was far deeper into Indian-claimed territory than before.
Indian foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai filed a protest over the incursion with the Chinese ambassador last week, an external affairs ministry official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media about the sensitive subject.
Indian defense minister AK Antony said Monday that "India will take every step to protect its interests.'' He did not elaborate.

PSLV-C20 Launches 7 Satellites

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 09:47:00 +0000

PSLV-C20 Launches 7 Satellites

In a multiple launch mission, a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C20) on Monday put India-French satellite SARAL and six others into their precise orbits after its successful launch from the Sriharikota spaceport.

This was the 22nd consecutive successful PSLV mission by the Indian Space Research organisation (ISRO). It was such a flawless mission that President Pranab Mukherjee, who was present at the Mission Control Centre, said he was “delighted to be present during this meticulously executed launch” and that “the PSLV has become a household name in the country.”

kashmir valley

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 10:02:00 +0000

Kashmir

Kashmir is a well-known north western region of the India. However, until mid-19th century Kashmir was denoted as the valley between the Great hills of Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Hills. Though, it is changed as the larger area which includes the Indian controlled state of Jammu and Kashmir. Somepart of Kashmir is administered by Pakistani and China.

Kashmir is turned as the vital center of Hinduism and Buddhism. As per record's Shah Mir was the first Muslim ruler of Kashmir came into notice in 1349. He was the ruler who inaugurated the Swati dynasty or Salatin-i-Kashmir. After his rule, another the next five centuries were ruled by Muslim rulers. These five centuries include the Mughals, who came into action from 1526 to 1751. The last ruler group of Muslims in Kashmir was Afghan Durrani Empire, and their period was from 1747 to 1820. The Sikhs came into action in 1846, and the first Sikh ruler was Ranjit Singh.

Kashmir is the ancient Sanskrit word which means land of Kashyap Rishi. According to Hindu Granthas, Kashyap Rishi was Saraswat Brahmin. He was one of the Saptarshis, who played the vital role in founding and formalizing prehistoric Vedic Religion. Later other honourable Kashmiri Pandits named this valley as Kashmir.

Kashmir is always an outstanding experience and people are visiting this beautiful place every year. Experts say this place is heavenly blessed with lots of attractive spots. The main part of visiting Kashmir is it is open for complete year and visitors can enjoy any season at this place. The sheer nature and beauty containing snow, which gives the feeling of silver mountains is amazing. The huge variety of flora and fauna made this place heaven on earth. People who love nature or want to make their honeymoon special should visit Kashmir. The adventure seekers will also get lots of things in this valley as the big hills and flowing water allow them for trekking and rafting events. The majestic mountains, salubrious climate, romantic rivers, valleys with fully covered snow and amazingly designed Mughal gardens are best places to visit in Kashmir.

There are plenty of attractive places where visitors can enjoy and make their moment memorable. This hill station is having huge snow that means people can enjoy skiing and some other activities.

Tourist Attractions in Kashmir:

Sonmarg: this is the spot having astonishing flower carpeted field, which is covered with beautiful glaciers, snowfields, miniature plateaus, islets and pines. Sonmarg is just 80 kms distant from Srinagar. This place added into the list of highest hill ranges of the world. The sparkling effects and amazing view of the valley from Sonmarg could be diverse experience for visitors. The adventures journey of the valley is also special.

Gulmarg: this world is made after combination of Gul and marg words. The meaning of both words is meadow of a flower. The green slopes and famous beautiful view of nature at Gulmarg are special. It is situated at Baramula district of J&K. The magical meadows with hill resort and snow clad peaks can give the feeling of heaven. Lots of Bollywood movies being made on Kashmir and many big projects are also made on such a beautiful place.

Pahalgam: this is another tourist attraction spot where people can enjoy the natural beauty. The Sheshnag Lake and Lidder River at Pahalgam are best areas to visit.

Srinagar: this is the capital of Jammu and Kashmir State of India. Srinagar is added into the list of most absorbing and fascinating cities of the world. The place is having lots of sacred pilgrimages, aromatic Mughal and beautiful lakes with lots of astonishing gardens. Dal and Wular Lake at Srinagar are special and people can enjoy the houseboats and many other things.

