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27th August 2009. Mars coming near to earth Hoax or truth Gyandotcom investigates.

Beware the Mars Hoax.

Yes Its a Hoax every year this email spread on internet claming that red planet is coming near to earth and visible as big as moon.. this hoax email started in 2004.Yesterday  This lady ask me do you know in coming august something gonna happned on 27th august 2009.  i said i dont know. respected  lady  said you must know that mars is coming near to earth and its as big as moon. i got some doubt regarding the red planet, how planet mars break the orbital belt and come closer to earth.this question landed up in a investigation of the hoax email. and after talking to my friends in the nasa Research labs i got some useful right information.

lets talk about the truth behind Red planet comeing near to earth.

Mars as big as the moon on August 27? Email hoax claims August 27 will bring the closest encounter between Mars and Earth in recorded history. Unfortunately, this ‘once in a lifetime event’ already came and went in 2003.

Disappointed? Don’t be. If Mars did come close enough to rival the Moon, its gravity would alter Earth’s orbit and raise terrible tides.

Sixty-nine million km is good. At that distance, Mars shines brighter than anything else in the sky except the Sun, the Moon and Venus. The visual magnitude of Mars on Oct. 30, 2005, will be -2.3. Even inattentive sky watchers will notice it, rising at sundown and soaring overhead at midnight.

You might remember another encounter with Mars, about Seven years ago, on August 27, 2003. That was the closest in recorded history, by a whisker, and millions of people watched as the distance between Mars and Earth shrunk to 56 million km. This October’s encounter, at 69 million km, is similar. To casual observers, Mars will seem about as bright and beautiful in 2005 as it was in 2003.

Although closest approach is still months away, Mars is already conspicuous in the early morning. Before the sun comes up, it’s the brightest object in the eastern sky, really eye-catching. If you have a telescope, even a small one, point it at Mars. You can see the bright icy South Polar Cap and strange dark markings on the planet’s surface.
Above: Painted green by a flashlight, astronomer Dennis Mammana of California points out Mars to onlookers on Aug. 26, 2003, the last time Mars was so close to Earth. One day people will walk among those dark markings, exploring and prospecting, possibly mining ice from the polar caps to supply their settlements. It’s a key goal of NASA’s Vision for Space Exploration: to return to the Moon, to visit Mars and to go beyond.

Every day the view improves. Mars is coming–and that’s no hoax.

June 6, 2005: By the time you finish reading this sentence, you’ll be 25 miles closer to the planet Mars.

Earth is racing toward Mars at a speed of 23,500 mph, which means the red planet is getting bigger and brighter by the minute. In October, when the two planets are closest together, Mars will outshine everything in the night sky except Venus and the Moon. (You’re another 50 miles closer: keep reading!)

It’s only June, now, but Mars is already eye-catching. You can see it early in the morning, rising before the sun in the eastern sky, shining almost twice as bright as a 1st-magnitude star. A sky map, below, shows where to find Mars on Wednesday morning, June 29th, when it appears pleasingly close to the crescent Moon.

Why are we rushing toward Mars? It’s simple orbital mechanics. Think of Earth and Mars as two runners on a circular race track, with lanes corresponding to planetary orbits. Earth, running fast on the inside lane, circles the course in 12 months. Mars, plodding along an outside lane, takes twice as long to go around. Every two years, approximately, Earth catches Mars from behind and laps it.

That’s where we are now, approaching Mars from behind. Relative speed: 23,500 mph.

We won’t actually lap Mars until autumn, October 30th at 0319 Universal Time, to be exact. Only 43 million miles (69 million km) will separate us from Mars, then, compared to an average distance of about 140 million miles (225 million kilometers). It’s a great time to send spacecraft there.

Mindful of that, NASA Already launch the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on August 10th, 2005. Because it takes 6+ months to reach Mars, the best time to start the trip is a month or so before closest approach–thus, August. MRO will arrive in March 2006, enter orbit, and begin a 2-year mission to map the red planet in greater detail than ever before.

