India launches RISAT-2

Sriharikota became witness to another milestone achieved by ISRO as the PSLV-C12 rocket, continuing with its precise and on-the-dot performance, launched the RISAT-2 and ANUSAT satellites into orbit.

It is known that Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT-2) will help in monitoring the nation’s borders on a round-the-clock basis, irrespective of day, night, rough weather conditions including cloud cover conditions. The capacity of imaging under cloud cover conditions is the first of a kind in Indian satellites.

The micro educational ANUSAT is supposed to help in monitoring the land conditions and other educational aspects. This is the first satellite built in-house by an Indian University.

How this news makes me happy is that we have one more set of eyes at our borders, one more guard for watching our borders – hopefully all of them, simultaneously – thereby assisting our armed forces. We have a helping hand. Not sure if the government would like to make use of it … but I believe it would be of tremendous help to our armed forces. Not to mention or belittle the assistance in education provided by the ANUSAT.

Kudos to the brains at ISRO. May you achieve many more such feats in the year(s) to come and be the country’s scientific guiding light !!!

Prithvi-II successfuly test fired

Another missile successfully test fired, this time it is the surface to surface, nuclear-capable ‘Prithvi-II’ ballistic missile with a range of 350 kms.

Yippeeeee!!!! although i hope that we don’t have to use them…coz we would be following the “no-first-use” policy and using a missile then would mean that we are under attack…. hence, my li’l hope

Well, actually I feel good every time a missile is successfully test fired … not because I am all for war and all … but because this means that we cover one more step towards satisfying our country’s security needs. Achieving complete satisfaction on this front becomes important for us, Indians, more so because we are surrounded by such volatile ( … that is, to say the least ) neighbours. Hence, I believe, ensuring the order of the means to secure the borders of our country is of utmost importance.

So, kudos to the scientists and the armymen for another milestone achieved. Let’s hope that all the tests are successful in the future as well and these missiles are soon inducted into active service.

Manifesto … for what … ???

Just yesterday, I read in the newspaper about the election manifesto of our very own Samajwadi Party (SP). The headline of the newspaper screamed … 

 “SP vows to abolish English, PCs”

This really made me feel very angry. The reason stated for this agenda was that because of the computerisation of things, people were left jobless, as they no longer had to fill in reams and reams of paper for processing an application. Even English was a problem as people had to learn the language coz this was the most widely used language for office work.

I have only one word for this line of thinking: Outrageous.

Highly outrageous.

In today’s world, how can one party even think of thinking on these lines for contesting an election. Coz seriously, I think, this kind of attitude for election-fighting-program is really unbelievable. Are we trying to say that instead of making the entire population literate, we should go and change the system ( not to mention, in this highly competitive world ) so that the work is done in the language which the people understand ???

If such is the case, I believe I would not be wrong in imagining a wide variety of systems offering solutions in … say … any vernacular language spoken even by a single person of this country … coz otherwise, that person would remain jobless … !!!

Doesn’t this kind of reasoning sound outright  insane ? I have no further words to offer on this … I am completely “stupefied” at this.

Coming to the other topic … banning computers … !!!

Has the party even given a remote thought that the country whose general elections you wish to contest (and subsequently win) is known as “The HUB” for providing technology solutions ? Don’t you know that a sizeable chunk of  the creamiest of your population is working for providing technology solutions to your country as well as others ? That now is the time when the whole world is looking at India for growth?

Talking about growth, have the manifesto makers bothered themselves with finding out the statistics that in these turbulent times in the world economy, India is one of the few countries who still offer a positive GDP ? and we wish to continue doing so, if not improve … And if we are to be ruled by such “leaders”, we would be hoping to produce growth by working in languages spoken within the country, and that too without computers … and then people talk about globalisation … !!!

Agreed, that every country has a national language of her own and it is preferred that work be done in that language, whenever and whereever possible, but still … Things should be in accordance with the old adage … “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. Just to draw an analogy, When you want to become Global, start Globalising.

I can’t even imagine what would be the scenario when English and Computers will be banned from here … !!! And if such thinkers become the ones with the power to control the fate of the nation, I seriously wonder how much time is left for us to become slaves again !!!

Truly India Shining … ?!?!?!

I’ll try and set the tone for this post by listing some noteworthy facts here:

• A.R. Rahman, genuinely an Indian, wins 2 oscars for his work in the film Slumdog Millionaire in 2009.
• Vishwanathan Anand retains his world championship title in 2008.
• The National Indian Cricket Team wins the 5-match Sri Lankan series, 4-1.
• Abhinav Bindra wins individual Gold in Men’s 10m Air Rifle Shooting in Olympics, Beijing 2008.
• Vijender Kumar and Sushil Kumar win a bronze medal each in Men’s Middle (75 kg) Boxing and Men’s Freestyle 66 kg Wrestling respectively in Olympics, Beijing 2008.

These are some of the feats achieved by Indians of whom we should be really really proud of.

 But this is not normally the case. We Indians are so good at heart that we feel proud even if some person remotely associated with India or having Indian origin, even though the person’s great or great great relative is Indian born – migrated to foreign country, achieves something.

There are umpteen cases of this cheerfulness of Indians. Let me name a few:

Kalpana Chawla, V.S. Naipaul, Piyush Bobby Jindal, Sunita Williams and many more such names.

YES, they are achievers in their own rights and fields, but they are not basically Indians in the true sense of the word. They are just of Indian origin or somewhere remotely connected to India.

There are so many things in India and Indians to be proud of. Need a cite examples … ??? OK, let’s have a look:

• Chandrayaan-1, India’s first unmanned lunar exploration, is successfully inserted into lunar orbit on the 8th of November, 2008. A feat spectacularly achieved by ISRO ( Indian Space Research Organization )
• Saina Nehwal, at age 18, becomes the first Indian to win the World Junior Badminton Championships.
• Sania Mirza is the highest ranked Indian female tennis player ever from India.
• I have no words apt enough to describe the achievements of the Missile Man of India, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.
• Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and many more legendaries and luminaries in cricket.
• Verghese Kurien for the White Revolution in India ( dairy )
• Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw for scripting the Indian victory in 1971.

And the list goes on and on and on and on …

Need I say any more … ?!?!?!