Nuclear deal…finally some light in this room..

Finally I read something worthwhile in the paper!

1- Bashing the Left for its opposition to the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal has, indeed, become the flavour of the month.

I agree.. since none of the papers gave a favourable article and they were very keen in publishing polls showing that more than 95% of the Indians are for the nuclear deal. They never asked for my opinion!

2- B Raman, a former senior officer of India’s intelligence apparatus, slanderously wrote on this page (The Manchurian candidates, August 21) that the Left’s campaign against India’s nuclear deal is “driven by China’s concerns”.

I don’t agree with this.. of course they share the same ideologies but when it comes to policies I trust the communists more. I can use many examples from my own state Kerala, although we use every opportunity to batter them, deep in our hearts we know that the most honest and able leaders came from the communist party.

3- In 2006, 3.9 gw of nuclear power was generated, 3 per cent of India’s total power generation. In the most optimistic scenario, after the operationalisation of this deal, this would grow, at best, to 20 gw by 2016, or just over 6 per cent of the projected generation.

So what are we giving up for this increase in 6%? When the facts are thus…..

4- Further, is nuclear power cost-effective? On the contrary, it is the most expensive option. As compared to coal, it would be one-and-a-half times more expensive. Compared with gas, it is twice as expensive. So is the case with hydro-electricity. Given the abundance of coal reserves in India, the Planning Commission estimates that thermal energy would dominate power generation in India. As far as hydro-electricity is concerned, given the potential of nearly 150 gw, only 33 gw has been installed as of 2006. In addition, over 55,000 MW could be imported from Nepal and Bhutan. The tapping of such huge hydro-potential will not only augment our energy capacities at half the cost of nuclear energy, but will also tame these rivers, which regularly consume the lives of thousands. This year’s floods according to the United Nations, are ‘unprecedented’ in human memory.

Yes, there is more to this wonderful deal..

5- Huge commercial orders running into thousands of crores of rupees for the purchase of nuclear reactors would be placed on the US. The profit bonanza to multinational corporations is there for all to see with the attendant benefits to sections of corporate India. Recollect that for more than three decades the West has not installed new nuclear power reactors.

And..

6-Apart from drawing India into the US strategic military alliances in the region like the forthcoming joint military exercises with the US, Japan, Australia and Singapore, and the effort at pressurising India’s foreign policy positions, this deal does not even guarantee full and complete access to civilian nuclear technology as assured by the Prime Minister in the Rajya Sabha. In fact, the 123 agreement forbids the transfer of dual-use technologies.

Thank you Mr. Sitaram Yechury… I see some light in this room now…

Water

We have heard a lot about water and its wonderful benefits to our health. We are asked to drink minimum 8 glasses of water in a day and to start the day with a glass of water.

Drink Water and Stay healthy and Active.

but this is the frist time I am reading about cold water!

But it makes sense .. The Chinese and Japanese drink hot tea with their meals ..not cold water. Maybe it is time we adopt their drinking habit while eating!!! Nothing to lose, everything to gain…

For those who like to drink cold water, this article is applicable to you.

It is nice to have a cup of cold drink after a meal. However, the cold water will solidify the oily stuff that you have just consumed. It will slow down the digestion.

Once this “sludge” reacts with the acid, it will break down and be absorbed by the intestine faster than the solid food. It will line the intestine.
Very soon, this will turn into fats and lead to cancer. It is best to drink hot soup or warm water after a meal.

Anyway I am sure most of us dont relish a glass of hot water after our meal but I have seen many who prefer hot water.

Indications You Need More Water
One of the main causes of constipation is insufficient water. You can use this as an indicator: if you have two or three soft, easy bowel movements a day you are unlikely to be dehydrated. There are other dietary factors involved, but water is cardinal.

Poor skin accompanies both constipation and dehydration and is a clear indicator.

Tiredness and sluggishness when there is no other apparent cause.

Thirst.

Every day you lose water through your breath, perspiration, urine and bowel movements. For your body to function properly, you must replenish its water supply by consuming beverages and foods that contain water.

To ward off dehydration and make sure your body has the fluids it needs, make water your beverage of choice. Nearly every healthy adult can consider the following:

Drink a glass of water with each meal and between each meal.
Hydrate before, during and after exercise.
Substitute sparkling water for alcoholic drinks at social gatherings

A Happy Onam to the Mallus all over the world

Celebrated Onam yesterday by having a great Sadhya from Shaab Beach Restaurant. Managed to get out of the office around 1:30 PM. Hubby’s brother and family was also there.

