Saturday, April 29, 2006

Half Way Through & Homicidal

Who would think that a normal, sane & a mostly peaceful kinda guy would be driven to dream of killing ?
Ah yes !! All your hands go up. All you guys are writing or have written your semester exams. I see the connection. Those horribly vague papers would turn a "chicken" of a guy violent. But who cares, in the end we all need a B.Tech & I see no one doing anything about it. Enough of cribbing I say, my blogs have always been good-humoured & will remain so.
I'm halfway through my exams & pretty much its a li'l more relaxing from now since I have 2 or 3 days gap between two exams. On this day which marks "Hairstylist Day" I was considering a shave, but then it is an idiosyncracy or more like a ritual during the exams to have a rugged look (not because the girls like it,mind you) because I'm portraying "Hmph ! I don't have time to shave also".
Hey,have you heard of that poor Tam girl Kaavya Viswanathan? I know what she did was wrong but can't the US Justice Dept. excuse her, even the affected party Ms. Megan McCafferty did not press any charges. Obviously you all must've understood why I support her cause... She's absolutely gorgeous & she's 19. *Drooling*
By the way, exams can be a very entertaining exercise at times. Here's a small excerpt from a viva session that we had :
External Examiner(EE): What are rectifiers ?
Student: **gives wrong answer**
EE:What is rectification ?
S:**again...wrong answer**
This goes on for around 5 minutes.
EE: From where did you study ?
S: HPS,Begumpet
EE: **Bangs her head**,From where did you study ?
S: HPS,Begumpet ma'am...near the airport
EE:**bursts out laughing** I meant which book baabu ?
S: eerrr..ummm
Whole Lab: hahahaha ...
Me(Just leaving the lab):ROTFL
This is what someone wrote in the answer sheet of an Electronics Paper which we all agree was a little too lengthy.
Q1: *Answered well*
Q2: *Answered badly*
Q3:*Answered half correct*
Q4:*Didn't have time to finish*
Composition: Why you shouldn't fail me in this exam ?
1.I have 76% in my first year
2.I have 70% in 2-1.
3.I never failed in any subject.
4.I have 80+ attendence percentage.
5.I have taken part in many extra curricular activities.
6.I heard once a person fails in EDC, it is difficult to pass.
7.I lost my lucky pen on the way to college.
8.A cat crossed my path just as I was leaving home.
9.I did not have breakfast before writing the exam.
10.I did my EDC lab exam very well.
Well if this guy clears his exam,I'm gonna follow his path lotsa times in the future. But I shouldnt be making fun of this , coz honestly I didn't write my paper too well either & I hope I don't flunk or anything.
Damn ! I have scared myself now. Touchwood .. Touchwood. God save me.
I'd better go study for Metallurgy now.

Monday, April 17, 2006

Damn the Dam


First, Lets lay out the cards on the table -
1. The Sardar Sarovar Dam is the biggest among the billion dollar projects being constructed as a part of the Narmada Valley developmeny project.
2. The height of the dam is stated to be 122 metres.
3. If this dam were constructed,it would leave approximately 35,000 families homeless.
Now let the games begin -
How will this project benefit Gujarat ?
Cities, rich farmers, industry, politically powerful lobbies, not the people from drought prone areas. Before the water can reach Kachchh and Saurashtra, it will have to negotiate-literally-the water-intensive cash-crop growing, politically powerful districts of Vadodara, Kheda, Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Mehsana. Against their own directives, the authorities have allotted Vadodara city a sizeable quantity of water. Whats the whole hullabaloo about the height ?
The amount of potential energy in water is directly proportional to the height, thus a height of 122 metres means a huge amount of hydroelectric power which can be harnessed by Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh etc. It will also provide for displacement of water to greater distances thus way making water accesible to the draught hit areas. All this is in theory.
Nice, but why is Medha Patkar against this ?
Medha Patkar who is ageing & ailing is spearheading the NARMADA BACHAO ANDOLAN, a campaign to protect thousands of poor farmers displaced or threatened by the dam. Here are the stats :
- 950 Adivasi families displaced in order to construct a Project colony at Kevadia
- 23,500 families who lose their lands to the Narmada canal
- 8,000 Adivasi families (from 104 villages), to be displaced from the Shoolpaneshwar Sanctuary, created to "mitigate" the submergence of 13,000 hectares of forest land
- Families who are being displaced by 'compensatory afforestation' and 'catchment area treatment' schemes. Their numbers have not even been officially estimated
- 10,000 fisher families who live downstream of the Dam whose livelihoods will be destroyed when the project is completed.
What the Supreme Court have to say about all this ?
The Supreme Court warned state authorities on Monday that it would stop work on increasing the height of a controversial dam if they did not properly rehabilitate people displaced by the project.