Houseboats: kasti, houseboats and small boats are famous for Kashmir. The beautiful lake with houseboats allows the people to live on water. The houseboats are available for different types, and the services provided such boats are also different. However, charges are varying according to boat and features offered by the boat owners. Many boats are even more luxurious then five-star hotels so visitors can select the houseboat according to their choice.

Reach Kashmir through different ways:

By Air:

The airport to reach Kashmir is Srinagar. This airport is properly connected with Delhi and many states and cities of India. The frequent flight to Delhi through Jammu is also possible as various airlines are offering the flights from Kashmir to Delhi and other cities.

By Rail:

Srinagar is the major station to reach Kashmir. The well-known train through out the country is Jammu Tawi and it is available from almost every city and state of India. Advance booking of ticket is available with this train and visitors can enjoy the journey with wonderful nature views throughout the journey. During the holidays or season visit, visitors will get some additional trains as well to reach Kashmir.

By Road:

Kashmir is well-linked through roads as well. NH1A is connecting Srinagar to Jammu. The roads are clear and properly managed by BRO. The several sharp inclines and hairpin bends could be little dangerous but the journey through road is more excited and adventurous. The roads are maintained by the BRO (Border Roads Organization). Their responsibilities include cleaning the road of any obstructions caused due to natural causes like landslides or heavy snowfall. The world-known Jawahar Tunnel is one which connects Jammu to Kashmir Valley through Pir Panjal range.

Rare And BEAUTIFUL Images Of KASHMIR VALLY

INDIAN ARMY Counter terrorist operations images

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 18:40:00 +0000

INDIAN ARMY Counter terrorist operations

http://iamtheindian.blogspot.in/

Space Technology in India

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 05:02:00 +0000

Space Technology in India

The history of India’s interests in space science is as early as 1960s when a Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR) was formed by the Department of Atomic Energy. Subsequently the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) was set up to develop space technology and its application to various national tasks.

The development of India’s space technology and programme dates back to 1980 when it successfully launched its own satellite Rohini – 1 from Sriharikota Island. The nation then became the eighth country to prove that it could send a satellite to orbit above Earth.

Vikram Sarabhai and Satish Dhawan are considered as the pioneers behind India’s space exploration programme. Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai was the founder of ISRO and the father of India's space program. He had envisioned for Indian satellites that could provide communications, meteorology, remote sensing, and direct-to-home television broadcasting.

He set up the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS), the first of its kind in India which began manufacturing sounding rockets in India. He drew up plans to transmit education to remote villages across India with the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE).

Today, space exploration and technology in India has brought great respect for the country. It has fueled the nation to move into the world of high technology, a place previously occupied only by a few developed countries. The development has solved the country’s requirements in the field of remote sensing and communication.

Recently, India has concentrated much of its space development work on complex applications satellites and more powerful rockets. The nation's two primary interests are satellites for remote sensing and communications – used for weather pictures, disaster warnings and feeds to 552 television and 164 radio stations on the ground.

ISRO is successful in establishing two major space systems, INSAT for communication, television broadcastingand meteorological services, and Indian Remote Sensing Satellites (IRS) system for resources monitoring and management. ISRO has developed two satellite launch vehicles, PSLV and GSLV, to place INSAT and IRS satellites in the required orbits.

Chronology of Indian Space History

1963 - First sounding rocket launched from TERLS (November 21, 1963).

1965 -Space Science and Technology Centre (SSTC) established in Thumba.

1967 - Satellite Telecommunication Earth Station set up at Ahmedabad.

1969 - Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) formed under Department of Atomic Energy.

1972 - Space Commission and Department of Space set up. ISRO brought under DOS (June 1, 1972).

1975 - ISRO becomes Government Organisation (April 1, 1975). First Indian Satellite, Aryabhata, launched (April 19, 1975).

1979 - Bhaskara-I, an experimental satellite for earth observations, launched (June 7, 1979). First Experimental launch of SLV-3 with Rohini Technology Payload on board (August 10, 1979).Satellite could not be placed in orbit.

1981- First developmental launch of SLV-3.

1984 - Indo-Soviet manned space mission (April 1984).

1987 - First developmental launch of ASLV with SROSS-1 satellite on board (March 24, 1987). Satellite could not be placed in orbit.

2001 - First Launch of the GSLV successfully completed on April 18, 2001.