The spacecraft’s high-resolution cameras will be able to discern objects, such as rocks and rovers and crashed Mars landers, less than 1 meter across. A radar sounder will probe for underground water while spectrometers map the distribution of surface minerals. Other instruments will monitor the atmosphere, teaching researchers back on Earth how to forecast martian weather. These are key elements in NASA’s plan to eventually send humans to Mars
Above: The HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has 5-times better resolution than cameras on other Mars orbiters and might be able to take pictures of the lost Mars Polar Lander.
The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity are already there. They arrived in January 2004 on the heels of another Earth-Mars close encounter in 2003. (Remember, this happens every two years.) The two robots were supposed to stop working months after they landed, worn down by wind, stuck in sand, or exhausted by too little solar power. Spirit and Opportunity are still rolling and, if they hold true to form, they’ll be “alive” to see Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter when it gets there, a tiny point of light in the martian night sky, mapping the red planet for explorers of the future.
Back on Earth people are going to enjoy watching Mars swell and brighten in the months ahead. By mid-summer, amateur astronomers with backyard telescopes will be able to spot polar ice caps and dust storms and strange dark markings. By autumn, even the least attentive of your neighbors will be remarking on “that bright red thing in the sky.”

Mark October 30th as the best day of all: Mars will rise at sunset, hang overhead at midnight, and “blaze forth against the dark background of space with a splendor that outshines Sirius and rivals the giant Jupiter himself.” That’s how astronomer Percival Lowell described a similar close encounter in the 19th century.

Can’t wait? Don’t. You can see Mars any clear morning this summer. We recommend Wednesday morning, June 29th. Mars and the fat crescent Moon are going to have a pleasing close encounter in the dawn sky. Look for them rising in the east around 4:30 AM; the sight will absolutely wake you up.

More good news: you’re now 1000 miles closer to the planet Mars.

The Truth of Mars

The Red Planet is Not a Dead Planet
 
Mars today is a world of cold and lonely deserts, apparently without life of any kind, at least on the surface. Indeed it looks like Mars has been cold and dry for billions of years, with an atmosphere so thin, any liquid water on the surface quickly boils away while the sun’s ultraviolet radiation scorches the ground.

The situation sounds bleak, but research published today in Science Express reveals new hope for the Red Planet. The first definitive detection of methane in the atmosphere of Mars indicates that Mars is still alive, in either a biologic or geologic sense, according to a team of NASA and university scientists.

“Methane is quickly destroyed in the Martian atmosphere in a variety of ways, so our discovery of substantial plumes of methane in the northern hemisphere of Mars in 2003 indicates some ongoing process is releasing the gas,” says lead author Michael Mumma of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “At northern mid-summer, methane is released at a rate comparable to that of the massive hydrocarbon seep at Coal Oil Point in Santa Barbara, Calif.”

Right: An artist’s concept of a possible geological source of Martian methane: subsurface water, carbon dioxide and the planet’s internal heat combine to release the gas.

Methane — four atoms of hydrogen bound to a carbon atom — is the main component of natural gas on Earth. It is of interest to astrobiologists because much of Earth’s methane come from living organisms digesting their nutrients. However, life is not required to produce the gas. Other purely geological processes, like oxidation of iron, also release methane. “Right now, we don’t have enough information to tell if biology or geology — or both — is producing the methane on Mars,” said Mumma. “But it does tell us that the planet is still alive, at least in a geologic sense. It’s as if Mars is challenging us, saying, hey, find out what this means.”
 
If microscopic Martian life is producing the methane, it likely resides far below the surface, where it’s still warm enough for liquid water to exist. Liquid water, as well as energy sources and a supply of carbon, are necessary for all known forms of life.

“On Earth, microorganisms thrive 2 to 3 kilometers (about 1.2 to 1.9 miles) beneath the Witwatersrand basin of South Africa, where natural radioactivity splits water molecules into molecular hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O). The organisms use the hydrogen for energy. It might be possible for similar organisms to survive for billions of years below the permafrost layer on Mars, where water is liquid, radiation supplies energy, and carbon dioxide provides carbon,” says Mumma.

“Gases, like methane, accumulated in such underground zones might be released into the atmosphere if pores or fissures open during the warm seasons, connecting the deep zones to the atmosphere at crater walls or canyons,” he says.

