Education

Green Glory: This Indian State Is Ahead of Denmark and Sweden In Wind Energy!!!

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With 14.3% of its energy needs being fulfilled through wind and solar energy, it is also a global leader in renewable energy!

In a recent report, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis(IEEFA), a US-based think tank, ranked Tamil Nadu as one of the top nine markets in the world for acquiring a high percentage of net energy needs from renewable energy sources.

The study was an assessment of the top 15 countries or power markets in the world, where the share of solar and wind energy in proportion to their total energy requirements is high. Denmark leads the way, with 53% of its energy coming from renewable sources in 2017, followed by Southern Australia and Uruguay.

In 2016-17, Tamil Nadu acquired 14.3% of its energy needs from wind and solar energy sources.

“Tamil Nadu also leads India in installed renewable energy capacity. Of the total 30 GW of installed capacity across the state as of March 2017, variable wind and solar power accounted for 9.6 GW or 32% of the total. Firm hydroelectricity added another 2.2 GW or 7%, nuclear 8% and biomass and run of river, 3%. As such, zero emissions capacity represents a leading 50% of Tamil Nadu’s total installed renewable energy. With much of Tamil Nadu’s renewable energy coming from end-of-life wind farms installed 15-25 years ago, average utilisation rates are a low 18%, making the contribution of variable renewables to total generation even more impressive,” says the IEEFA report.

Total installed renewable energy capacity for Tamil Nadu stands at approximately 10,800 megawatts (MW), of which 7870 MW comes from wind and 1,697 MW solar, while the rest comes from biomass and small hydro projects. Although it comes third in solar energy capacity behind Andhra Pradesh (2,010 MW) and Rajasthan (1,961 MW), the state tops the charts in wind power capacity ahead of Gujarat (5429 MW) and Maharashtra (4,752 MW). Tamil Nadu generates more wind energy than Sweden (6.7 GW) and Denmark (5.5 GW), the birthplace of wind energy.

“This rise in renewables is predicted to coincide with a slide in coal’s share in Tamil Nadu’s electricity mix, from 69% in 2017 to 42% 10 years later,” says the World Economic Forum. The state has also diversified into biogas and small hydro plants as well.

“As of March 2017, the state had 1 GW of biomass and run-of-river small-scale hydro, 2.2 GW of conventional hydroelectricity, and 1 GW of gas fired power capacity operational (plus another 1 GW of gas under construction),” reports the IEEFA. In an interesting aside, it also hosts the second largest solar farm (Kamuthi) in the country with a capacity of 648 MW.

This is a heartening development as it comes a time when the Government of India has set a target of sourcing 175 gigawatts of energy from renewable sources by 2022.

When it comes to renewable energy in India, one could consider Tamil Nadu as a pioneer of sorts. Most of its wind farms, for example, were built approximately 25 years back.

The natural conditions in the state favour the growth and development of solar and wind energy. The Tamil Nadu coast receives high wind density and velocity. For six months it receives heavy wind flows, while four months see moderate flows. Also, the state receives 300 or more days of sunshine.

The state’s sojourn into renewable energy began as an emergency attempt to fill the growing deficit between supply and demand of power.

Major industries like automotive parts, textiles, cement and leather-tanning, for example, demanded large amounts of power and consequently, the feed-in tariff (payments to ordinary energy users—people or businesses—for the renewable electricity they generate) for the wind energy sector was encouraging.

The price at which wind energy is sold to the people today is determined at an open auction for power utilities. Earlier, the state power regulators had a stranglehold on determining prices but changed to an auction system in 2016.

With the local textile sector first grabbing the bull by its horns, Tamil Nadu also became one of the first states to allow industrial units to establish their own wind power plants. These 20-year-old wind farms owned by the Tamil Nadu Spinning Mills Association (TASMA) generates a little less than 40% of the state’s total wind energy capacity (3000 MW). The Muppandal wind farm outside Madurai, for example, generates 1.5 GW of energy, making it the largest wind farm outside China.

With favourable tariff conditions, the state also made serious progress in the solar energy arena.

“In recent years, the government has also worked to improve its transmission infrastructure, encouraging firms to expand. Since renewable energy is infirm, managing the fluctuation in power generation is key. Tamil Nadu has begun forecasting the flow so that the grid is ready to handle things,” says this recent report in Quartz India.

Having said that, the IEEFA has argued in its report titled ‘Electricity Transformation in India: A Case Study of Tamil Nadu’, it argued how the state’s growth in wind and solar energy generation isn’t enough.

