GRID's 1st year... Dream vs. Reality...

There is always a difference between a dream and a reality... even if a dream comes true... the following is a critic's account on the work of GRID so far...

1st October, 2006 - I got this wonderful idea of starting a group for rural development and started working on its structure and functioning and less than a week later, I found my first few members (Idli, Kavya and Harsha)... The mood was upbeat, I didn't want friends in the group... I wanted people who talked about work first and then anything else, but I had no other go but to start with friends...

By the end of October, I had answers for almost every question that could be raised about its functioning... the only thing I didn't have was the support... I could already see signs of people losing confidence and interest in the whole idea... I have always believed in hand-picking my team but that was not the case here... then I asked my favorite 3 for their support... Uppi, Uday and Vijju... Uppi for his brilliant management skills and to handle people, he could win over anyone with his words... Uday and Vijay for their excellent ideas and Vijju especially for his expertise in computers for maintaining website and related stuff. Uppi agreed right away but Uday and Vijju agreed to stay out of any direct activity but assured all sorts of help they could...

Meanwhile few others joined and we decided upon the activities we would take up... B-Plans & Projects for a start... we then decided upon 5 topics... 2 of them to be started right away...

In Hyd in my bedroom talking to Uppi and Idli, I got these wonderful ideas of JaRID and the coconut business plan... over the next 3 nights I spent close to 10hrs making rough drafts of the proposals... in the next week I met Ravishankar, the best candidate to work as a team leader for JaRID... and I pulled in Satheesh, the most respectable GRID member for his invaluable comments... I was expecting other people to show some interest to do something about the coconut plan for the fast approaching Genesis Competition... but as the rule goes... no response!!

These were the first signs of myself getting irritated... I always liked the coconut business plan more than JaRID as I have been seeing the plight of the workers, the farmers (even my father) for over 15 years... that was something I could directly relate to... with other mounting pressures I decided to quit JaRID and concentrate more on this... then I started talking to Uday and Kavya about it... never informed anything to anyone else... finally we did something, it wasn't the best but decent enough...

By then I had understood that things were going to become really tough from then... a handful of other ideas had totally flopped... weekly online conferences, weekly discussion on social issues, the projects, proposed trips to ICRISAT and some villages... most of them were limited to the first proposal mail... then Idli came up with this idea of newsletter... it took us more than a month after the finalised deadline to get the first 3 articles... with the promises made by Kavya and Uppi ending up as un-kept ones, I really have no interest to take up another issue of it... effectively there was more work done by Vijay than any other GRID member...

My hatred for the members reached a new high and as a result 5 to 6 members were kicked out... but things never change... except for a new addition Praneeta who has loads of enthusiasm for this, I don't see any future for GRID as a group to exist...

But what was the dream... Where did I get it wrong?

activities... I was looking for a group on whom other Well I was looking for a group of people who would volunteer to do things they can see from the THINGS TO DO list in the website... I was looking for people who were willing to sacrifice some of their spare time for trying to help out fellow Indians... I was looking for a group whose activities would attract funds from outsiders (sufficient for our basic necessities)... I was looking for a hyper-active and huge group which would need a separate team to look after Internal activities... I was looking for a group to volunteer in other NGOs ... I was looking for a group on which NGOs could rely on for technical support... I was looking for a group which would constantly be on trips to some place or the other... I was looking for a group which could hire an agricultural expert for clarification of doubts raised by farmers...

May be I got it wrong everywhere... I just took people for granted...

but one thing remains as a truth... GRID has been my dream, will be in future... just a bunch of non-interested INDIANS can't get me off-track... it may not exist as a group but I will always be there...

--buddi
0642
29-11-2007

Social Issues & Indian Solutions

SOCIAL ISSUES AND INDIAN SOLUTIONS

Social issues are arguably the most complicated problems ever faced by mankind. Issues ranging from war to drought, all come under this title. India faces a unique challenge in coming up with feasible solutions to these problems. “Unique” in the sense that the receiving end is often suspicious and the bureaucracy is often polluted.

One should agree that, since independence, it has been a slow but decent progress. The time ahead could be the worst phase we could ever think of. Even though it is being termed and projected in a much more attractive way, coming ahead is an era of social crisis, an era of misunderstanding and mismatch of the need and the supply in every means.

In the present context, there is a war building up. A war between sensible citizens, corrupt political circles, environmentalists, social activists, media and so on. Everyone is contributing their part to this mess up. Everyone feels that they are right and their issue is of more importance and needs to be addressed. Even small issues are often blown out of proportion which gives rise to unrest elsewhere.

Only thing we can do is to try to build up a society which is self-sufficient at the lowest level. Self-sufficiency in every sense should be the goal. From water for irrigation to income generation to help in case of calamities everything should be taken care of. The solution seems quite difficult to achieve but with careful planning it is possible and has been proved to be successful in quite a few places.

As a general thought it can be accepted that multi-centered development could always be a success story. This confidence in the idea will help in taking the plan a step forward. As it said a work once started is half done. The whole idea behind this proposal is the thought that prevention is better than cure.

