AWAKENINGS

Facts on Modi U.S. Visa issue had come to focus, when Leader of Opposition, L.K.Advani took up the matter with U.S.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who had called on him. Advani said to her: He had no complaints about the U.S. not granting a visa to Narendra Modi, since that comes under the jurisdictions of the American authorities and their sovereign rights. Rather his complaint was about the fact that when Modi himself had not applied for the visa, the U.S. authorities made it an issue from their side. Advani had conveyed to Rice that he found it difficult to accept that Modi, an elected leader in this country whose performance as the Chief Minister of Gujarat has been praised, was campaigned against by the U.S., when he did not apply for the visa. Advani quoted Modi as having told him that he did not apply for a visa. In fact, even earlier when Modi’s U.S. visa was cancelled, it was not applied for, since he had already had a valid visa on his passport. On that occasion, though M...

Popular Face One: Mr.Shivaraj Patil, Home Minister of India. On the 13th September 2008, there were five series of co-ordinated bomb blasts killing 20 people and injuring 90 others in busy markets across the Indian capital of Delhi. The bombs, the first of which exploded at 6.15pm, all went off within 45 minutes of each other and were centred on three main areas. Even in such a tragic occasion, Mr.Patil was more concerned about his appearance rather than to rush to the spot to oversee the rescue operations and to seize the situations from going out of control. It was proved by Television footings, Mr.Patil had changed his dresses three times consequently after the blasts ripping through New Delhi. The details are as under: 1. White Suit at 6.30 p.m. to attend Congress Working Committee Meeting. 2. Dark colored suit while giving bytes to TV cameras, after the blasts. 3. White colored suit to inspect the blast sites and to visit hospitals in the company of Sonia Gandhi. Even while the pe...

‘Solar Energy is a safe solution for our energy crisis and is environmental friendly’ may be a pleasant music for the ears. But in reality, it is otherwise, mainly due to the that commercial generation of solar energy needs vast area of lands apart from water for the periodical cleaning up of parabolic mirrors. As on date, there are two types for the generation of solar energy. 1.Photovoltaic panels. 2.Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) The first one is used for a limited power generation of heating water for bath, lighting a few streets or houses. Its power is user specific and cannot be useful during winter and rainy days. Cells in the Photovoltaic panels convert sunlight directly into electricity and these panels sit mainly on roofs and need little land. These are individual focus and could not be extended for mass generation of electrical energy. The second one contains parabolic mirrors, shaped as ultra long troughs, which concentrate sunlight into a long tube of molten salts that...

Harvest No.1: Pope John Paul II’s visit to India The heading “Harvest of Hindus as Converts” is courtesy Pope John Paul II who had declared during his visit to New Delhi during the Deepavali festival on November 6, 1999 that the church would reap a harvest of faith in the Asian Continent in the new millennium. The document of this declaration was christened as "Ecclesia in Asia" (The Church in Asia). Pope’s declarations were prominently published in the newspapers under the bold headings such as “Convert Asia Next: Pope”. He had exhorted the audience that the Asia should be evangelized in the third millennium like Europe and the two Americas in the first and second millennium respectively. Pope had wondered that it was indeed a mystery why the Savior of the world, born in Asia, had until now remained largely unknown to the people of the continent. Pope’s message was that this position should be reversed by aggressive efforts of conversion of other religious sects in Asia whi...

Satyameva Jayathe: Golden Howdah at Mysore Dasara Festival It is said that golden howdah weighs around 800 kg. The howdah is made of pure gold. The howdah has two wide seats in rows, bigger than the interiors of a family car. This golden howdah will be mounted on the back of a decorated elephant selected specially for the occasion in view of the strains and stress that animal would be put through the traveling of a distance of about 2.5 miles from the Mysore Palace to the Banni Mantapa grounds. The sacred idol of Goddess Chamundeshwari will be installed inside this howdah. The Elephant carrying the Howdah is trained and groomed to do the job years before it actually does it. Now a days the honor of carrying the Golden howadh and the statue of Chamundeshwari has fallen on Elephant Balarama. Elephant Balarama which is around 51 years old, had again got the honour of carrying the howdah for the 10th year in a row. The experts says that this is a task for which not every elephant is qualif...

‘ Heart bleeds! Eyes shed tears of blood!’ – These are the impotent reactions of Armchair Critic and Action less Wood like me on reading a news item of ‘Death of 49 infants due to outsourced clinical trials at A.I.I.M.S.’ I am ashamed of myself in just simply airing the agonies in an Editorial! Bare Facts of the tragic episode are these: · 139 new clinical trials were outsourced to India. Cost of conducting clinical trials in India is less – between 20-60% as compared to trials in industrialized countries. · This clinical market trial was being undertaken for the past 2 ½ years. 4142 babies were undergone these trials. Of 4142 babies, 2728 were below the age of one. The parents of all these babies were poor and illiterates. They had been picked up by the hospital attending the outpatients and inpatients services. This itself goes to prove that the doctors would be more prone to catch the infants of these hapless parents rather than treating them for their ailments. · Five forei...