Author: Pradeep

  • The Chathurthi Celebrations This Year

    Mumbai and Maharashtra celebrate the Ganesh festival every year with great zest. This year the focus has been on eco-friendly celebrations –

    1. Symbolic immersions of house hold idols. Before the time they became community events nearly 75 years ago, the home made Gamesh idols were immersed in water in home ponds, kept there for some time before placing it back in the house. These have been revived as a way of not polluting water sources elsewhere in the city.

    2. Making of clay models of Ganapatis which are said to dissolve faster than the currently used plaster of paris ones.

    3. Lalbaug Ganapati mandal (the organisation which manages the festival at Lalbaug) are going for carbon credits to offset their carbon emissions.

    4. Purchase of idols from organisations such as NASEOH (National Society for Equal Oppertunities for the Handicapped)

    5. Reviving traditions of Maharashtra among school children by organising plays, fancy dress competitions etc. These are better ways to spread Marathi culture, which once you’re acquainted with are really great to read about.

    6. Lesser noise and sensible use of loud speakers. There’s been really less noise compared to last year. The sensible noise pollution rules have been well implemented this year.

    7. Pestom Sagar Citizen’s Forum converting waste PoP into bricks

    Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the man who started these celebrations to bring unity among Indians against British rule is hopefully proud of such socially and ecologically aware celebrations. Next year, I hope organisers will take the next step in preserving and representing the culture so that it is preserved for generations –

    1. Video recordings of gatherings,activities etc.

    2. maps on Google or Yahoo! on locations of Ganapati mandals. 

    3. sharing photos on sites like Picasa and Flickr and even integrating it with maps.

    4. records of electricity used and decibels recorded for looking at possible ways to save electricity.

    These are just pointers. I hope that much more is done to try and integrate and save traditional practises through modern medias.

  • Su-Do-Ku on trains

    One of the recent past times I’ve started doing is Su-Do-Kus. Very ancient now and most of the fads have gone but it is still a good refreshing mental exercise to undertake during your morning commute to college. I do three Su-Do-Kus a day, just for fun. 

  • Telescopes of India update

    I thought a general update on the ongoing efforts with Telescopes of India might help. I’ve moved all the content to an all-new blog. I’m still putting together a list of observatories I might want to visit. I am also thinking about a way to decide which observatories I might want to go to and which I can skip. I’m looking out for a sensible way to determine a cut-off. 

    On the new blog, I’ve also added the first Maps image where I have traced the IAO at Hanle and the Kodaikanal Observatory. These are searchable on Google Maps, but I thought it would be cool to have all of them on one map which can be updated and made available online easily.

  • Floods in Nepal and India – Google’s dedicated pages

    If anyone was planning to watch on the latest in the flood situation in eastern India and Nepal, they can log on to the specially prepared Google page.

  • A Day of Rest

    The whole of last week was spent in writing about and preparing for the Telescopes of India tour. I have got a wonderful response to my initial post both on the blog as well as via email. I thought I’d take a well-deserved break and do some personal stuff.

    I was thinking back to my early days (when I was about 12 years old) I made an imaginary country of which I took over as President called Helix. I got the name from an old geometry box my dad brought me. I had filled up two notebooks worth of paper with various drawings, maps, city plans and what not. Yeah, even had a list of Kings and Presidents from 23 BC. My country is supposed to have started in 23 BC. That came mostly because my room no at the time was 23. BC sounded lot cooler to a 12-year-old than AD. So, that’s when the country started.

    I remember I even designed the capital city. I probably lost the stuff while moving homes. It’d have been great to put such designs online and see if anyone thought it worth anything.

    If you’re curious the capital city was called Hellington.

  • Telescopes of India tour – Blog

    I thought that moving it on its own blog will allow it to remain visible to as many people as possible. Find the blog here – http://telescopesofindiatour.blogspot.com.

    Catch it there. You can get the RSS feeds for the blog here.

  • Telescopes of India Tour – consolidated account

    I have created a consolidated Google account for all matters related to Telescopes of India tour. Please send future emails to this account – telescopesofindiatour at gmail.com. I have also setup a seperate blog where the information that I collect during the tour will be stored. I will share the web address with you next week. Stay tuned.

  • Telescope of India Tour – Responses

    First of all, I’d like to clarify that this tour is now being backed by SEDS India. It’s an organisation that I have been leading for the past 4 years now and we’re under the process of registeration.

    Now that, that’s out of the way, I have been getting quite a response to my yesterday’s blog post and emails to several mailing lists that I have been on –

    • Manoj Pai from Confederation of Indian Amateur Astronomers (CIAA) wrote in with some words of advice. I really appreciate that.
    • I got a reply from Halit and Bijal from Space Generation Advisory Council asking for any help in communicating with IYA teams.
    • Svetlana Shkolyar from the 4Frontiers Corporation wrote to me. They’ve developed packaged tours for visiting space centres in the US. On the page, they’ve also mentioned about doing something similar in India, with ISRO. They’ve offered to do something similar in the US. It’s an exciting prospect and I will definitely give it a thought.
    • Vikrant Narang from SPACE wrote in to me and has offered to give me a helping hand in organising trips in North India. Thanks, I’ll get in touch with you if I need any help!
    • I’ve also got emails from Kalam Nagappan, whom I met during IAC and Rajdilwar about joining me on this trip.
    • Rashmi Bansal editior of the student mag JAM also wrote in. Turns out her dad works for ISRO! Cool!
    • Update: I’ve also got an offer from Planetary Society, India for free accomodation and visit to observatoryin Andhra Pradesh and facilitation of accomodation if more number of people with the help of Government of Andhra Pradesh.

    Thanks for your emails guys.I will reply to you individually as soon as I can. Also, if you’re planning to do something similar in your country, please do write in to me using the contact form.

  • Telescopes of India tour

    Next year is the International Year of Astronomy. I hope to make a small contribution towards this by going on a “Telescopes of India” tour. I plan to go around the country and visit the various radio and optical observatories in the country.

    What will I do there? First, learn about what they are doing there and why. Second, talk to the people behind the observatory to learn more about their work. Lastly, I want to enjoy as much as I can.

    Right now, the trip is in the planning stages. The only thing that is certain right now is that I am going. As a first stage I plan to make a spreadsheet of all the Indian observatories and a map of these locations.

    Want to help? If you are part of any observatory in the country, please do write to me with the details using my contact form. If you would like to send any words of caution, suggestions or advice, please do leave them in my comments. I also encourage you to do something similar in your country.

  • 100 bn Barrels of Crude

    Today, news papers reported that the race for black gold in the Arctic is hotting up because they hold 100 bn barrels of crude. Well, that could take us through 50 years more. Then, what? Change now rather than pay later!