“Microbes that produced methane from hydrogen and carbon dioxide were one of the earliest forms of life on Earth,” notes Carl Pilcher, Director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute which partially supported the research. “If life ever existed on Mars, it’s reasonable to think that its metabolism might have involved making methane from Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide.”

Above: one way methane is destroyed in the Martian atmosphere: the molecules are rapidly broken apart by solar ultraviolet radiation. Because methane doesn’t last long in the martian environment, any methane found there must be recently produced. [animation]

However, it is possible a geologic process produced the Martian methane, either now or eons ago. On Earth, the conversion of iron oxide (rust) into the serpentine group of minerals creates methane, and on Mars this process could proceed using water, carbon dioxide, and the planet’s internal heat. Another possibility is vulcanism: Although there is no evidence of currently active Martian volcanoes, ancient methane trapped in ice “cages” called clathrates might now be released.

The team found methane in the atmosphere of Mars by carefully observing the planet over several Mars years (and all Martian seasons) using spectrometers attached to telescopes at NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility, run by the University of Hawaii, and the W. M. Keck telescope, both at Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

“We observed and mapped multiple plumes of methane on Mars, one of which released about 19,000 metric tons of methane,” says Geronimo Villanueva of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Villanueva is stationed at NASA Goddard and is co-author of the paper. “The plumes were emitted during the warmer seasons — spring and summer — perhaps because the permafrost blocking cracks and fissures vaporized, allowing methane to seep into the Martian air. Curiously, some plumes had water vapor while others did not,” he says.

Above: Methane plumes found in Mars’ atmosphere during the northern summer season. According to the team, the plumes were seen over areas that show evidence of ancient ground ice or flowing water. For example, plumes appeared over northern hemisphere regions such as east of Arabia Terra, the Nili Fossae region, and the south-east quadrant of Syrtis Major, an ancient volcano 1,200 kilometers (about 745 miles) across.

It will take future missions, like NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, to discover the origin of the Martian methane. One way to tell if life is the source of the gas is by measuring isotope ratios. Isotopes are heavier versions of an element; for example, deuterium is a heavier version of hydrogen. In molecules that contain hydrogen, like water and methane, the rare deuterium occasionally replaces a hydrogen atom. Since life prefers to use the lighter isotopes, if the methane has less deuterium than the water released with it on Mars, it’s a sign that life is producing the methane.

Whatever future research reveals–biology or geology–one thing is already clear: Mars is not so dead, after all.

by Rohit Sharma

Swine Flu-The New Virus Next Door.

Beware of swine flu its your next door neighbour.  issued in public interest by gyandotcom

What is swine flu?
Like people, pigs can get influenza (flu), but swine flu viruses aren’t the same as human flu viruses. Swine flu doesn’t often infect people, and the rare human cases that have occurred in the past have mainly affected people who had direct contact with pigs. But the current swine flu outbreak is different. It’s caused by a new swine flu virus that has spread from person to person — and it’s happening among people who haven’t had any contact with pigs. 

What are swine flu symptoms?
Symptoms of swine flu are like regular flu symptoms and include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills, and fatigue. Some people have reported diarrhea and vomiting associated with swine flu. Those symptoms can also be caused by many other conditions, and that means that you and your doctor can’t know, just based on your symptoms, if you’ve got swine flu. It takes a lab test to tell whether it’s swine flu or some other condition.

If I think I have swine flu, what should I do? When should I see my doctor?
If you have flu symptoms, stay home, and when you cough or sneeze, cover your mouth and nose with a tissue. Afterward, throw the tissue in the trash and wash your hands. That will help prevent your flu from spreading.

If you’ve got flu symptoms, and you’ve recently been to a high-risk area like Mexico, officials recommend that you see your doctor. If you have flu symptoms but you haven’t been in a high-risk area, you can still see a doctor — that’s your call.

Keep in mind that your doctor will not be able to determine whether you have swine flu, but he or she would take a sample from you and send it to a state health department lab for testing to see if it’s swine flu. If your doctor suspects swine flu, he or she would be able to write you a prescription for Tamiflu or Relenza. Those drugs may not be required; U.S. swine flu patients have made a full recovery without

How does swine flu spread? Is it airborne?
The new swine flu virus apparently spreads just like regular flu. You could pick up germs directly from an infected person, or by touching an object they recently touched, and then touching your eyes, mouth, or nose, delivering their germs for your own infection. That’s why you should make washing your hands a habit, even when you’re not ill. Infected people can start spreading flu germs up to a day before symptoms start, and for up to seven days after getting sick, according to the CDC.

