With attention comes motivation

22 April 1998,
In the heat of Sharjah, there was a storm, popularly called the ‘Desert Storm.’ The epi-center of this storm was a twenty five year old cricketer, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. Amidst the chanting of ‘Indiaaaa Indiaa’  and ’Sachiinn Sachinn,’ as he stormed upon the bowlers, charged and lofted spinners for sixes, pulled fast bowlers for fours, he took the world of cricket by storm. People were not only stunned but mesmerised by his unique straight drives, cover drives and late cuts. VVS Laxman, on the other end would have felt wonderful for having partnered Sachin in the show. The Aussie bowlers would have thought why on Earth it had to be them on the receiving end. The spectators would have felt more than satisfied for what they had paid for. Cricket freaks would have been like, ‘Maybe it is time we call him God.’ And fifteen hundred miles East of Sharjah, young cricket aspirants would have padded up, inspired to go on to the field and prove themselves. MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli are two among those hundreds of cricket bhakts.
If one asks Sachin what inspired him to take cricket seriously, he definitely mentions the 1983 world cup victory by the Indian team led by Kapil Dev. Surely, that is a milestone in the history of sports in India. No sport is followed as passionately as team sports. Because it is a team. In an individual sport, one can only like a single person but to support a team is more exciting because one gets to support an individual as well as the nation/team one loves. Maybe if India had won the FIFA world cup before winning the cricket world cup, those hundreds of youngsters would have gotten inspired to take up football and who knows, we would have won the 2010 football world cup! It is that spectacle of winning a huge sport event for the first time that led Indians to get motivated towards something. That created a hope that we could dominate and rise on the world platform in some form to prove ourselves. That moment of pride led to India loving cricket like it does now. This however though, eclipsed another moment of pride for India: an Indian-born had won the Nobel prize that year!

Sachin took the Aussies by a storm and Indian cricket to a higher level

25 March 2016,
In the heat of Mohali, amidst the chanting of ’Indiaaaa Indiaa’ and ’Viraatttt Viraatt,’ a twenty seven year old Kohli stormed upon, once again, the Aussie bowlers. The way he paced his innings, running singles when his partner Yuvraj was injured, converting the singles into doubles once Dhoni came in, then going after the bowlers once he got the momentum was what a well matured cricketer would do. People were not only mesmerised but stunned by the way he constructed his innings. Rohit Sharma who got out cheaply must have felt why he is unable to play such well-tempered innings despite having immense talent. The Aussie bowlers might have thought, ‘Why we??’ The audience, reiterated why they love cricket and cricketers. Cricket freaks are like, ‘Maybe it is time we call him God.’ Young cricketers are padding up, inspired to go to the field and prove themselves.
Once in an interview, Rahul Dravid, a true mascot for cricket mentioned that the difference between a cricketer and a nurse is that the cricketer appears on the television. Well, that does make a huge difference, does it not? The media is interested in cricket because people are playing well and cricketers are playing well because the world is looking through the media. With greater attention, comes greater motivation. Why else would players, be it Sachin, Saurav, Dravid, Dhoni or Virat always thank audience for their support. In fact, Virat Kohli mentioned that the audience kept him going. Definitely media attention is what creates stronger teams for the country. And it is not that attention inspires people to play more. It is the vice versa, inspired people receive a lot of attention. With great motivation comes great attention!!

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What an innings! Virat stunned the cricket world

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What an innings! Virat stunned the cricket world

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What an innings! Virat stunned the cricket world

It is good to know see women’s cricket being given importance by the media. It might be the first time that post match shake-hand of women’s cricket in India was shown on TV. That is a good sign even though the prize money for women’s cricket is peanuts. Will the attention lead to a rise in the pay-check?

Hopefully in the future,
In the heat of Gwalior, the fort city of Jhansi Laxmi Bai, amidst chantings ’Indiaaaa Indiaa’ and ’Mithaliiii Mithalii,’ the cool headed Mithali Raj would be playing her signature cut shot and the straight drives, disrupting a strong lined Aussie bowling like it is nothing. The crowd and the nation will go berserk. Somewhere in those millions, few hundred girls will be inspired to pad up, inspired to go to the field and prove themselves!