Water management in India can be seen as one of the biggest problem. The first thing that has to be analyzed here is the cause. Cities tend to use more water than they have, in fact more than what the adjacent areas can also supply. It is for the governing bodies to realize that and act responsibly. But the governments tend to show more importance (quite unnecessarily) to the comfort of these income generating pockets and often try to divert river waters and thereby denying the people in the lower basins of the water for agriculture, the very source of income for rural India. The Government has made an effort to implement the rain water harvesting plan in a few of the cities but it has never been taken seriously. The industrial sectors should be made to setup their own water purifying units to put the water to better use

Construction of micro-projects for water management is a wonderful solution for this problem in dry agricultural lands. But the Government seems to be negligent of this fact and the best example of this is the Narmada valley. At a few places the micro-projects have been constructed and are also being run quite successfully. But these are soon going to be submerged. Among other questions to be answered there are also environmental concerns. There was no attempt ever made so far to study the possible disasters of having such a large reservoir of water in that area (those districts are considered delicate points on the earth’s tectonic plates… remember the earthquake of Lathur??).

The relocation of the people for the sake of construction of a water project for the urban people and RELIANCE Industries is a foolish idea in this context. They are submerging thousands of hectares of cultivated land for the sake of cities and industries which are very poor in their water management. Doesn’t it sound ridiculous?? While the government claims to be building this project for the farmers of the dry districts of Gujarat, according to Medha Patkar only 4% of the water that will be diverted will reach the farmers (even if she is not right, the truth is the same).

Well this is just one example of the strategies that often go wrong. But there are a few things that can be appreciated. The plan of the SEZs is an example. The government wants to create centers of self-sufficiency. But there is a problem even with this, they are sacrificing fertile agricultural lands, instead they could go for the utilization of the waste lands. It’s all a matter of clever utilization of the resources we have.

Now how can this be achieved?? Each of these centers should be made autonomous in terms of money and judiciary. For this the governing bodies at the lowest level should be strengthened and be made answerable to the local people. This has the following advantages: (1) the people can answer their needs in a better manner and faster, (2) the people will have a feeling of satisfaction that their money is being put to use for their upliftment. The second point is the main cause of this Telangana controversy, people in coastal regions feel that their money has been poured into Hyderabad which was never of any use to them. But this idea has to be kept under constant check; the people have to be alert and should feel their responsibility.

Every system has its pros and cons, it’s just a matter of how responsible we feel and how sensibly we act. One could always ask me, “There are many great minds at work in the governing bodies, how can you blame them?” I would say, “these great minds are often overpowered by uneducated, politically anxious idiots. Do you think a great mind proposed ‘the free electricity plan’? Do you think a great mind signed off Rs440 millions for water projects without having any idea of where to build a dam? All these are political manipulations for personal gains, which will turn out to be disasters in the future.”

There are many more issues to be argued about… pollution, militancy and terrorism, liquor, reservations in educational and government organizations, taxes, crimes... this list is endless…

You are the best judge for your deeds… think!! Are you eligible to use the water you waste? land you use for constructions? There are many things you will have to answer…

DO THINGS FOR THE RIGHT CAUSE AT THE RIGHT MOMENT.

Jai hind

--buddi
1600
17-06-2007

A Brief History of Time

A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking



Considered as one of the best science books ever written or the record-breaking bestseller... I feel this book deserves more... This is not just an account of latest work in theoretical astrophysics or a textbook on Bing Bang or Black holes (as it is commonly referred to)... It is a work, a masterpiece, a comic for the young aspiring physicists... hard to imagine anything better coming up in the near future.

The book is a real time account of things... it is exactly the way you would study something. Your journey starts with history... Aristotle's view of the Universe and by the time you come down to Einstein in 1910s... you would have met the giants - Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Hubble and the less popular Olbers, Kant, Popper.

Once the stage is set for what you want to know about... THE UNIVERSE, Hawking takes you on a rough ride through the yester years and the work in the fields of light and General Relativity... the ride is rough in the sense that it is very teasing and requires an alert mind to make out what he is telling. When you feel you have understood things... Hawking takes a look out of the window and says... "HEY!! there is a whole new thing going on there".. here comes Quantum Mechanics. Trying to draw the consequences from both the fields Hawking leads us into trouble... here he says,"I am trying to set things right"...

And rest is the story how he does it... meanwhile he shows you some tools you need to pick up... Its for you to read and enjoy the rest...

Sprinkled with humor and few incidents from his life... all together they make up a 180pg wonder... and Carl Sagan's Introduction just adds to the fun... a must-read book!!

buddi
1207
17-6-2007

Nuclear Physics - an overview

Actually written for school students... I thought I should put it up here...

Nuclear Physics – a fascinating subject

S PRAVEEN KUMAR

E=mc² ... In class 9, I was taught this simple equation. This is one of the most popular equations of science and it was given by none other than Albert Einstein. What does it mean? It mathematically tells us that mass (which you can see or feel) can be converted to energy (which cannot be seen or felt) and vice-versa. This was given as a part of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity which talks about things becoming longer, clocks slowing down and many more counter-intuitive and very interesting ideas.