2002 - ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C4, successfully launched KALPANA-1 satellite from Sriharikota(September 12, 2002). Successful launch of INSAT-3C by Ariane from Kourou French Guyana, (January 24, 2002).

2003 - ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C5, successfully launched RESOURCESAT-1 (IRS-P6) satellite from Sriharikota(October 17, 2003). Successful launch of INSAT-3E by Ariane from Kourou French Guyana, (September 28, 2003). The Second developmental launch of GSLV-D2 with GSAT-2 on board fromSriharikota (May 8, 2003). Successful launch of INSAT-3A by Ariane from Kourou French Guyana, (April 10, 2003).

2004 - The first operational flight of GSLV (GSLV-F01) successfully launched EDUSAT from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota (September 20, 2004)

2005 - Successful launch of INSAT-4A by Ariane from Kourou French Guyana, (December 22, 2005). ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C6, successfully launched CARTOSAT-1 and HAMSAT satellites from Sriharikota (May 5, 2005).

2006 - Second operational flight of GSLV with Insat-4C. For the first time, an Indian rocket carried acommunication satellite but the mission failed.

2007 - ISRO launches India’s CARTOSAT-2 and Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE-1) and Indonesia’s LAPAN-TUBSAT and Argentina’s PEHUENSAT-1 at one go on January 10, 2007. Successful launch of INSAT-4B by Ariane-5 from Kourou French Guyana, (March 12, 2007). PSLV-C8 successfully launched Italian astronomical satellite AGILE from Sriharikota on April 23. Successful launch of GSLV with INSAT-4CR on board from SDSC SHAR on September 2.

2008 - Launch of Israeli satellite Tecsar by PSLV. Launch of two Indian and eight foreign satellites by a single PSLV. India's first moon mission Chandrayaan-1 by PSLV.

2009 - Launch of Radar Imaging Satellite (Risat-2) and Anusat from Anna University (first satellite from an Indian university) by PSLV. Launch of seven satellites by PSLV, including India's Oceansat.

2010 - Launch of Cartosat-2B, STUDSAT and three small foreign satellites by PSLV.

2011 - Launch of Resourcest-2 and two small satellites by PSLV. Launch of GSAT-12 by PSLV. Launch of Megha Tropiques and three small satellites by PSLV.

2012 - Launch of Risat-1 by PSLV. Launch of French satellite SPOT 6 and Japanese satellite Proiteres.

Aero India 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 04:45:00 +0000

Aero India 2013

BOUT THE EVENT

The Aero India is titled as one of the most premiere air show of India and is organized at Air Force Station Yelahanka, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. Managed by Confederation of Indian Industry, it is emerged out as a niche on the international arena as renowned aerospace exposition. It proves to be an ideal platform in bringing together eminent manufacturers, vendors, suppliers of the aviation industry under one roof.
Organizer: Confederation of Indian Industry

Aero India 2013

Aero India has already carved a niche for itself globally as a premier aerospace exhibition, with seven successful editions organized between 1996 and 2011. In Aero India 2011, the participation of exhibitors from 29 countries with 675 companies (380 overseas + 295 domestic) and 47 overseas delegations was accommodated over a gross exhibition area of 75,000 sqm (including outdoor), which was nearly 57% more than the previous edition in 2009. The ninth edition of Aero India will be held at Air Force Station, Yelahanka, near Bangalore from 6 Feb to 10 Feb in 2013. Aero India 2013 will be organized in February 2013 and will provide a significant platform in bolstering business opportunities in the international aviation sector. It is favorably poised an exponential growth over previous edition. A rapidly growing economy, defense preparedness challenges and opening up of defense production to private sector, have given a major fillip to the defense industry in India. It has also become a hub center for defense business in the Asian region.

Complete Analysis and specification of Agni V Ballistic Missile

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 05:53:00 +0000

Complete Analysis and specification of Agni V Ballistic Missile

India successfully fired Agni-V , the long range Ballistic Nuclear Missile from Wheeler Island of Orissa. It is capable of attacking any target upto 6000 km away which is much more than the diameter of China. It has been developed by Defense Research and development Organization (DRDO) of India. The estimated cost of making this missile unit is about 40 Crores Indian Rupees.