There were 24 items including the pickles and the usual, Sambar, Parippu, Thoran, Kalan, More, Engi Curry, Payasam etc. I hope I havent left some mallus drooling!

Watched the Onam celebrations in the capital city being aired through Asianet. Took me back to the good old days when we used to spend our Onam vacation with our grandparents at Trivandrum. Since the roads near Kowdiar would be crowded, a bunch of us (cousins) used to walk and try to get a good place to watch the floats on the first day. The imagination and creativity were great. The jostling crowd would wait until the last float pass them.

The whole Trivandrum used to be on the road. We would then visit “Kannkakunnu” palace which is the happening place for everything. There would be cultural programs and food festivals. The best I liked was the Book Stalls. I never bought much, but walking among thousands of books was a pleasure in itself.

Cowards!

There is no other word to call these heartless creatures who kill innocent people. Did they kill the person they wanted? Are they closer to their objectives? Of course not! They dont know what they want since they dont have a mind of their own. Just like how you train a dog to pick a stick these people are brainwashed (do they have brains?) and ordered to kill innocents. They would kill their own parents and siblings, since they have lost whatever humanity they ever had. They are mere zombies who gave up their conscience.

My heart goes to all those who are left behind with just memories of whom they loved.

To those who were taken away from our midst for no fault of theirs.

Let us also remember Iraq where this has become a routine. When cowards strikes your homeland it pains you, while for the Iraqis, it has become a part of their daily lives. Isnt the world too silent on this?

Paper thin batteries

Here comes the ultra-thin and flexible quick charging batteries named ORB, for Organic Radical Battery.

Facts:

1- They can be recharged in about 30 seconds.
2- The organic radical materials inside the battery are in an “electrolyte-permeated gel state,” which is supposedly about halfway between a solid and a liquid. This helps ions make a smooth move (no, the other one), reducing resistance, allowing the batteries to charge faster.
3- 1 square centimeter will give you about 1 miliwatt hour.
4- It can one day be used in IC cards, RFID tags, electronic paper, wearable computers, and other such technologies stepping up to the plate in the coming decade.
5- You can stack one sheet on top of another to boost the power output.
6- The device can function in temperatures of 300 degrees Fahrenheit and down to 100 below zero.
7- The paper could also be molded into different shapes, such as a car door, which would enable important new engineering innovations.

And now a team of six Indian-American researchers has developed a paper-thin battery that can use human blood or sweat to power itself.

The team, led by noted nanotechnologist Pulickel Ajayan of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), has developed a battery, which could easily be mistaken for a simple sheet of black paper.

Besides, it is lightweight, ultra thin, completely flexible, and geared towards meeting trickiest designs and energy requirements, the INDOlink web site said.

click to read further

No Barking blease!

“No Barking Please”

Don’t’ be surprised if you see this sign in front of the parking lots in the Arab world. Arabic as you may know does not have the letter “P” in their alphabet and hence most Arabs will not recognize this word in English. Hence for them, the letter “P” and “B” are the same. Anyway I am not going into Arabic today.

In Kuwait most of the residential areas meant for the expatriates are not planned well and hence a parking space is the most coveted object for a resident. One may try to get out from work early if possible to grab the same. This is understandable. But there are some who take it beyond that. They park their cars in the space meant for 2 cars and hence reserve the same for the next person. Love for your neighbour in action! Indians are the most law abiding once they get out of their own country and hence most keep quiet even if they have to park their cars in no man’s land far away. They think that fighting for their rights is not a part of their culture and hence tolerance and patience reach 100%.

There is one neighbour in our apartment who reserves his space for his loving son too. On Thursday this same person parked his Pajero in such a way that 2 cars could have easily parked on either side. Hubby lost his patience and asked this guy to move his Pajero and pat came the reply. “This is a public place and I shall park the way I want”. Of course the conversation did continue further. Then my hubby decided that the best public place would be behind his Pajero and there he parked his own car. Friday morning came, and our Bible thumping neighbour had to fulfill his Christian duties and attend Church. Instead of asking us, he had to wake up his loving neighbour and maneuver the Pajero out with great difficulty. I guess there are some who begs to be treated thus! It is pure selfishness and arrogance in action and I am sure his son has also learned these valuable lessons.

Trafficking for another reason..