The swine flu virus can become airborne if you cough or sneeze without covering your nose and mouth, sending germs into the air.

The U.S. residents infected with swine flu virus had no direct contact with pigs. it’s likely that the infections represent widely separated cycles of human-to-human infections.

How is swine flu treated?
The new swine flu virus is sensitive to the antiviral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza. We  recommends those drugs to prevent or treat swine flu; the drugs are most effective when taken within 48 hours of the start of flu symptoms. But not everyone needs those drugs; many of the first people in the U.S. with lab-confirmed swine flu recovered without treatment. The Department of Homeland Security has released 25% of its stockpile of Tamiflu and Relenza to states. Health officials have asked people not to hoard Tamiflu or Relenza.

Is there a vaccine against the new swine flu virus?
No. But the CDC and the World Health Organization are already taking the first steps toward making such a vaccine. That’s a lengthy process — it takes months.

I had a flu vaccine this season. Am I protected against swine flu?
No. This season’s flu vaccine wasn’t made with the new swine flu virus in mind; no one saw this virus coming ahead of time.

If you were vaccinated against flu last fall or winter, that vaccination will go a long way toward protecting you against certain human flu virus strains. But the new swine flu virus is a whole other problem.

How can I prevent swine flu infection?
Gyandotcom  recommends taking these major steps:

Wash your hands regularly with soap and water, especially after coughing or sneezing. Or use an alcohol-based hand cleaner.
Avoid close contact with sick people.
Avoid touching your mouth, nose, or eyes. 
 

Can I still eat pork?
Yes. You can’t get swine flu by eating pork, bacon, or other foods that come from pigs.

What else should I be doing?
Keep informed of what’s going on in your community. Your state and local health departments may have important information if swine flu develops in your area. For instance, parents might want to consider what they would do if their child’s school temporarily closed because of flu. That happened in New York City, where St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens closed for a couple of days after eight students were found to have swine flu.  Don’t panic, but a little planning wouldn’t hurt.

How severe is swine flu?
The severity of cases in the current swine flu outbreak has varied widely. In Mexico, there have been deaths and other severe cases. Early cases in the U.S. have been mild. But that could change. The virus itself could change, either becoming more or less dangerous. Scientists are watching closely to see which way the new swine flu virus is heading — but health experts warn that flu viruses are notoriously hard to predict, as far as how and when they’ll change.

Why has the swine flu infection been deadlier in Mexico than in Global areas.?
It is unclear why U.S. cases have been milder compared to those in Mexico. Among the first 20 reported cases in the U.S., only one patient required hospitalization and that person has fully recovered. Medical researchers are actively investigating to learn more about the differences between the cases in Mexico and those in the U.S.

Have there been previous swine flu oubtreaks?
Yes. There was a swine flu outbreak at Fort Dix, N.J., in 1976 among military recruits. It lasted about a month and then went away as mysteriously as it appeared. As many as 240 people were infected; one died.

The swine flu that spread at Fort Dix was the H1N1 strain. That’s the same flu strain that caused the disastrous flu pandemic of 1918-1919, resulting in tens of millions of deaths.

Concern that a new H1N1 pandemic might return in winter 1976 led to a crash program to create a vaccine and vaccinate all Americans against swine flu. That vaccine program ran into all kinds of problems — not the least of which was public perception that the vaccine caused excessive rates of dangerous reactions. After more than 40 million people were vaccinated, the effort was abandoned.

As it turned out, there was no swine flu epidemic.

I was vaccinated against the 1976 swine flu virus. Am I still protected?
Probably not. The new swine flu virus is different from the 1976 virus. And it’s not clear whether a vaccine given more than 30 years ago would still be effective.