“Tamil Nadu should double its wind energy capacity to 15GW and increase its solar capacity to 13.8GW by 2026-27 to deliver cheaper electricity to customers,” the report said.

Instead, what the state is doing is looking to build 25,000 MW of thermal power projects. “Despite being a world leader in wind energy, Tamil Nadu’s wind farms have ageing and outdated technology. Upgrading the existing turbines alone could double the state’s leading wind energy capacity,” said Tim Buckley, IEEFA’s director of energy finance studies, Australia.

There are other concerns, as well. “Renewable energy assets in Tamil Nadu are facing significant back down (as state power utilities are buying little power from these plants). This adversely impacts their feasibility,” Kanika Chawla, a renewable energy expert at Delhi-based non-profit Council on Energy, Environment, and Water, told Quartz India.

Primarily, the major concerns stem from state regulation-related issues. For starters, the state-owned power utility Tangedco has proposed an additional imposition of taxes on rooftop solar plants, says this Times of India report.

Last July, Tamil Nadu was unable to use all the solar power it generated. In the wind energy sector, the government could stymie TASMA’s ability to drawing back the excess power it delivers to the power grid in the event of a shortage (wind banking). What one must understand is that TASMA generates and delivers excess wind energy to the power grid.

However, the biggest concern is the dire financial condition of the state power utility. In 2016-17, the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation Limited (TANGEDCO) posted a loss of Rs 3,783 crore, besides year-long delays in the payment of dues to power-generating units.

As a result, these power generation units are unable to repay loans they had taken from the banks to install all the necessary equipment. The poor state of regulation in the state’s power sector is a real concern.

Source….  

in http://www.the betterindia.com

Natarajan

 

 

The Hindi-Speaking Aussie who loves India …

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Charles ‘Biharilal’ Thomson, is an Australian who speaks fluent Hindi learnt on the streets, trains and buses of India’s hinterland.
Biharilal tells Rediff.com‘s Archana Masih how India has bewitched him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photograph: Kind courtesy Charles Thomson/Facebook

Biharilal Thomson is a white Australian who speaks Hindi better than many Indians.

The first time he saw a non-white person was as a 10 year old. His mother had invited an Indian yogi from Bihar into their home in Australia and asked her son to share his room with the sadhu for a few weeks.

“I had only seen white Australians till then, not even native Aboriginals — and here was an Indian in a langoti in my room!” he exclaims in good humour, sitting in a film producer’s home in suburban Mumbai, wearing a kurta-pajama and a yellow stole.

In the two hour conversation, he only speaks Hindi, a language he learnt in the streets, trains and buses of Bihar where he had arrived at age 13 in December 1974.

He loved his new home on the banks of the Ganga so much that he did not return to Australia for the next 11 years. Accounts of his experiences in India’s rural underbelly in the 1970s-1980s, include encounters with dacoits on horseback on at least two railway journeys.

“I saw real sadhus, I saw real dacoits — and I thought I had reached an amazing place,” says Biharilal with a grin. His life experiences, he says are so unbelievable that he sometimes thinks it is like a film.

It also reveals an India of another time — one that was simpler, wilder, unfamiliar and distant from what it is today.

“India was friendly with the Soviet Union, and I came across Indians who were desperate to emigrate to the USA, Canada or UK — not to the USSR.”

“The other thing that was common was cycles. Only the DM (district magistrate) and SP (superintendent of police) had cars — and in the trains people sometimes travelled with their own cooks!”

After going back to Australia in 1985, he returned to formally work in India in 2011.

India has seen a giant leap ahead since, and he has spent nearly 16 years here, but one question posed to him that hasn’t changed over the years is — “Why did you come to India?”

“This is what I am routinely asked, especially by the youth. They ask ‘Why have you come here when we want to settle abroad?’,” says Biharilal, who applied for Indian citizenship in 2014 and hopes to hold an Indian passport soon.

“The other thing I am amazed with is this craze for English. Even if I speak to those who know Hindi in Hindi, they reply in English!”

“Why?”

His fluency in Hindi has fetched him invites to Hindi events by the Indian high commission in Australia, to symposia at Savitribai Phule Pune university and Delhi’s Hansraj College. He has anchored a few film festivals and done some acting roles.

It has also brought him an FM radio show that he hopes to receive a confirmation for by April.

“In independent India it will be the first time that an angrez will do a radio show in Hindi,” he says enthusiastically.

Not wanting to be boxed into roles of the typical gora speaking tooti-phooti Hindi, he refers to the accomplished actor Tom Alter.

“He is an asli Hindustani, I’m nakli, but because earlier directors made him speak broken Hindi like an angrez, people thought he was English.”