The technical Specifications of Agni V can be summarized below

Weight: 50,000 kg
Length: 17.5m
Maximum Range:6000km
Warhead: 1000kg on Nuclear Weapon
Engine: 3 Stage Solid
Max Speed: 24 Mach

The Agni-V will be operational by 2014-2015 after four to five repeatable tests by the DRDO.

Agni-V carries MIRV (multiple independently target-able re-entry vehicles) payloads being concurrently developed. A single MIRVed missile can deliver multiple warheads at different targets.

With a “launch mass” of around 50 tonne and a development cost of over Rs 2,500 crore, Agni-V incorporates advanced technologies involving ring laser gyroscope and accelerometer for navigation and guidance

On April 19, 2012 at 8.07 am, the Agni V was successfully test fired by DRDO from Wheeler Island off the coast of Orissa. The test launch was made from the Launch Complex 4 of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Wheeler Island using a rail mobile launcher. The flight time lasted 20 minutes and the third stage fired the re-entry vehicle into the atmosphere at an altitude of 100 kms. The missile re-entry vehicle subsequently impacted the pre-designated target point more than 5,000 kms away in the Indian Ocean. The director of the test range, S.P. Das informed BBC that all test parameters were met.

Propulsion

The Agni-V is a three stage solid fueled missile with composite motor casing in the third stage. In many aspects, the Agni-5 carries forward the Agni-3 pedigree. With composites used extensively to reduce weight, and a third stage added on (the Agni-3 was a two-stage missile), the Agni-5 can fly 1,500 km further than the 3,500 km range Agni-III. Two stages of this missile will be made of composite material.Advanced technologies like ring laser gyroscope and accelerometer will be used in the new missile.”You can reduce the payload and (further) increase the range of Agni-V” Saraswat told the Reuters in Feb 2010.

Mobility

“The Agni-5 is specially tailored for road-mobility,” explains Avinash Chander, Director, ASL. “With the canister having been successfully developed, all India’s future land-based strategic missiles will be canisterised as well”. The missile will utilize a canister and will be launched from it. Made of maraging steel, a canister must provide a hermitically sealed atmosphere that preserves the missile for years. During firing, the canister must absorb enormous stresses when a thrust of 300 to 400 tonnes is generated to eject the 50-tonne missile.

MIRVs

Agni-V will feature Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles (MIRVs) with each missile being capable of carrying 3-10 separate nuclear warheads. Each warhead can be assigned to a different target, separated by hundreds of kilometres; alternatively, two or more warheads can be assigned to one target. MIRVs ensure a credible second strike capability even with few missiles.

SOURCE:http://world-defece-review.blogspot.in/2012/04/agni-5-launch-pictures.html

INDIA''s Underwater N-missile test successful

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 05:32:00 +0000

INDIA''s Underwater N-missile test successful

India's elusive nuclear weapon triad - the capability to fire nukes from the land, air and sea - has taken another leap closer to becoming an operational reality. Even as the indigenous nuclear submarine INS Arihant gets ready for sea trials, the country's first underwater ballistic missile "successfully" completed its developmental trials on Sunday.

With this twelfth test of the K-15 missile conducted from a submerged platform or pontoon in the Bay of Bengal, DRDO officials said the 750-km range submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) was now ready for induction.

"The two-stage missile, which rapidly climbed to a 20-km altitude after being launched from the pontoon, was tested for its full range over 700-km. This was its last developmental test, in which all mission objectives were met," said an official.

"Now, the 10-metre tall missile, which can carry a one-tonne nuclear warhead, will undergo a user-trial within a month before it's integrated into the submarine. Only the US, Russia, France and China have successfully developed SLBMs till now," he added.

There is reason to cheer but the bubbly can only be popped once the K-15 missiles are successfully tested from the 6,000-tonne INS Arihant, the country's first indigenous nuclear-powered submarine, which is now all set to undergo "sea-acceptance trials" after its miniature 83 MW pressurized light-water reactor goes "critical" at Visakhapatnam soon.

Navy chief Admiral D K Joshi last month had alluded to this, holding that the nation would get "good news" on this front "very soon". INS Arihant has been undergoing extensive "harbor-acceptance trials", with all its pipelines being "cleared and tested" on shore-based steam for several months now, before its reactor is "fired" for the sea-trials.