Friday, April 14, 2006

Mourning the star, leaving a scar


Disturbing scenes on the roads of Bangalore. The death of Kannada Superstar Rajkumar( yeah the same guy who was kidnapped by Veerappan in 2000) has caused the whole state of Karnataka to go into mourning. A man known for great performances during his lifetime, Rajkumar affectionately called "Annavaru" was 77 when he passed away due to cardiac arrest.
But this was in the news for the wrong reasons. Under the excuse of mourning some anti-social elements took to the streets & created havoc in the Garden city. Mobs torched buses, attacked company offices and stoned police on the streets of India’s technology hub on Thursday ahead of the funeral, which was held at the Kanteerava Stadium. This caused so much panic in the city that bigwigs like Wipro,Dell & Infosys shut shop alongside schools & markets. On the other hand people like my mother who was witnessing this on TV, immediately latched on to the phones enquiring as to whether their kin were safe.
It is a known fact that in a country like ours people who are famous are almost treated as demigods. Everyone from cricket players to actors are held in high regard , not to mention the fact that some of these people even have temples to their names. The relationship between every celebrity & their admirer is only pleasant until a certain line is drawn. We have heard of innumerable cases where people have stalked their favourite stars, attacked their homes or in simple terms made their lives miserable. This sort of fanaticism is dangerous & I for one denounce this hideous unsocial episode in Bangalore.

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Being politically correct

What is the matter is with these politicians ?? I was just going into the bathroom to brush my teeth & suddenly my wandering eyes happened to fall on a piece of news that was at best "alarming". This is how it went in big block letters OBC'S TO GET 49.5 % RESERVATIONS IN IITs & IIMs. As far as my memory serves me, didn't these guys already have 25-27 % reservation in some 20 odd universities.
I have nothing against people from backward classes and am no racist. But this whole incident has made me sit down & think. By this millions of deserving students might miss out on valuable seats in these institutions. As far as I'm concerned this is just a move to gain political mileage by the ministry. I have personally experienced this two years ago during my EAMCET, when a friend of mine with a humongous 5-digit rank ended up doin civil engg in Osmania University and well all of you know where I ended up... MGIT. But no regrets... LIFE IS GOOD. Getting back to the point the whole move of giving these backward caste guys a small reservation is a good idea, since many of them may not have the adequate finances to go about their studies. But a whopping 49.5 % scares the living daylights out of me. This might turn out to be a big blow to all big institutes since now the quality of their output will definitely be lower since the quality of the input due to this reservation will be lower.
A solution I propose for this is that the Govt. should make some kinda law in which the students with lesser financial resources would be given reservation coz not all these guys from backward castes are poor & not all forward caste people are rich. So I think there should some sort of assessment of assets of the candidate & according to that they should be given reservation,privileges etc.
Concluding by saying that equality in society cannot be achieved by providing the less-privileged with golden spoons & the well- to- do with steel spoons.

Monday, April 03, 2006

Busy,Scared & Hopeful


I hope the title suggests the state of mind I'm in. I've been busy with so many things this whole semester that I haven't realised it passing me. Got lots of record work to catch up on. Have to prepare for my 2-2 exams which starts April 25. Please pray for me guys !! Will blog a lot more after my exams. PS: For NIRVANA pics contact me :)