From Mukhi to Talkie - Gravitational Waves

We have seen in the James Bond movie, Golden Eye when Sean Bean falls to death on the huge antenna in Puerto Rico. 'For England!' He fell onto the largest dish antenna in the world. It is a radio wave detector and works exactly like the Direct to Home dish antennas that we have at home. This type of an antenna is very powerful over the traditional rod antennae in that the gain is quite high due to its parabolic shape. To detect electromagnetic waves, fractal antennas are used (open up your phones, you will find one) and are efficient apart from being space efficient. But these are not the only waves that are discovered. Scientists in the future are going to face a crisis, for the amount of knowledge one should possess about a subject is increasing enormously. Exactly a hundred years ago, one of the greatest men to have ever lived, Albert Einstein predicted the existence of a new set of waves called the Gravitational waves and the doubts were confirmed in 1993.

Celestial bodies in space-time

 The universe is so huge and old that time and space are certain dimensions (to know more, do not contact the author, contact your nearest library). The best illustration for this is the famous stretched plastic sheet on which heavy objects when placed, create a curvature. However, the universe is not just a plane and this sheet or the space-time is everywhere, say. Now if there is a disturbance, just like ripples in water, there would waves created, called Gravitational waves. The mathematics behind it is much more than just four lines in English as above. It is quite easy to visualize this in terms of ripples in water when two bodies revolving around each other merge to form a single mass. Gravitational waves were first asserted to a binary pulsar (basically two star collision). This was 1.3 billion years ago, roughly when the Earth was learning to form continents. It is exciting enough to know what happened to Netaji Subhash Bose not more than hundred years ago. Now imagine if you could know what happened much before San Jose formed!

LIGO confirms G-wave

To understand optical interferometry, one should understand light (of course, no one did completely). What we all know about light till now should be revisited, forgotten and changed. Light can be defined using two things: phase and polarisation. Phase would be enough for now. When two light waves of same wavelength with a constant phase difference meet, they interfere constructively or destructively. This is the principle essentially used by a Michelson interferometer. The two arms in a Michelson interferometer are not of the same length. This extra length in one arm provides extra distance for light to travel through it and when it hits a mirror, it goes back 'later' than light from the other arm. This gives rise to temporal coherence, i.e phase difference due to time. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a huge Michelson interferometer. The gravitational wave when it reaches the interferometer, distorts the space dimension, thereby changing the relative length of both the arms. This gives rise to temporal coherence which is observed when laser is passed through both the arms and thus the distortion in the arm length can be found out which gives all the information one needs to know about the gravitational wave. Indeed it would be like un-muting a talkie movie. From a silent movie (mukhi) to a talkie movie! 
Ironically, one can call this an achievement of the optics community.

LIGO Livingston interferometer. Each arm is so long that both dont fit into the same frame 

Actually, more than the gravitational waves, the interferometer is a scientific and engineering wonder. The mirrors literally are suspended in thin air. The up-gradation to the present LIGO is like replacing a two gear system with five gear system, it dramatically increases efficiency. Same thing with the mirrors, they were improvised from a single pendulum to four pendulum. The arms are as long as 4 Km because the distortion created would be so small that it is tough to identify it. Even the laser used has a high coherence length. To avoid noise from Earthly things like traffic, dogs barking and men sneezing, two non local interferometers are built to corroborate the data which happened recently. Both the interferometers in Hanford and Livingston gave the same readings. There are similar projects VIRGO in Europe and IndIGO in India(coming soon, say in just eight years by which the entire universe could possibly be mapped).

The confirmation of gravitational waves not only proves Einstein to be a super human, it also helps mankind in its understanding of the universe and encourages generations to come to be curious without consequence.
For Curiosity!   