Built with four silos to carry 12 K-15s, or four of the 3,500-km range K-4 missiles under-development at present, INS Arihant will of course have to test-fire the 10-tonne missile during the sea trials before it can be said that India's long-awaited nuclear triad has finally become operational.

The first two legs of the triad, already in place with the armed forces, are the Agni series of missiles and fighters like Sukhoi-30MKIs and Mirage-2000s configured to deliver nuclear warheads.

The absence of an operational SLBM, however, has for long left a "big credibility gap" in the country's nuclear deterrence posture. Only a nuclear-powered submarine, which can stay underwater for extended periods, armed with nuclear-tipped missiles can provide a country with effective and difficult-to-detect "second or retaliatory strike capabilities".

But the development of both INS Arihant and K-15 has meandered for well over a decade now. India may now have the INS Chakra, the Akula-II class nuclear-propelled submarine leased from Russia for 10 years, but it did not come armed with "strategic" missiles due to international treaties.

The utility of SSBNs (nuclear submarines with long range missiles) can be gauged from the fact that even the US and Russia are ensuring that two-thirds of the strategic warheads they eventually retain under arms reduction agreements will be in the shape of SLBMs. Consequently, INS Arihant and its three follow-on submarines in the process of being built, along with the K-15 and K-4 missiles, are considered critical for India's "strategic deterrence and autonomy".

News curtsy :http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Underwater-N-missile-test-successful/articleshow/18213517.cms

The Great INDIAN Netaji Subash Chandra Bose

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 11:37:00 +0000

Today i.e. 23rd January is the 115 th Birthday of Subhash Chandra Bose, the great patriot of India. He was born on January 23, 1897 in Cuttack, Orissa. His father Janaki Nath Bose was a famous lawyer and his mother Prabhavati Devi was a pious and religious lady. Subhas Chandra Bose was the ninth child among fourteen siblings. Subhas Chandra Bose was a brilliant student right from the childhood. He was strongly influenced by Swami Vivekananda's teachings. He joined the Indian civil services in England but deeply disturbed by the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre, and returned to India. He was the first Indian to resign from the Indian Civil Service. The Under Secretary of State for India sent for him. Subhash told him, I do not think one can be loyal to the British Raj and yet serve India honestly, heart and soul.

SubhashChandra Bose advocated complete freedom for India, whereas the congress committee wanted it in phases, through a dominion status but S...

'No Haryana role in Delhi smog'

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 14:11:00 +0000

'No Haryana role in Delhi smog'

GURGAON: The Delhi-Haryana rivalry is never more clearly on show than when the issue being addressed has anything to do with pollution. Not long ago, water pollution in the Yamuna river was the bone of contention, with the two states blaming each other for having caused it. And now, after the Delhi chief minister, Shiela Dikshit, held the neighbouring states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh - and their farm fires - responsible for the capital's daily thickening smog cover, the blame-game has begun anew.

Officials of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB) have said that Delhi is blaming other states for a mess that is its own creation. "They can't blame other states for it. Delhi's pollution levels are high because municipal solid waste is burned openly there. Besides, air pollution caused by the huge number of cars and other vehicles in the capital is on the rise. That's why, this season, the smog cover is so thick there," said Balraj Ahlawat, district pollution officer, HSPCB, Gurgaon.

Ahlawat said that an official report - making the same points and blaming the smog blanket on, among other things, high humidity levels - has also been prepared by the pollution department. "We have a meeting on Saturday with the Central Pollution Control Board officials in Delhi, and this report will be submitted there," he said. Officials from the states of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab are also expected to be present at Saturday's meeting.

The 'farm fires' that the Delhi government has referred to, were indeed prevalent in Haryana's rural parts, and still are a major cause for concern. Around Diwali time, farmers here carry out mass burnings of their paddy straw, causing heavy smoke emanating harmful pollutants. Even though the practice was banned in 2003, the pollution board still finds dousing these farm fires something of a challenge.