“People didn’t know he was Indian, a Padma Shri, who spoke fluent Hindi and Urdu.”

Biharilal works at Josh Talks, a media company that invites guests to share inspirational stories. His focus is on all regional languages and tier-2 cities.

He has also done a few acting roles in Hindi and Marathi television serials, and recently appeared in an airline commercial for Scoot, a budget airline owned by Singapore Airlines.

There are quirky benefits to a white man speaking Hindi too — like the number of wedding invitations he receives. Many wedding organisers in the Delhi area send him invitations only to have a foreigner on display!

“I get so many invitations for chief guest. In the marriage season, I’ll be booked,” he laughs.

“People want a gora who speaks Hindi to show at their weddings.”

The move from Australia to India may have been a continental shift, but for Charles ‘Biharilal’ Thompson, it was like coming home.

It was a life introduced to him by his mother, a ballerina and an early convert to yoga, who came to learn at the Bihar School of Yoga in Munger in 1972.

“At that time only 1% of the world travelled by aeroplane,” says Biharilal, who is often recognised as ‘Biharilal Autowale Babu’ after a show on Zee TV where he covered the 2017 Delhi municipal election in a colourful autorickshaw.

He also covered the UP assembly election last year for WION, Zee’s English news channel.

“We used to fly to the Gold Coast to visit my grandparents every year. I made my father promise that he would send me to India instead, if I stood 1st or 2nd in school.”

He stood 2nd and travelled to Calcutta, he says, taking a train to Jamalpur and then a bus to Munger.

“I was shocked to see the poverty in Calcutta, but hearing ‘garam chai‘ by tea vendors in the train was like music,” he remembers.

Eight weeks later, his father returned to take him home.

“I told him I wanted to stay for one more year,” he says over a cup of tea.

“But I stayed for 11.”

blob:https://ishare.rediff.com/d8239350-f845-46f6-86e1-762bd67d53b5

He has now spent 16 years in India — first at the Bihar School of Yoga in Munger, then working in a financial tech start up Eko India, and currently in the entertainment industry.

At the famed yoga school in Munger, he says he learnt yoga and managed the library. He helped in the institute’s office work which would take him to Patna and Delhi.

It was on one these travels that he found himself in the middle of a dacoity.

He had bought a third class ticket and boarded a train from Jamalpur to Patna in Bihar. The TT saw his ticket and upgraded him to first class. Along the way, dacoits came riding alongside the train, detached the first class compartment and started looting passengers.

When they reached his coupe, he held out his hands, and said, “Ruko, ruko! (stop, stop!)”

The dacoits stopped.

“I was a young boy and did not know very good Hindi at that time, so I just managed to ask a dacoit if he had any videshifriend?”

The dacoit said ‘No’ and Biharilal told him that he would be his friend.

“He smiled and did not take anything from me.”

Caught in another dacoity on a railway platform — this time on a dark railway platform surrounded by crop fields — his saffron clothes came to his rescue.

“When they came to me, I just sprang up and started chanting Bum, Bum Bole-Bum, Bum Bole and they said, ‘Yeh toh Ganga jal wala aadmi hai‘ and let me go,” he chuckles.

India was very different then, he says. Yoga institutes were very austere and drew only the most committed.

He remembers the first function he organised which had a generator as backup for electricity failure. When the lights went off and the generator was switched on — the crowd left the sammelan and rushed to get a first glimpse of a generator at the back.

At fifty-seven, Biharilal has seen the arc of India’s history from Indira Gandhi’s Emergency to her assassination to the post liberalisation. He has travelled widely, even taken his mother to the Kumbh Mela.

In between, he returned to Australia and ran a Thai vegetarian restaurant but kept coming back to India.

“I started coming back in the late 80s, but visas were very difficult. Till the Modi Sarkar came, getting a visa to India was not easy. Sushma Swaraj is doing a good job,” he says.

In 2009, a startup started by Biharis, Eko India, offered him a job and he moved to India.

But it was a chance encounter with an Indian student at a Sydney swimming pool that opened the door to acting.

Shashank Ketkar, now a popular television actor, had got talking to him by the pool hearing his Hindi and came to eat at his Thai restaurant.

Few years later, Biharilal would visit him on the sets of his show whenever he was in Mumbai. His kurta-pajama style of dressing and fluency in Hindi caught the eyes of the director and led to small roles. He also got to play an angrez in a Marathi film Shashank Ketkar was acting in.

“I went to Kohlapur and shot a scene where I was seated on a horse in 40 degrees heat. I loved it. I thought I had become Shah Rukh Khan!”