That Thick Line Difference

Just like the gravitational wave detection has given renewed energy to science, it would have been a huge boost for technology had Lance Naik Hanumanthappa lived. It would have been a boost for human perseverance, a boost for the hopes of an entire nation whose people are constantly quarreling on issues which on any other day are considered unnecessary. It is humanly impossible to survive under 30 feet of snow for six days and equally impossible to find the human who did the impossible. Kudos to the men.

On the very same day when the country is mourning the tragic death of nine of its soldiers and praying for the recovery of one brave soldier, it is quite unfortunate to see students protesting for a convicted and punished terrorist and even more, threatening to destroy India. The word, students is to be highlighted here. These are students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, one of the most progressive and prestigious institutions of the country and they have not obtained permission for the same protest! It is one thing to raise voice against the suppression of the people of Jammu and Kashmir or even have separatist demands but it is a nonsensical thing to threaten the country which is taking care of the education of the students, giving them complete freedom to express their ideas. The students are expected to have the minimum intelligence to differentiate between the freedom given and the freedom to be taken.

Is it that they protested capital punishment? Is it that they felt that the terrorist who planned the attack on parliament was given an unjust punishment? Is it that they wanted to protest in solidarity with the people of Kashmir even when Kashmir is time and again given privileges? Is it that they are protesting against the Indian army without whose presence in the valley, there probably might be no human beings living, forget living peacefully? There actually is a very thick line of difference between protesting against unjust punishments and protesting for anti-nationals. Any sensible person would know the difference. Even in case of any of the above options, the protests showed no such signs. The only message the students sent was that they are proud of the path taken by the terrorists!! Even the separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani who has come out in support of those students have never made such derogatory statements. Why would he? When he never wanted a separate Kashmir in the first place!!

This protest is no different from the protests and prayers that happened in the University of Hyderabad for another terrorist. Before protesting, people, especially students should introspect if they are protesting against capital punishment or if they are praying for the terrorists! One could have always asked, 'Why not similar punishment to Aseeemananda?' or protest when Ajmal Kasab or Ram Singh were hanged. It would have been legible but this kind of passive support to terrorism is not a good thing since if the students of JNU, who the nation looks at as intellectuals do such a thing, what would the common man know about what is right and wrong?!  

Water, Water Everywhere...a Resolution

I have never taken a new year resolution. Why, I never even took a resolution. I just took decisions influenced by my surroundings and inspired by people. It is time I have my influence on my surroundings and maybe inspire people. A new year resolution might be a nice one to do that. A resolution, not regarding my character, attitude or habits, but about what and how I can do to change something for good this year.

Mahati is not used to going to the fast food restaurants for dinner. For her, like many other Indians, the occasional dinner outside was in a Udipi or a North Indian restaurant, where she would order Chinese noodles. The waiter asks if she wants mineral water or regular for which her reply would be regular water, which is served for free along with the dinner. However, she one day went to a fast food restaurant to eat chopped vegetables stacked between two bread pieces for an amount at which she could go to Mumbai, buy those vegetables and return. Used to drinking 'regular' water during dinner, she asked for it. She got a reply that she has to buy bottled water only. She asked for just tap water, not even the fancy RO-UV protected and filtered water. The restaurant which boasts of baking their own bread apparently did not have a tap in their kitchen! The regulatory authorities should take a look into this matter: A restaurant's kitchen not having a water tap.

Not a drop to drink!

Not only there, an ice cream shop which has items ranging from pasta to pista ice cream on its menu had only one glass to serve water in. A bakery which had seating arrangements could not afford to have a water dispenser. A pizza shop which earlier had a water filter removed it. In fact, the same shop provided a Pepsi  for free with the pizza but could not give a glass of water. Poor workers. They get water from their home. Well, a waiter in a restaurant gets his own water bottle from home! What's happening to the country?