Women in India are now being trafficked for baby boys! says UN…

Punjab and Haryana continue to exploit the girl child. A new United Nations report released on Wednesday reveals that girls and women are not only trafficked to these two states to improve the skewed sex ratio but also, and mainly, to bear male children. Once they give birth to a boy, they are usually sexually exploited and either abandoned or passed on to another man.

So far, it was believed that poor women from Bihar, Assam and West Bengal, were being trafficked to Punjab and Haryana to fill in the shortage of women for marriage. Now, the study conducted by the UNDP reveals that women are mostly trafficked to bear male children. “The woman is either abandoned or passed on to another man after the birth of the male child,” the study — covering India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal — says.

Mother Teresa – Food for thought

There is only one God and He is God to all; therefore it is important that everyone is seen as equal before God. I’ve always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic. We believe our work should be our example to people. We have among us 475 souls – 30 families are Catholics and the rest are all Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs—all different religions. But they all come to our prayers.”

There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives – the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family.

Find them.

Love them.

Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart.

Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your own weakness.

Speak tenderly to them. Let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of your greeting. Always have a cheerful smile. Don’t only give your care, but give your heart as well.

The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is not mortification, a penance.

It is joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. But we are perfectly happy.

Little things are indeed little, but to be faithful in little things is a great thing.

A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, must empty ourselves. The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace.

Make us worthy, Lord, to serve those people throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger. Give them through our hands, this day, their daily bread, and by our understanding love, give them peace and joy.

I heard the call to give up all and follow Christ into the slums to serve Him among the poorest of the poor. It was an order.
I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them.

When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her.
It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed.

You and I, we are the Church, no? We have to share with our people. Suffering today is because people are hoarding, not giving, not sharing.
Jesus made it very clear. Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do it to me.
Give a glass of water, you give it to me. Receive a little
child, you receive me.

Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace of the world.

If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive.

Another land grabbing thwarted!

Ministers from every political party visit Gulf and if you think their agenda is only to meet their faithful followers, you are wrong. The ministers in power know how easily they can use the government machinery to grab the government land and transfer it to the NRIs who can afford them. Recently in the news is the Kerala Public Works minister – T. U. Kuruvilla.
Kerala businessman K.G. Abraham, who is based in Kuwait, Wednesday accused the state’s Public Works Minister T.U. Kuruvilla of cheating him in a land transfer deal. The minister denied the charge.
He is accused of taking 6 crores in return for land in Munnar to construct a resort. But before the land could be transferred, the deal was brought up to the notice of the public and now they are all in a fix. I doubt if this NRI will get his money back. This is a painful lesson for NRIs who want to invest back home. It is always better if they invest their money in the right way. Let them not run after the Ministers, but then without the support of these so called “representative of the people” nothing can happen.

Like Kerala even Goa has started its fight against land grabbers. Recently the famous Singer and musician Remo Fernandes has refused to accept a state award instituted by the Goa government’s art and culture department.

“I refuse this state award or reward as a sign of protest against the government of Goa as well as the opposition, both full of ministers and politicians involved in large-scale attempted rape and sale of Goa through the infamous Regional Plan 2011, either actively or through their inaction,” he said the letter.

I guess this is the only way in a democratic set up. The people have to stand up and fight.

The nuclear deal… can someone switch on the lights please….

The nuclear deal between Indian and US has come to a stand still since the Left and BJP are crying foul. Now it was Mr. Vajpayee ( I respect this man a lot) during the time of the BJP rule who started the discussion on this deal. The Left, as we all know were always opposed to anything that has an American tag and would prefer goodies coming from their like minded friends in China or Russia. But we very well know that Russia refused nuclear fuel on some petty reasons and China is now very happy that this deal is not going through.

There are many, both in India and America who are not happy with this deal. The Americans still don’t trust India and feels that India may use the technology and fuel for its military purpose.

India would want to develop a nuclear weapon, specially since its neighbour Pakistan has not stopped going in this direction but the world should keep in mind that India has always been a responsible country with a vibrant democracy.

But now that the deal has come to a stand still and if the Left and BJP has any reasons for their stance, can they please explain the pros and cons? Of course there has to be a “give and take” attitude in every deal, but can we know what we are giving up. Can someone explain this is plain English. And if the Left wants to oppose, can they give an alternative to India’s need for energy? Ok, there is Iran, but how viable is this when the pipe lines are going through Pakistan?

It is not that I do not trust Mr.Manmohan Singh, but please throw some light.