He has also acted in a Hindi suspense thriller that will release this year.

Every day, he receives a large number of messages on Facebook and makes it a point to at least say ‘Ram, Ram’ or ‘Namaste’ to them.

“I feel the whole of Hindustan is made for me. Yeh kamal ka desh hai, yaha aapko sab kuch mil jayega (this is a great country, there is nothing you can’t find here),” he says, adjusting the famous Australian Akubra hat he is wearing and steps into the hot Mumbai sun.

Archana Masih / Rediff.com

Source…..www.rediff.com

Natarajan

A Tribute to a Genius – Stephen Hawking…

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Stephen Hawking, the world-renowned theoretical physicist and cosmologist, has passed away at the age of 76, leaving a scientific legacy behind him that will undoubtedly be remembered for many centuries to come.

Stephen Hawking

Hawking was born on January 8th, 1942 in Oxford, the United Kingdom to two Oxford University graduates, Frank and Isobel. He had two younger sisters, Philippa and Mary, as well as an adopted brother named Edward.

The family moved to St. Alban’s, Hertfordshire, where they were considered to be both highly intelligent and somewhat eccentric by the locals. They lived frugally in a large, messy house and got around in a converted London taxi cab.

Following his primary and secondary school education, Hawking began his university education as an undergraduate at University College, Oxford in 1959. He was just 17 years old. Although the world only pictures him as a man confined to a wheelchair due to debilitating motor neuron disease that he was diagnosed with aged just 22, Hawking actually gained a reputation as being something of a daredevil during his university years.

He was the coxswain of a rowing crew at the University College Boat Club, and became notorious for steering his crew on risky courses, inevitably leading to a string of damaged rowing boats. He left University College with a Bachelor of Arts in natural science in 1962 prior to starting to work on his doctorate.

Stephen Hawking

His diagnosis with a rare form of motor neuron disease occurred at that time, and it led to him becoming deeply depressed. Nevertheless, he was encouraged to continue his studies by his supervisor, Dennis William Sciama, and was eventually able to demonstrate that Einstein’s general theory of relativity implies space and time would have a beginning in the Big Bang and end in black holes.

During his graduate years at Cambridge, Hawking fell in love with his first wife, Jane Wilde, with whom he had three children. The marriage would end some 30 years later after the marriage succumbed to the pressures of Hawking’s fame, ideological differences and the difficulties surrounding caring for him in light of his disability.

Despite beginning to use crutches in the early 1960s, he long fought off having to use a wheelchair, but when he finally couldn’t do so any longer, he gained notoriety for wild driving on the streets of Cambridge. He also used to run over students’ toes intentionally and would even spin himself on the dancefloor at college parties.

Together with Roger Penrose, Hawking had his first major breakthrough in 1970. They were able to use mathematics to show that a singularity, a region of infinite curvature in space-time, was the point from which the big bang emanated.

Stephen Hawking

After he realized that he was wrong in his argument about black holes being able to radiate, Hawking was in a Cambridge pub with his students when he suddenly turned up his voice synthesizer to full volume and bellowed that he was conceding defeat. Anyone who studied under his tuition or knew him personally knew him for his wicked sense of humor.

Hawking was elected to the Royal Society in 1974 aged just 32 after the series of radical discoveries he made during his early career, and would become the Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge. The latter is often thought as the UK’s most distinguished academic chair and was once held by Isaac Newton.

His 1988 book, A Brief History of Time, catapulted Hawking to international stardom. It sold over 10 million copies and was translated into no less than 40 different languages. It was around that time that his marriage would begin to break down, but he would go on to remarry in the mid-1990s.

During his lifetime, he won the Albert Einstein Award, the Wolf Prize, the Copley Medal and the Fundamental Physics Prize, however, the Nobel Prize for Physics eluded him. He also returned to the White House (he had also visited during the Clinton administration) to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama.

Stephen Hawking

His life has also been immortalized on screen, not least thanks to the multiple award-winning movie, the Theory of Everything. He also lent his voice and know-how to various documentaries over the years.

Perhaps it’s not surprising to know that Hawking was not a religious man, and dismissed the comforts of religious belief. With that being said, he had once told an interviewee that he wasn’t afraid of death, but he added that he wasn’t in any hurry to die due to how much work he had left to do. The great cosmologist is survived by his three children from his first marriage, together with his three grandchildren.

Watch Stephen Hawking being interviewed by Charlie Rose:

Source……..www.ba-ba mail.com

natarajan

Her Small Act Of Kindness Went Viral. Now, She Has A College Scholarship…!