Is this all to facilitate the sale of packaged drinking water. Water that is filled from the same kitchen tap and sealed, added with some salts which the person about to devour a 2000 calorie burger does not require?? Of course, the sale of bottled water will rise. Not every one can remain adamant like Mahati and not buy bottled water. People are made to buy them . The surroundings are arranged accordingly. The advertisements are created to scare people into buying tap water filled and stored in plastic!

I am not sure if there is a law in India that mandates all eateries to provide free pure drinking water. If there is, it is not working. But I am sure there is enough water to satisfy the needs of the people. We are just unable to use it properly and are wasting it. This is my resolution. I will join those who seek 'Free Basics.' The basic elements of air and water to remain free at least (purity has gone down the drain long ago). I will spend money for those added salts if I want to. But otherwise, I want water for free. Maybe Zuckerberg will join and support Free basics too.

Another day, Mahati went to a stationary shop to buy color pencils. She felt thirsty. The boy in the shop gave her a glass of water from a pot he kept in the shop!

Rail India Rail!!

One might always wonder, 'why a separate budget for railways in India!' Well you wouldn't ask if you dig just a little into what wonders this public enterprise is doing out there! Mahati is working on a research problem to look into how the oscillations of a train coach depend on its speed. She went about researching on what factors decide the speed of a passenger train in India and found out that it depends on details which she never bothered about ever!! Certainly, running a train in India is more complicated than manning a flight anywhere.

Mahati first went to the public relation officer to request access to details of train functioning and train accidents. In the building, she is surprised to see posters everywhere saying one thing: save energy. Indian railways would be soon moving to LEDs everywhere, solar powered stations at major junctions and the south central railway already uses 5% biodiesel. Plants are under construction to recycle water used in the railway station to grow plants and beautify the station premises. Mahati approached a peon, for it is such people who know the best as to what lures who in any department. All he had to say was that it is practically impossible now-a-days for corruption in railways. Thanks to the digital revolution, even contracts are mostly given out through e-tenders. There is pension adalat that takes place every month. The offices are all exceptionally well maintained. Railway stations are also quite well looked after, if not for public littering every where.

Yes, it s true that the Indian railways tries to offer the best it can, where as those benefiting by it are not that generous. That brings the topic of train accidents. While atleast 70% of train accidents are those where a tipper lorry has collided into a train at unmanned crossing or that a lot of people die when they try to cross the tracks instead of using the railway over bridge or an inflammable material being carried illegally by a passenger goes off, it is quite appalling to know that the majority of casualties that occur are those which occur to passengers who foot-board when they have ample space inside. Mahati felt disgusted when she read about an accident which occurred because bicycles were hung from the train windows. We definitely need to learn to respect the train transport.

It might be proud to think of bullet trains in India. But the speed of a train depends on hundreds of factors. One, the tracks, of course. In India, the most disastrous thing for a bullet train is the rail. Experts from China and Japan have been warning us about the curvy rails we have. We do love curves, yes. But not in railways. If we need faster trains, we need straight, level tracks which is not possible in the present scenario. Well, how could it be possible when a passenger in the last coach can see the engine and the front the coaches! Second, signalling. The red-green signal we just notice while we are on a moving train serve a lot of purposes including measuring the train speed and wheel rpm. The coaches, the couplers between coaches and other parameters are the third important parameter. It is interesting to know that the gravel which is around the tracks has particular measurements and there are complicated machinery to take care of this size. A trolley goes on a track, inspecting: keeping those which comply the required range  and discarding the rest. With the new forged wheel system, average speed would go as high as 150 kmph for certain trains with disc brakes reducing the wear and tear to a large extent.

Not an easy job. From signalling to coach design; from metallurgical technology to environment management to catering services, there is a lot to be taken care of in the Indian railway and there is hardly any research going on in this huge industry which is the eighth largest employer in the world! Certainly, all that bullet train money could go into R&D in railways-will lead to faster and safer trains. It would be good if Indians realise the importance of railways. Indian trains carry as much as Australian population everyday! Proud of Indian railways! 

The People's city! Well, LOL!!