"The pollution board is running awareness campaigns in 119 blocks across the state, where farmers are told about the harmful effect burning stalks has on the environment," said an HSPCB spokesperson. To encourage better popular participation in this drive against farm fires, the board has also announced cash prizes for the agricultural blocks that stay off this ritual this year. "Prizes of up to Rs 50,000 are being offered to the blocks where the mass burning of paddy straw is not taking place," the spokesperson added

Delhi smog lifts somewhat, but pollution stays

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 14:09:00 +0000

Delhi smog lifts somewhat, but pollution stays

NEW DELHI: A day after Diwali, the smog situation in Delhi saw a slight improvement with bright sunny on Wednesday as the level of dust particles in the air came down and the visibility turned near normal.

According to India Meteorological Department (IMD), the visibility level Wednesday morning was 1,000 metres.

"Visibility was normal at 1,000 metres and there was a slight smog cover which enveloped the city Tuesday and early Wednesday morning as fire crackers were burst for Diwali, but the air cleared later as the sun went up," an IMD official said.

"It was a near clear morning a day after Diwali, with the level of dust particles in the air going down and the visibility level improved, which had dipped Tuesday evening due to pollution caused by bursting of fire crackers," the official said.

Delhi was in the grip of smog from Oct 27 to Nov 8 due to drastic increase in fine particulate matter suspended over the city skies.

"With the pollutants dispersing two days before Diwali, the smog situation in Delhi has seen an improvement. But that doesn't mean air pollution levels are low in the national capital," Anumita Roy Choudhary, an environmental scientist at Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), told IANS.

"Smog or not, crackers with dangerous toxic levels will add to the air pollution and will prove to be dangerous," Choudhary said.

She also said people in the national capital celebrated Diwali with a bang and many burst crackers only after 10 p.m. and this level of smoke is dangerous in Delhi's winter.

"While the Supreme Court had in 2005 put a ban on the use of firecrackers after 10 p.m. on Diwali night, many people burst crackers only after 10 p.m. With the nip in the air increasing in the night, the inverse condition gets worse from the smoke from cracker-bursting," Choudhary said.

However, there has been a dip in the sale of firecrackers this year, as awareness about pollution and wastage of money has increased.

"Two extreme pollution episodes back-to-back, would have had a worst impact on Delhiites. Though we don't know the exact air pollution levels post Diwali, efforts were made to minimise use of firecrackers that give rise to huge smoke. Exact data on pollution levels in the capital will be expected later in the day," said a senior environment department official said.

"This year, we had strict norms to check crackers sale. Only 804 retail cracker outlets were allowed in Delhi and even the noise levels of crackers were strictly monitored," the official added.

Smoke from field fires can travel up to 1,000km

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 14:06:00 +0000

Smoke from field fires can travel up to 1,000km

NEW DELHI: Plumes of smoke and pollutants rising from the burning fields of north India can spread through the air to places as much as 1,000km away, cause persistent fog over the region and could even be playing a part in depressing rice yields, various scientific studies on the phenomenon have found.

The fires that raged through Punjab since the last week of October — deliberately caused by farmers to clear paddy stubbles and ready the fields for the rabi crop — were seen as a major cause of the 11-day spell of dense smog in the capital and surrounding areas. Biomass-burning is rampant, practiced in around 90% of Punjab's paddy fields, and has continued unabated for decades despite its obvious role in emitting greenhouse and a toxic mix of gases, and destroying soil nutrients.

The practice has been studied by atmospheric and earth scientists for more than a decade and many of these have thrown up more grim facts. A 2009 study by KVS Badarinath of Indian Remote Sensing Centre and others reported that aerosols and trace gases from crop-burning in north India had been found over Hyderabad and Arabian Sea.

"Particles from these fires can travel up to 1,000km," said Prof SN Tripathi of IIT Kanpur's chemical engineering department. "While smoke plumes usually clear out in a week's time, and particles rise higher in the atmosphere and can 'burn' clouds."

Fires from biomass burning are also a major cause of winter fog in north India as suspended pollutants attract moisture. "We have found a direct link between fires and winter fog in north India," said Dr MM Sarin, senior professor of geosciences at Ahmedabad's Physical Research Laboratory.

Sarin's team also found that biomass emissions contain a preponderance of organic carbon, a class of sticky particulates whose properties are different from soot, or black carbon. The proportion of black carbon — which absorb heat and light, and were linked to glacier melting — was earlier thought to be higher in these emissions.

"Our studies also found another class of possible carcinogenic compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the biomass emissions," Sarin said.