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Her Small Act Of Kindness Went Viral. Now, She Has A College Scholarship

A young restaurant worker in Texas who spent the past year saving up for college is now one step closer to her dream – all thanks to a small act of kindness she performed. Evoni Williams, 18, went viral earlier this month for helping an elderly customer at the Waffle House Texas eat his food. A picture of Evoni, an employee of the Waffle House, cutting up food for a customer who was unable to do so himself, was clicked by another customer and shared on Facebook. The picture went viral with thousands of shares and even earned Evoni a scholarship to the Texas Southern University.

The incident took place on March 3 at La Marque in Texas, USA, when Adrian Charpentier came into the restaurant. He had recently undergone surgery, which made it difficult for him to cut his food, reports the Daily Mail. Evoni cut up his food for him, and her small act of kindness was captured on camera:

I don’t know her name but I heard this elderly man tell her his hands don’t work too good. He was also on oxygen and struggling to breathe. 😔 Without hesitation, she took his plate and began cutting up his ham. This may seem small but to him, I’m sure it was huge. I’m thankful to have seen this act of kindness and caring at the start of my day while everything in this world seems so negative. If we could all be like this waitress & take time to offer a helping hand….🤝 #wafflehouse#kindness #givingback #offerlove #bekind #goodnews 

As the post gained attention, praise started pouring in for the teenager. “She’s an angel,” wrote one person. “That was very kind and sweet,” said another.

It eventually caught the eye of Texas Southern University, and they decided to present Evoni with a $16,000 scholarship. “Her act of kindness went viral on social media, and today Texas Southern University returned that act of kindness by surprising Evoni Williams with a scholarship,” they said.

Not only this, she was also honoured by the mayor of La Marque, Bobby Hocking.

It just came from the heart,” Evoni said to ABC 7 about her now-famous act.

Source….www.ndtv.com

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The little girl from Mahabalipuram who is taking Indian skateboarding scene by storm…

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Eight-year-old Kamali Moorthy, a child prodigy, is the only girl skateboarder and surfer in her hamlet in Tamil Nadu.

 

It was 3pm on a Friday. The air was hot and salty, and Fisherman Colony, a seaside village near Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu, was baking in the afternoon sun. Seemingly oblivious to the heat, a few children are skateboarding on a quirky new skating ramp set up in the street. Among them was an arresting sight – a small girl effortlessly navigating the concrete slopes of the ramp, setting herself apart from the rest.

With her short hair tied up and two front teeth still taking shape, 8-year-old Kamali Moorthy grins as she drops into the ramp from the granite coping and rolls down the slopes, as if she was born to do so. And this is indeed the common belief among many people, from tourists to the fisher folk, who adore Kamali, the only girl skateboarder and surfer in the hamlet.

“Was she born with a skateboard?” asks Steffano Beccari, an Italian sculptor as he watches Kamali on the ramp.

“Right? she makes it look so easy,” responds Aine Edwards, Kamali’s mentor and an Irish entrepreneur residing in Mahabalipuram.

For the skateboarding community in India, Kamali is a child prodigy. She is not a professional skateboarder yet, but she is already a part of the circuit and goes on tours with other skateboarders. How did this young girl from a fishing hamlet in coastal TN become the next big thing in Indian skateboarding?

Destined to meet

“Kamali was only 3 years old when she started skating on a slope built by Holystoked collective, which builds skating ramps free of cost across India,” Aine says, “Mahabs has always been a surfer’s town, and skateboarding is concrete surfing, so it goes hand-in-hand here.”

Velu, a well-known surfer and Kamali’s uncle’s friend taught her and her little brother, Harish, how to balance themselves on a skate board, she says. “He even gifted them two boards. Ever since those baby steps, Kamali has been on a roll, quite literally, teaching herself new tricks every day and skating to her heart’s content.”

However, it was when world-renowned skater Jamie Thomas visited Mahabs as part of a brand promotion event few years ago, that Kamali got her first big break.

“I was down the end of the street and one of my friends mentioned that there was a pro skate-boarder in town. Just then, Kamali came out in a white dress with a skate board in her hand and Jamie Thomas was by the beach. I went and asked him if I can introduce him to a little girl. The rest is history,” says Aine, adding that they were destined to meet.

For Aine, it was just surreal to watch Jamie and Kamali skateboard together.

“What was merely a chance encounter lasted 3 to 4 hours. Jamie changed all his plans and taught her new tricks,” Aine says, “And just like that, he took Kamali’s skills up by a few notches. It was magic.”