Everyone might have heard about the nucleus. The nucleus has protons (positively charged) and neutrons, but how are they held together? Protons should be repelled by each other, isn't it? They are held together by an enormous force called “Nuclear Force”, which is several times stronger than the Coulomb force of repulsion between the protons. Existence of such a force also implies the presence of an enormous amount of energy. Where does this energy come from? Some of the mass of the nucleus is converted to provide this energy. Nature is clever! The mass lost in the conversion is termed as mass-defect and the energy produced is called binding-energy. More the binding-energy per nucleon more stable the nucleus is (find out the most stable nucleus). It is this binding energy which is of interest for us.

Humans are trying to tap this vast energy using two types of nuclear reactions called nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. Nuclear fission reaction is used in modern day nuclear reactors and the fuel used is uranium, plutonium or thorium. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was based on the same principle. Nuclear fusion reactions have so far been out of human reach. Though we have made the H-Bomb or the Super Bomb which works on this, we are unable to control it and put it to better use. The sun gains all its energy from this reaction. Scientists have been trying to replicate that reaction in a controlled manner. India is a member of the seven member group working on a project called ITER (International Thermonuclear Experiment Reactor) working on these lines. The ITER program is anticipated to last almost 30 years and cost over $13billion, which makes it one of the most expensive modern techno scientific mega projects.

There are also other areas of modern day research going on; these include particle physics, nuclear structure, hadron physics, neutrino physics, nuclear astrophysics and so on. All these began as a part of nuclear physics but today they are vast subjects. They are many research facilities working round the clock in these areas. To name a few CERN, KEK, FERMILAB, Argonne, GSI, SLAC, DESY, Brookhaven, Budker INP, JINR and CEA. Every year billions of dollars are being spent on research in these fields. Can't we put the money to better use is a question always raised. Everything we discover has its pros and cons; it is for us to make a judicious use of the available technology.

---buddi

1830
24-11-2007

90 percentile days revisited...

This semester so far...



With my working capabilities touching new lows, it becomes more and more necessary for me to set things right before things slip out of control. This is just another account of the same failed promises I made (to myself)...

Every time I write a new entry here or in my personal diary I start out with a new league of promises (perhaps no one knows about them), I consider it to be the last time I would be doing this... but as you see this seems to be a vicious circle...
The latest academic updates include a 'W' grade in a subject (lack of attendence) and I don't how many are to follow.... exams are going on, I will get back with exact figures...

My CGPA had fallen to a disastrous 5.2 at the beginning of this sem, I then thought things could be set right but it wasn't so... this has by far been my toughest sem in IIT and the results I can say will not be very impressive either. All this puts me into a serious doubt of whether I will be able to finish my B.Tech in 4 yrs...

On the contrary, there have been really memorable moments so far... I completed my first research project in nuclear physics and it got selected for the Symposium on Nuclear Physics 2007, which I will be attending in December. My research project has earned me new credentials and contacts and these would assure some project work or the other for the next 3 years atleast... It has also helped me earn a 3-month internship (starting May, 2008) at IGCAR where I will be working on Heat Exchanger Design for nuclear reactors and Reactor Physics.

I took some classes in about 6 schools for class 7, and it was immensely satisfying and enjoyable (after all teaching is what I always wanted to do!!). The group GRID has decided to organise a competition in our school in the last week of December, it is one thing I have always dreamt of... and it has started working, it won't be long before all my dreams are realised. JaRID, born out of my idea as part of GRID work, has made it to the GK3 Forum, where it has been listed in top 100 social entrepeneurship plans in the world... just can't imagine it.

I played football, cricket, tried Kabaddi and also played rugby at 2 in the night. I bought many of my "must-buy" books (though not yet started reading them). Did watch some movies, documentaries... And arguably the best of all, the 5 days I spent with my friends... just can't get better.


Getting back to where I started... I would now say the semester hasn't been so awful, just that I failed again in acads but otherwise it was a great one... I thoroughly enjoyed most of the time... Well all those unkept promises I started are true... let them be safe in my diary as I give myself another chance... if I fail this time... then... lets seee

Did I get back to my 90 percentile days ??
Yes / No / may be / not sure... I would decide it later but what stands in front of me is an enormous task of getting out from IIT... 4 more exams to go for this sem to end.. just hoping to help myself pass in all of those...

--buddi
0455
24-11-2007

P.S. Now that I have started wrting again, the next article of LOOKING BACK will be up soon... just keep your fingers crossed!

Drifting away...

Its been a really long time since I have written something here. It has been becoming tougher and tougher for me to keep this going and keep up the momentum... I am involuntarily drifting away from all this... unable to keep promises made, unable to realise dreams... I am now totally drained both mentally and physically...

promising that I will be back soon... with something better

Always yours
buddi