According to the Hindu mythology, Amaravati is the capital city for its roughly three crore Gods. Very metaphorically, the same name has been chosen by our democratic Gods, the politicians, for the new capital of Andhra Pradesh. Hyderabad is the combined capital for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh for ten years. The AP government has got a lot of time to think over multiple possibilities, discuss pros and cons of various locations for a capital city and slowly build it.

One has to remember that even though N.Chandrababu Naidu is credited to have led to the development of Hyderabad that is now, Hyderabad has been a well established capital city for more than 400 years. He only contributed to the growth of Hyderabad as a software hub which has had a tremendous impact on its development. Here development does not necessarily mean good. The development of Hyderabad occurred in a haphazard way even when the revenues multiplied. Maybe this is the reason why the people of Andhra Pradesh voted Telugu Desam Party(TDP) into power(here, the role of caste in electoral politics has been neglected for greater good). However, Amaravati is no Hyderabad. It is not perfectly placed like Hyderabad is, for a capital city. And almost every great capital city known in the world has centuries of notable history. Just because Babu is responsible for one small aspect of a city development does not mean he can architect the building of a city from scratch with the same vigor. He has never done that! More over, it seems very likely that the idea of the world class city, people's city, Amaravati itself is a huge scam.

Who do they want to deceive by projecting THIS as Amaravati!?

Many questions loom over this scandalous idea. What is the hurry in building the capital city? A new one that too!! There are many other established towns which can be grown into administrative capital cities. Hyderabad can be used as joint capital for ten years and Babu vowed not to administer from Hyderabad. So much for people's choice. Why the fertile location and that too adjacent to a life providing river? There are other places where there is not much water problem and can be developed into cities. What about the land pooling technique used to acquire lands for the city? Its not about the way it is done. In fact, the government should be applauded for fielding this idea. They saved the public some 7500 crore rupees. It is not about those farmers but it is about the fertile lands that were taken away. There is another big problem. Is building a new capital city worthier than containing those fertile lands? Is building a new capital city worthier than those 20-30,000 hectares of forests that will have to be cleared for the 'development' of the NEW, world class, people's capital city?? Well, can it any longer be called people's city? Is Amaravati a boon or bane in making?

In his speech during the inauguration of Amaravati, Chandrababu Naidu addressed the Prime Minister more than the public. Speaking in an English which is not expected of a Chief Minister, he urged the PM. "Hand holding saar," was what he used. "There is Hyderabad for Telangana, Bangalore for karnataka and Chennai is there, for Tamil Nadu. We don't have any income generation city." were the lines he used while describing the new city? What source of income is he looking for, when the rice bowl of the country is in that state? Is that not income? Does only software or banking or automobile industry generate income? What if the global trading crashes suddenly? Banks will close but people will still eat rice. Why not develop agriculture better in the state? And more surprisingly, help in planning and development of the city is seeked from Japan and Singapore. Japan, where agriculture accounts for less than 1% of the GDP and Singapore which has not even one square feet of agricultural lands are assisting in developing a capital city in one of the most fertile lands in the world! Why can't the government consider other indigenous ways? When we can make movies like Baahubali on our own, we can also build a capital city on our own too. Why take example from Japan, whose capital city is one of the most crowded places on the planet? Why not take, say, Ghana as an example where huge investments in bio-energy and agriculture contributes to 54% of its GDP. It is one of the richest countries of Africa. Hey Accra is also a well known historical and mythological place!