“I learned a lot of new tricks from Jamie which I have been practicing. He taught me to drop in from the big one (taller part of the ramp) and to skate through steeper slopes. Then he taught me this cool trick called rock to fakie which I’m not sure how to explain” Kamali chips in with excitement. A talkative child, who is not shy to speak up, Kamali has more than just the sporting talent, she has confidence.

Jamie even sent Kamali a skateboard, on which she has been practicing ever since. Every day, she takes her board and goes to the ramp opposite to her house to hone her skills. However, Kamali’s potential, Aine explains, is not limited to the ramps in her village.

“Last year, we took a bunch of kids, including Kamali, to Mangaluru where Holystoked set up a skate park. She skated non-stop. She dropped in from the top of the ramp which is twice as tall as the ramp she was used to back home. After she got back, she was dejected as she had to go back to the smaller ramp. It was like giving a kid a big candy and taking it back,” laughs Aine.

Skateboarder in the surfers’ family

Aine and Kamali were introduced to each other through a surfer friend who stayed in a homestay atop Kamali’s house. Kamali’s chirpy presence instantly drew everyone to her, and Aine too was charmed the moment they met.

“She was quite a character even then. A lot of fun to hang out with. We soon started going to the ocean to surf and she gradually picked up the art of riding the waves,” Aine recollects.

Unlike the other girls in the town, Kamali was born into a family of surfers and hence it came naturally to her, Aine explains.

“Surfing is in her blood. Kamali only started skating regularly during her school summer holidays, as there was no one to take her surfing. Now she can catch green waves and go sideways on her own, which is quite impressive,” says Aine.

“She has two skateboards and there’s a skating park conveniently located opposite to our house. She has been skateboarding almost every day since she was three. I sometimes think she uses her board more than her feet,” Kamali’s mother Suganthi says.

 

With the surf season beginning in March, Aine says that Kamali is excited to hit the waves again.

Skateboarding into the future

Living with her single mum, Suganthi, and grandparents, Kamali and her four-year-old brother Harish are the first-generation English medium school goers. So, they have to strike a balance between their formal education and sport. But with growing popularity, a lot of the residents around Mahabs want to send their kids to skate. And many of them even ask if Kamali can teach their children, explains Aine.

“The teachers in her school are very encouraging. Some of them wanted to get Kamali to teach skating to her classmates as part of the school’s extra-curricular activity,” says Aine.

“All said, this is still a conventional fishing village and the girls are brought up pretty traditionally. Many in this village don’t understand this culture of skating and surfing. For them it is something that has infiltrated from the West and they wonder what all the fuss is about?” says Aine.

Despite these challenges, Kamali, Harish and several other skater kids aim to shatter stereotypes and become mainstream skateboarders.

Aine and other surfing enthusiasts in Mahabs want to promote the sport in and around the village by setting up more and better ramps in the future. However, when asked about promoting skating through competitions, she remains sceptical, “She is too young to compete professionally. But besides this, skating much like surfing, is a soul sport. Although there are quite a few surfing contests, you do it not as a competition but for the love of the sport.”

Source ::::: Sreedevi Jayarajan in http://www.thenewsminute.com

natarajan

 

 

 

Say it with a Post Card ….” Post Crossing ” is the way !

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‘Postcrossing’ members meet in Metro rail

At a time when social media networks have taken over communication, a few people still find charm in sending postcards.

What’s fascinating is that they send the postcards to strangers in some corner of the world and receive one from some other corner. The idea of ‘Postcrossing’ is to exchange postcards to anyone in the world through the website http://www.postcrossing.com where the addresses of registered members are available.

On Sunday, the ‘Postcrossing community’ in Chennai held its meeting in the Chennai Metro Rail. They boarded at Nehru Park and alighted at the airport for a discussion.

G. Prakashraj, a 21-year-old engineering student of Anna University recollects how he chanced upon the initiative. “I found the website and started off in a small way. We meet at least twice or thrice a year. For a change, we decided to meet in the Metro today,” he said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Have you ever received a postcard from an underwater post office? I have. That’s how exciting it can get,” he says, recollecting about the postcard he got from Vanuatu, an island nation located 1,000 miles east of northern Australia.

Arun Kumar Narasimhan, a member of the group, says he was fascinated to get a postcard on steam engines all the way from Finland. “This encourages people of all ages to continue writing letters and sending postcards in this digital age.” It also brings in new friends. Recently, the Chennai group met its Mumbai counterpart.

Mr. Prakashraj is planning to visit Bhutan with his postcrossing friend. “That’s what life is all about. Meeting new people and gaining new experiences,” he says.