How many people have swine flu?
That’s a hard question to answer, because the figure is changing so quickly. If you want to keep track of U.S. cases that have been confirmed by lab tests and reported to the WHO,  If you’re looking for cases in other countries, visit the World Health Organization’s web site. And when you hear about large numbers of people who are ill, remember that lab tests may not yet have been done to confirm that they have swine flu. And there may be a little lag time before confirmed cases make it into the official tally.
The World Health Organization has not declared swine flu to be a pandemic. The WHO wants to learn more about the virus first and see how severe it is and how deeply it takes root.

But it takes more than a new virus spreading among humans to make a pandemic. The virus has to be able to spread efficiently from one person to another, and transmission has to be sustained over time. In addition, the virus has to spread geographically. but take more n more precautions.

by Rohit Sharma for gyandotcom

Know Your Right’s to Vote before Vote. India Vote 2009

Know Your Right’s to Vote before Vote.

Why should you vote?

India is the largest democracy in the world. The right to vote and more importantly the exercise of Vote by the eligible citizens is at the heart of every democracy. We, the people of India, through this exercise of our right to vote have the ultimate power to shape the destiny of our country by electing our representatives who run the Government and take decisions for the growth, development and benefit of all the citizens.

Sixty two years after winning independence, India waits to be free again. To be freed from criminals who have muscled their way into power. In 2004, about one in five MPs had criminal records, including some with charges of heinous crimes such as murder, rape, dacoity and kidnapping. This seriously tarnishes the image of honest and eminent leaders who are committed to building a greater India. It is time for every citizen of India to become a freedom fighter and unite to free India from the clutches of criminals. As citizens of a free nation, we appeal to all the political parties to refrain from giving tickets to persons with criminal backgrounds. And take an oath to free India from criminals forever.

if you wants to know the criminal record of any indian politicians please visit this site

http://www.nocriminals.org/

Who can vote?

All citizens of India who are 18 years of age or above as on 1st January of the year for which the electoral roll is prepared are entitled to be registered as a voter in the constituency where he or she ordinarily resides. Only persons who are of unsound mind and have been declared so by a competent court or disqualified due to Criminal Charges, ‘Corrupt Practices’ or offences relating to elections are not entitled to be registered in the electoral rolls.

What is an electoral roll?

An electoral roll is a list of all eligible citizens who are entitled to cast their vote in an election. The electoral rolls are prepared Assembly Constituency wise. An electoral roll for any Assembly Constituency is sub- divided into parts corresponding with the polling booths. The Election Commission of India has decided to generally have a maximum of 1200 electors per booth.  The polling booths are so set up that no voter should ordinarily travel more than 2 kms. To reach the polling booth. Normally, one part will correspond with one polling booth. To exercise your vote, the first and foremost requirement is that your name should be in the electoral roll. Without your name registered in the relevant part for the area where you ordinarily reside in the Assembly Constituency, you will not be allowed to exercise your Vote. Therefore, it is your duty to find out whether your name has been registered or not.

How to register?

The Election Commission prepares the electoral rolls through a process of intensive revision where house-to-house enumeration is done and electors residing in each house are registered by official enumerators who go physically from door-to-door to collect the information about electors. This process is done normally once in five years. Between two Intensive revisions, summary revisions are done every year during a specified period when persons who are left out of the electoral rolls are given an opportunity to register themselves by applying in Form-6. It is also expected from you to get your name deleted from the place where you earlier resided, and get it included at new place in case you have shifted. For this, on your part, it is sufficient that you file claim application in Form 6 before the Electoral Registration Officer of the new place  and in that application give the full address of your earlier place of residence. Short absence from place of residence does not debar one to continue his/her name in electoral roll. Similarly, deletions are carried out of electors who have died or who have shifted residence from one area to another outside the prescribed part of the electoral roll. You should note that you can be registered only at one place. Registration in more than one place is an offence.

During Intensive Revision of electoral rolls which normally takes place once in five years, a draft roll is prepared after house to house enumeration and published at every polling booth location for inviting claims and objections. Any eligible person can file claim in Form No. 6 for inclusion of his name in the roll or raise an objection to somebody’s name or for deletion of his or any other person’s name in Form No. 7.  Similarly if any particulars in the electoral roll are to be modified such as name, house number, middle name, last name, age, sex, epic number etc. a claim in Form No. 8 can be filed. In case any elector has changed his house from the polling area of one booth to other booth in the same Assembly Constituency he can file application in Form No. 8A for change/transposition from one electoral part to other part.

