It is a universal truth that burning of coal is one of the major causes of global warming, acid rain and other toxins in the air. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, about 3,700,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) is released into the atmosphere - by a typical coal plant in an year. It may sound oxymoronic if one talks about using coal and going green. Well, why not? Carbon Capture and Storage, or CCS in short, seems to be the technological answer to this oxymoron!? The US 2008 elections are red hot right now, and many who’ve voted for Obama or McCain are keeping their fingers crossed.

If there is one game that people all over the world knows that India plays, it should be ‘Cricket’. Though being a British game, circket and India are synonymous - many, over here, eat and sleep cricket. In my office, I can see most of my colleagues glued to their laptops and desktops, constantly refreshing (inspite of having ‘auto-refresh’ feature) the Rediff cricket live score page. You go to a tea shop, there you see an old FM radio connected to obscenely big speakers playing cricket commentary. Even if the tea shop owner doesn’t like cricket, he urged to tune into cricket news - customers’ popular demand. When I opened today’s newspaper, the headlines screamed “Anand is World Champion”..

As a mark of success on its maiden attempt in the exploration of the romantic and intriguing Moon globe, Indian scientists at ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) have placed the Moon spacecraft into the Transfer Orbit around the earth. Powered by the indigenously designed and built Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C11), the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft carried 11 payloads - three from the European Space Agency (ESA), one from Bulgaria, two from NASA, and five designed and built in India. So far, so good! Good job ISRO!! The scientists of ISRO have achieved something great, under challenging circumstances. How did you feel today when you opened the morning newspaper and saw..

Well, this can be considered more of a rant (or a rant-laundry-list) than a creative post..but I believe many fellowmen concerned about the future of this country would second my thoughts..

1. Government servants - Respect your office and portfolio, allow your subordinates to do their duty and keep a check on them. Money isn’t everything, think about your future generations.
2. Revise the pay package for the people in secret services and the police.
3. Stricter laws against corruption - corruption may not be eradicated, nevertheless, can be made to stay at the top-most levels. Corruption starting from the bottom-most levels up to the top is not a..

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguisable from magic” - Arthur C. Clarke. True, isn’t it? I’ve always marvelled at technologies such as the television (TV), computers, cellular phones, portable music gadgets, CD, DVD, Blue-ray, and so on, the list is endless. But never have I wondered about what happens to them, or where they go, when they become kaputt and obsolete. I came across a scientific journal on e-waste where it was mentioned that more than 45 million tonnes of electronic gadgets are discarded worldwide, well, eventually piling…

There are quite a few in my office who own diesel-powered cars and the street price of these cars are close to nine lakh rupees! It’s sad to realize the fact that they will be paying lesser than most of those unfortunate middle-class people who yearned to own a car, putting a major portion of their savings on a good small petrol car. This is the kind of discrepancy that arises in a society that is neither entirely capitalist nor communist. The capitalist oil companies would want the government to…

From my vast experience of my encounters with dogs and traffic policemen, I never look at their eyes, and if I did, I’ve invited trouble already. One vague stare at a rabies stricken dog, it starts barking and comes running at you. It actually pains me to draw an analogy here, but…

In India, especially southern India, we’ve more than 320 days of bright sunlight, and most of the solar-driven appliances do not need direct sunlight…

When I was in Bengaluru, on my way to the International Technology Park (ITPL), I kept cursing the government for not laying proper roads and improving the infrastructure. It was all dust, smoke and pollution around the aesthetically designed ITPL buildings. Bad roads are not restricted to areas in and around ITPL, but also around most of the other IT parks.

“The Tamil Nadu government has decided to declare the first day of the Tamil month Thai as the Tamil New Year Day, Governor S S Barnala announced in the state assembly on Wednesday.” - rediff.com
Well, of all the critical issues Tamilnadu is facing, shifting the tamil new year day from April 14th to the Pongal day is the top priority to the present government. To many people like me, we lose one holiday on April 14, and there won’t be any shoppers delight/discounts for the erstwhile Tamil new year!

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