Source…..www. the hindu.com

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” Despite everything …this too will pass …”

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One day, King Solomon, the wisest man in the world, wanted to test the integrity and wisdom of his faithful servant. The King summoned his servant and asked him to carry out a task, knowing that it could not be completed. King Solomon said: “The Feast of Tabernacles is in 6 months, and I would like to wear a magic ring for the holiday. Any person who is sad and looks at the ring will become happy and any happy person who looks at the ring will become sad.”

The faithful servant immediately went on the journey in the search of the mysterious ring. A month passed, two months passed, and the servant, who visited every jeweler and peddler in the kingdom, remained without the ring. Two more months passed, and the servant reached the limits of the kingdom, but he had yet to find anyone who had heard of such a magical ring.

Over time, the faithful servant became frustrated. With all his might he wanted to fulfill his master’s wish, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not find the mysterious ring. He was depressed and almost gave up, until one day before the Feast of Tabernacles, he arrived at the small workshop of a poor jeweler in a small village.

The servant, who had nothing to lose, asked the old silversmith: “Tell me, sir, have you ever heard of a magical ring that causes the sad to become happy and the happy to become sad?” The old silversmith thought for a second, took out a small copper ring from one of the drawers, scratched it and handed it to the servant. The servant, who for the past few months had lost all hope, gave one glance at the inscription on the ring, and his eyes lit up. He thanked the silversmith, paid him a bag of gold coins, and hurried to the king’s palace.

When the servant finally arrived at the King’s Palace, Solomon was very happy and rejoiced. He did not believe that his servant would really come back to him with a ring. The servant handed the ring to his master, the wise king gave it one look and the smile immediately disappeared from his face. All the courtiers were curious to see what was written on the magical ring, and finally, when they looked at it, they saw the following simple sentence:
“Despite everything, this too will pass” 
This simple sentence contains a truth that we must cherish in our hearts – even if it feels like everything is going great and were on top of the world, we must remember that all this might disappear one day. On the other hand, and this is the happy side of the rule, all the suffering, all the frustration, all the difficult times we sometimes experience, these too will pass and be forgotten.
Source….www.ba-bamail.com
Natarajan

‘Literally’ Tops List for Most Hated Phrases…” Top 10 Most irritating Phrases !!!

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How often do you notice yourself saying the word ‘literally’? Well according to the Daily Telegraph readers, this word literally tops the list of phrases and sayings that cause annoyance among readers.

In fact, according to a response of 700 Daily Telegraph readers in an online poll, the words ‘basically’, ‘a safe pair of hands’ and ‘I’m gutted’ were preferred over the word ‘literally’. Of course, overused words like ‘basically’ and ‘upcoming’ made the list, as did the grammatically incorrect use of ‘shouldn’t of’ instead of ‘shouldn’t have’.

The readers were asked to respond to a top 10 of irritating expressions which have been compiled by researchers at Oxford University. Expressions which topped the University list included ‘at the end of the day’, which was followed in second place by the phrase ‘fairly unique’.

The statement, ‘I personally’ made third place. Phrases which made the list are highlighted in a new book which looks into jargon, poor grammar and meaningless expressions which are often found in modern speech. The book is known as ‘Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare’.

The list was compiled by researchers using the Oxford University Corpus database, which alerts them to new words and phrases by monitoring books, papers, magazines, television, and the internet. The database tells which words are being misused and it also identified expressions which are disappearing.

The author of the book Jeremy Butterfield, also a lexicographer, said that many over-used expressions are considered to be annoying. They actually started off as office lingo – such as 24/7 and synergy. He also said: ‘we grow tired of anything that is repeated too often – an anecdote, a joke, a mannerism – and the same seems to happen with some language.’ During the survey, Daily Telegraph readers responded in the hundreds to express which words annoyed them.

Below is the Oxford University’s top ten most irritating phrases:  

1. At the end of the day

Usually used before we say what we believe to be an important fact of a situation we are describing. In conclusion and when all is said and done have the same meaning.

2. Fairly unique

Here’s a classic example of an oxymoron – two words which seem to have an opposite meaning. Grammatically, this is incorrect. An object can either be unique, or not, but it cannot be fairly unique.

3. I personally

I and personally have the same meaning, after all, I is personal so there is no need to use the two together.

4. At this moment in time

Simply put, this expression means now or at the moment. This expression is used too much and is overblown.

5. With all due respect

This expression is used before something impolite is said, or before we disagree. Most people seem to dislike this phase because it makes it OK to be rude to someone when we use this expression first.