During Summary revision of electoral rolls which takes place every year, the existing electoral rolls are published at each polling booth locations to invite claims and objections for inclusion, deletion, modification and 3 transpositions. After due enquiry all the claims and objections are decided and a supplementary electoral roll is prepared and published. Even after the final publication of electoral rolls the process of continuous updation of electoral rolls goes on and the citizens are free to file any application for the addition, deletion, modification and transposition with the Electoral Registration Officer.

As per the law, your name can be registered upto the last date of filing nominations by candidates that has been notified by the Election Commission for any general election or bye-election  to an Assembly or Parliament. To enable the Electoral Registration Officer to take action on your application, you must apply at least ten days before the last date of making nominations as he has to mandatorily invite objections by giving a seven clear days notice before including your name in the roll. If you apply later than ten clear days before the last date for nominations your name may not be included for the Purposes of that particular election.

How to check your name in the electoral rolls and to find the polling station where you have to go to vote?

As an elector you should immediately check whether your name has been included in the electoral roll of the constituency where you reside or not.

You can find out this information from the Electoral Registration Officer of your area.  Electoral rolls in all major cities have now been displayed on official websites also.

Do you have an Electors’ Photo Identity Card (EPIC)?

The Election Commission of India has made voter identification mandatory at the time of poll. The electors have to identify themselves with either Electors Photo Identity Card  (EPIC) issued by the Commission or any other documentary proof as prescribed by the Commission.

Will possession of an EPIC alone entitle you to vote?

You should note that mere possession of an EPIC issued to you does not guarantee you your vote, because it is mandatory that your name should appear in the electoral roll.

Once you have found out that your name is there in the electoral roll and you also possess an identification document prescribed by the Election Commission (EPIC or others), you are entitled to vote.

Before you come to the polling booth, there are some other important aspects that you need to know as an elector and a conscientious citizen of the country.

What is the Disclosure by Candidates?

Recently the Election Commission of India has made it mandatory consequent upon a Judgment of Hon’ble Supreme Court that all candidates must file an affidavit along with their nomination form with details such as:-

ü      his/her criminal antecedents,

ü      his/her assets and liabilities and those of his/her spouse and        Dependents, and

ü      His/her educational background.

This has been done with a view that every citizen has a right to know about The candidates contesting an election and make an informed choice.

The Election Commission has directed all Returning Officers to display the copies of nomination papers and accompanying affidavits received during any day on his notice board immediately on receipt and make copies of these for distribution to the press and any  members of public who want this information, free of cost. Any citizen of the country can obtain copies of the nomination form and the affidavit filed by any candidate from the Returning Officer and it shall not be refused. As a voter you have every right to seek this information and get it.

The details of the dues owed by the candidates to the Government are published by giving an advertisement in the leading newspapers by the Returning Officer for the benefit of electors. Above measures help the electors make an informed choice about the

Candidate they are going to vote for.

What are the basic do’s and don’ts as polling day approaches?

As a voter you should also know the aspects that are considered as Corrupt practices or electoral offences:

ü      Offering or accepting money or any other gratification either to vote for or not to vote for a particular candidate.

ü      Inducement by way of liquor, feast, money in cash, gifts, etc. to vote for or not to vote for a particular candidate.

ü      Inducement to vote or not to vote for a particular candidate on the grounds of religion, caste, community, sectarian beliefs or place of birth.

ü      Threat to an elector of ex-communication if he votes for or against a particular candidate.

ü      Offer of free conveyance to any elector to go to or from any polling station.

What is the process of voting? How do you go about it?

The poll date and hours are fixed by the Election Commission of India and they are well publicized before all elections.

When you reach the polling station, entry will be regulated by queues.

There will be separate queues for men and women voters and the physically handicapped persons. The persons who enforce the queues will allow 3-4 voters into the polling station at a time. Physically handicapped voters and women voters with babies in arm will be given precedence over the other voters in the queue.

Stage 1:  When you enter the polling station, you will go to the First Polling Officer who is in-charge of the marked copy of the electoral roll and responsible for identification of electors. You should keep your identity document ready to show to the First Polling Officer. You can also show to him the unofficial identity slip giving your particulars. However, you should note that unofficial identity slip only helps in locating your name in the electoral roll but is not a guarantee of your identification. The First Polling Officer will then call out your name and serial number so that the polling agents become aware of your presence and your identity is not challenged.