In another paper published last year, Tripathi's team showed that once fog forms over north India, it gives rise to more particles — called secondary organic aerosols — which become seeds for more fog. "This becomes a vicious cycle and explains why winter fog persists for so long," he said.

Given the scale of burning across north India — an estimated 17 million tonnes of paddy stubble is set afire in Punjab alone — one study has indirectly linked the practice to slowing growth rate of rice yields. In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), Maximilian Auffhammer of UC-Berkeley and others used statistical models to show that a joint reduction in brown haze (partly caused by biomass burning) and greenhouse gases would result in a rise in rice harvests.

The results imply that adverse climate changes due to the winter brown haze and the rise in greenhouse gases have contributed to a slowdown in growth rate of rice yields in the past two decades.

Indian Navy inducts second guided missile frigate

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 09:41:00 +0000

Indian Navy inducts second guided missile frigate

INS Tarkash, the second of the three stealth frigates constructed at Yantar Shipyard, Kaliningrad, Russia, was commissioned and inducted into the Navy by Vice-Admiral Shekhar Kumar Sinha, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Naval Command, at Kaliningrad on Friday.

Indian Ambassador to the Russian Federation Ajai Malhotra, senior government officials of Russia, senior officials of the Indian and Russian Navies and industry representatives also attended the commissioning ceremony, according to reports received here at the Ministry of Defence.

The warship is the second of three new guided missile frigates India had ordered from Russia under a $1.6 billion contract signed in July, 2006.

The first ship of the class, INS Teg, was commissioned into the Navy in April this year.

The final ship, the Trikand, is presently undergoing dock trials, and after it completes sea trials in the Baltic Sea, will join the Indian Navy in the summer of 2013, Ria Novosti said.

The new missile frigates are designed to accomplish a wide range of maritime missions, primarily hunting down and destroying large surface ships and submarines.

Each warship is equipped with 8 vertical launched BRAHMOS surface-to-surface missile systems as the prime strike weapon. The cruise missile is capable of engaging targets at extended ranges at supersonic speed.

Other weapons on the ship include a Shtil surface-to-air missile system, a 100 mm medium range gun, two Kashtan air-defense gun/missile systems, two 533-mm torpedo launchers and anti-submarine warfare helicopter.

On Oct 7, INS Teg had successfully test fired the BRAHMOS missile system off the coast of Goa. The missile hit a decommissioned target ship at a distance of 290 kms.

see more news about this article please visit:http://brahmand.com/news/Indian-Navy-inducts-second-guided-missile-frigate/10368/1/10.html

Hazare supports farmers' protests in Maharashtra

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 09:25:00 +0000

Hazare supports farmers' protests in Maharashtra

Extending his support to the "justful" cause of sugarcane growers in Maharashtra, social activist Anna Hazare today condemned the firing incident in Sangli district and accused the state government of turning this year's Diwali "black" for protesting farmers.

Speaking to PTI at his native Ralegan Siddhi, Hazare said the stand taken by MP and 'Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatna' leader Raju Shetty was "justful" but said the farmers should stay away from violence or it will harm their movement. "By firing on farmers, the government tried to supress their agitation. This will always be remembered as a 'Black Diwali'," he said.

The Gandhian also flayed NCP President Sharad Pawar's remarks against Shetty and held him responsible for the
present agrarian crisis.

A farmer was killed in police firing in Sangli on Monday after a group of peasants tried to lock a police team inside a hotel at Nandre village after learning that Shetty was detained in Pune district.

Shetty was spearheading the agitation of farmers against refusal of cooperative sugar factories in Sangli, Satara and Kolhapur districts of western Maharashtra to give Rs 3,000 per ton as first advance on sugarcane purchase this season. Factories have agreed to pay Rs 2,300 per ton.

His detention sparked largescale violence with protesting farmers torching two state transport buses and a police jeep in Pune district. Several buses were also damaged in the protests.

Farmers had staged road blockades at various places in western Maharashtra as per the appeal made by the farmers' leader.

Aung San Suu Kyi says she has no expectations from her India visit

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 09:23:00 +0000

Aung San Suu Kyi says she has no expectations from her India visit

Nobel laureate and Myanmar's pro-democracy leaderAung San Suu Kyion Tuesday said she had no expectations from her visit to India, which comes nearly 40 years after her last one.