6. Absolutely

This adverb means very or completely. But most people tend to find it absolutely annoying when it is used to mean yes or I agree.

7. It’s a nightmare

This idiom means a very bad experience. But it is felt that people use this expression too much in spoken English.

8. Shouldn’t of

This expression is used to express regret about something we have, or haven’t done. It is also used to criticize the action of others. However, in the way that it is used here it is not good English. The correct expression is shouldn’t have.

9. 24/7

This expression is used to refer to something that never stops. It is considered to be annoying because it is office jargon, not always true and the word always is deemed to be a better replacement for 24/7.

10. It’s not rocket science

This expression meaning it’s not difficult is disliked because it’s a cliché.

Source….www.ba-ba mail.com

Natarajan

Is the car in space giving the man on Earth any benefit? Mathrubootham wants to know…!!!

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I fail to understand. How did doing stupid things like this become some kind of achievement of all mankind?

Respected Sir/ Madam,

Many years ago I was invited for a wedding in New Delhi. As soon as invitation card came itself Mrs. Mathrubootham began jumping up and down like Nadia Comăneci. Stupid woman, you drank my Old Spice or what, I said. We go to one thousand weddings every year, what you are acting as if first time we are going for function.

Of course sir/ madam, you know what she said immediately. Exactly. You shut up, old man. First of all it is in Delhi. Which means there will be some change from the usual functions like appalam breaking, Kashi going, turmeric application etcetera. Some music and mono-act will be there. And second of all for the first time somebody rich is inviting us for a posh wedding. What and all will take place who knows. If you want you sit quietly in one corner Mr. Mathrubotham, let me enjoy, she said.

Ok fine Kamalam, but if dancing is there only solo and group dance allowed. Duet dance totally prohibited, have some shame you have grandchildren who are about to start Brilliant Tutorials.

The wedding invitation was from one old neighbour when we used to live in our old flat in Chromepet. In those days he used to have one small electrical shop with bulb and ceiling fans and mixie items. And then he went to Delhi and just five years later became multi-millionaire industrial magnate. Am I jealous? Never, not even one second.

Whether he can sleep peacefully at night after doing all criminal activities and black market and tax chicanery? Never never thousand times never. As for myself I sleep with 100% peace of mind of honest citizen. Once I got on a Coimbatore bus and woke up in Palakkad Bus Depot because of too much peaceful sleep. This is why I am always suspicious of people who wake up exactly on time in the morning. Something is fishy.

Sir/ madam I am telling you this story about posh Delhi wedding because of what happened earlier today. After having breakfast, I proceeded to the living room to relax with a Robert Ludlum novel and a cup of tea. Suddenly my son came into the room and peace of mind went out of the room at the same time. Appa have you seen the news? I said my dear son due to the blessings of many generations of god-fearing ancestors in the Mathrubootham family so far today I have not had the misfortune of watching any TV news channel. Immediately the unemployed scoundrel switched on the TV and said look appa what do you see on the TV?

It looks like a car. Ok, very good, but where is the car? I looked at the TV carefully. I don’t know, I said, but why is a statue driving the car? He said appa, the car is in space, one robot is sitting in the driver seat, it is historic achievement by some American millionaire.

Sir/ madam, excuse me just one second but I fail to understand. How did doing stupid things like this become some kind of achievement of all mankind? Some rich fellow somewhere will spend money in some stupid way and people all around the world are celebrating as if he has discovered zero-calorie rose milk recipe. Car is going around Mars it seems. Please tell me if it is doing even a single millimetre of benefit to a single person on this earth?

Immediately I was reminded of wedding in Delhi. After two or three days of non-stop breakfast and lunch and dinner, on the final day we went to one stadium type place for reception. After some time I asked Mrs. Mathrubootham, hello where is bride and groom, I want to quickly give blessings and go back to hotel. She made some enquiries and came back. Mr. Mathrubootham, she said, are you ready for the greatest excitement? Bride and groom are arriving in a helicopter in one hour. Isn’t it amazing?

I said why is it amazing? Anybody can hire a helicopter. What is there? She said, old man, for you nothing is exciting, at least these people have some imagination. What nonsense, I said. For real achievement maybe bride and groom should run 10 kilometre and come to the reception. Or give free food to 1000 poor people. That is achievement.

Sir/madam, when did spending money like an idiot become some Guinness Book of World Records type achievement? Am I jealous of all these rich people? No chance. To be frank I am jealous of only one thing, the robot in the car. He is enjoying himself far away from all these fools. Lucky chap.

Yours in exasperation,

J. Mathrubootham

Source….www.thehindu.com

Natarajan