That brings to the question, why build a new city? Why not expand a well established town into a capital city? There could be different cities for different roles. When the Andhra Pradesh chief minister mentioned Karnataka, why could he not have gone a little beyond and considered Kerala!! Thiruvananthapuram is hardly ten kilometers in radius and does not boast of any IT, financial hubs. But there is no need to talk about the income of Kerala and especially its human development index. Ten kilometers out of Trivandrum and one sees himself in a forest! What about the forest cover that will vanish once the 'people's city' starts developing? Not only the 20,000 hectare forest the government is asking now, but the cover that will vanish once the city is established. With the 'Make in India' initiative, the center is quickly giving 'green' signals when it comes to environmental policies. This might dangerously be exploited. Lastly, imagine what might happen to the Krishna river if such a huge city is planned on its banks? The Krishna river is no small river. It is a lifeline to crores of living things. History gives us numerous examples. From Thames in London, to the Ganga in Kolkata, to the Yamuna in Delhi, to the Musi in Hyderabad. All the rivers have been destroyed. Hey Krsna!! Building a new, huge city is no small thing and these politicians are making it look like no big deal!

How come the people are willingly getting duped? Everyone seems to know only one thing. Andhra Pradesh is so poor that it needs special status. And, what is the motive behind organisations like the 'Telugu Association of North America(TANA)' to rally behind this idea? What have they got here? If it is all about caste, factionism, land grabbing and money looting, the sight of the future of the so called people's capital is far from distant. To think of what might last forever in Amaravati which means 'forever lasting city,' We can only well, laugh out loud!!

Excellent depiction by the Hindu about Amaravati

How Clean am I???

The Central Vigilance commission is the apex vigilance institution of the country and naturally is trying its best to demonstrate the necessity of vigilance for the country's good, to curb corruption. The vigilance awareness week will be celebrated this year from 26th to 31st October under the theme, "Preventive Vigilance as a tool of Good Governance." There is a joke that runs in the streets of Lutyens Delhi that the Prime Minister's Office even knows the amount of ink left in a cabinet minister's pen! But Mahati knows that the common man is no different when it comes to vigilance. She told her friend, "Even Facebook, a website that began as an alternative to the conventional slambook, now monitors the authenticity of the names of its users. Such is the heights to which vigilance on even common public rose to. Jeez, so much for chatting and sharing general information."

"Ofcourse, we cannot blame Facebook, can we?" wondered Mahati. "Do we not see every other day in the news about ISIS or Al Qaeda recruiting terrorists by posting provoking stuff on Facebook? It has become a platform for terrorist recruitment. How many times a week we hear about guys with fake profiles luring and cheating girls(vice  versa too), fake companies, fake tenders, fake organisations, events, pages. Cheating. Cheating everywhere. How, then can we blame Facebook for being careful about people misusing social networking? It is all about how clean we are! Before criticising others or even supporting or justifying the action of others, we should think that one thing. How clean am I?"

Mahati and her friend are students in a central university. She started by pondering on what possible scams that an average university graduate might be capable of. She should then begin with herself. Though she graduated and no longer is a student of the university, she is staying "on the campus" until she finds for herself an internship and subsequently accommodation. She then wondered, a bit shamefully, how many hundreds of more students possibly might be staying illegally for years, on the campus! In the class, there are hardly ten students whereas the register mentions atleast twenty five!
But hey, when there are teachers who bore the students and take loads of extra hour classes, what else can one expect
? How clean am I? In the mess, for every meal, there are double the number of students, no, people eating than the number that is supposed to be eating. She again, is one of them. "Well, should I justify my wrong doings by arguing that the mess secretary by the end of his one month tenure earns enough dirty money to buy a laptop and a motorbike? Of course not, its all about how clean am I. In the library, the computer center, printing, scanning, in the laboratories and everywhere. Not forgetting the examination hall. HOW CLEAN AM I?? Only once I check myself, does my blood attain the qualities required to boil looking at wrongdoings in the society."

As a government sponsored student, Mahati felt that one must realise that close to a million rupees are spent on them per annum, only to give quality education! How clean am I?

Finally, to be clean is just not enough. Keeping oneself in check and being clean is when responsibility comes into picture. We cannot individually stay clean and not bother about others. That would be selfishness. It is equally important to speak up against those doing wrong things. Feeling this as a duty and being responsible for ourselves and the society is the meaning of vigilance. For more information about the Central Vigilance commission, see this http://cvc.nic.in/