"I don't have any expectations from the visit (to India). I am here because I wanted to come to re-forge my ties with the country," Suu Kyi told Headlines Today replying to a question about her expectations from India.

The Myanmar leader, who spent part of her student life in India, had arrived in the national capital on Tuesday on a six-day visit.

"Democracy doesn't progress on its own, we have to make it progress... I don't feel disappointed with India (for having engaged with Junta). We cannot expect others to do things for us. We have to do things ourselves," she said.

On the second day of her visit, Suu Kyi visited Mahatma Gandhi's memorial Raj Ghat where she said people keep asking her about her expectations. "It is an attempt to strengthen ties between the two countries," she emphasised.

"There are things in India that have changed and some that have not changed. I am glad that things like this have not changed since years. If I have expectations from the Indian government, I will not tell it to the media," she said.

Suu Kyi was scheduled to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at his residence on Wednesday and discuss political developments in her homeland.

During her Delhi stay, she was also likely to meet Vice President Hamid Ansari, visit Parliament and meet Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, followed by a visit to Lady Shri Ram College from where she had graduated with a degree in politics.

Archduke Joseph diamond fetches record $21.5 million at auction

noreply@blogger.com (Naga) — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 09:21:00 +0000

GENEVA: A huge, internally flawless diamondfrom India's fabled Golconda mines was sold atauction in Geneva on Tuesday night for a record 20.355 million Swiss francs ($21.48 million),Christie's said.

The rare, colourless stone weighing 76.02 carats, and roughly the size of a large strawberry, once belonged to Archduke Joseph August of Austria (1872-1962), a prince of the Hungarian line of the Habsburgs.

Its pre-sale estimate was 15-to-25 million Swiss francs and it fetched more than double the price paid for it at auction almost two decades ago.

"It is a world record for a Golconda diamondand a world record price per carat for a colourless diamond," Francois Curiel, director of the international jewellery department at Christie's, told reporters.

The previous record was held by the "Beau Sancy", a pear-shaped diamond of 34.98 carats, sold by rival Sotheby's for 9 million Swiss francs last May. "The market is not on the best form at the moment. The sale tonight was almost flabbergasting," Curiel said.

He added that the buyer, who bid by telephone, wished to remain anonymous, but said the last bidder to drop out of the sale was Fred Mouawad, an international dealer with offices in Dubai,the Middle East and Geneva.

The seller was Black, Starr & Frost, an American jeweller founded in 1810 and based in California.

"My understanding is that this stone is going to a museum and it will probably be the centrepiece," Black, Starr & Frost's chairman Alfredo Molina told Reuters in the Geneva saleroom.

Diamonds and gemstones are a safe refuge for investors in difficult economic times, he said. "There is a crisis and people don't trust governments and banks. Paper money is a depreciating asset," he added.

The diamond was the star lot at Christie's semi-annual jewellery sale in Geneva, which fetched 76.6 million francs, with 290 of 348 lots sold.

Heated bidding

Nineteen lots went for more than $1 million each, the auction house said in a statement. They included a brooch with a Ceylon sapphire weighing 60.44 carats, surrounded by diamonds, that went for 1.7 million francs, more than three times its estimate.

The bidding for the Archduke Joseph diamond opened at 8 million Swiss francs but the price swiftly rose amid heated telephone bidding.

Historical diamonds originating in the Golconda mines, virtually exhausted by the 18th century, include the Koh-i-Noor, now in the British crown jewels, and the blue Hope Diamond, part of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC.

"The Archduke Joseph Diamond is the finest and largest perfect Golconda diamond ever to appear at auction. It is comparable in its noble lineage and superb quality to the legendary Koh-i-Noor," Rahul Kadakia, head of Christie's jewellery for the Americas and Switzerland, said in a statement.

In 1933, records show the Archduke deposited the stone in the vault of the Hungarian General Credit Bank.

"Three years later it was sold to a European banker, and kept in France, locked away in a safe deposit box, where fortunately it remained undiscovered during World War Two," the auction house said.

Decades later it surfaced at auction in 1961 and again at Christie's in November 1993, netting 9.7 million Swiss francs, equivalent to $6.5 million at the time, the auction house said.

The stone was subsequently "slightly recut". Christie's is privately held by French billionaire Francois Pinault.