Stage 2:  Thereafter, if your identity is not challenged, you will proceed to the Second Polling Officer who will mark your left forefinger with the indelible ink. Thereafter, he will proceed to record your serial number in the electoral roll in the Register of Voters.  Once this is recorded, you are to sign in the appropriate column in the Register of Voters. If a voter cannot sign, his/her thumb impression will be obtained. The Second Polling Officer will then give you a signed voter’s slip which will record your serial number in the register of voters and your serial number in the electoral roll.

Stage 3:  You will then proceed to the Third Polling Officer who will take the voter’s slip issued to you by the Second Polling Officer. The Third Polling Officer will press the “Ballot” button on the Control Unit of voting machine and direct you to the voting compartment where you will record your vote on the balloting unit of the voting machine. Please note that each voter will proceed to the voting compartment in exactly the same sequence in which his/her serial number is recorded in the voters’ register.

Stage 4:  Voting Procedure.

• Inside the voting compartment, you are to press the blue candidate button

on the Balloting Unit against the name and symbol of the candidate of your

choice.

• Press the button only once.

• On the candidate button being pressed, the red lamp will glow against the

Name and symbol of that candidate.

• There will also be a beep sound heard to indicate that your vote has been

Recorded and the Busy lamp goes off in the Control Unit.

• This process is repeated for other voters till end of the poll.

You must remember that secrecy of voting is important. Every elector is expected to maintain the secrecy of voting and in case of failure to maintain secrecy the elector may not be permitted to vote. Any person, who violates the secrecy, will be booked for an offence under Section 128 of Representation of People Act, 1951. You should, therefore, not disclose to any person who you have voted for. Similarly, if any election official attempts to obtain information on who you have voted for, it will amount to an offence committed by that official. Photography of a voter casting vote is prohibited. It may also be noted that no polling official or agent can come inside the voting compartment under   7 the pretext of helping you to vote.  You can, however, be permitted to take a companion of not less than 18 years with you for recording your vote, if  for any physical infirmity you require such assistance.

You can decline to cast your vote at the last stage?

The law enables a voter to decline casting his vote at the last stage. If you decide not to cast your vote after having signed on the Register of Voters and after having received the voters’ slip from the Second Polling Officer, you must inform the Presiding Officer immediately. He will then take back the voters’ slip from you and proceed to record in the remarks column of the Register of Voters that you have declined to exercise your Vote and you will be required to put your signature under such entry. After this is done, you can leave the polling station without proceeding to the Voting Compartment.

What happens when your vote is challenged?

In case your identity as a voter is challenged by a polling agent of any candidate, on the ground that you are not the person whose name is listed on the rolls, the Presiding Officer will ask the challenger to give evidence in proof, of his challenge. Similarly, he will ask you for proof of your identity. You can use your EPIC or any other supporting document like Passport, Ration card etc. for this purpose. If the challenge is not established, you will be allowed to vote. However, if challenge is established, you will be debarred from voting and handed over to the police with a written complaint by the Presiding Officer.

What happens if someone else has cast the vote in your name?

If the First Polling Officer tells you on arrival inside the polling station that your vote has already been cast, bring this to the attention of the Presiding Officer immediately. The law allows you to cast a Tendered Vote. A Tendered Ballot Paper, as per Rule 49P of the Conduct of Elections Rules, will be given to you and you will be required to sign your name on the list of tendered votes. A tendered ballot paper is the same as the ballot paper displayed on the balloting unit, except that it shall be endorsed on the back, with the words, “Tendered Ballot Paper” either stamped by the Returning or Written by the Presiding Officer at the time of issuing it. After marking your choice of candidate with the help of Arrow Cross Mark rubber stamp you should hand over the tendered ballot paper to the Presiding Officer, who will keep it in a separate cover. Please note that in such case, you will not cast your vote on the EVM (Electronic Voting Machine).

What are the grievance redressal mechanisms available to you?

If you have any grievance in regard to electoral roll, Electors Photo

Identity Card or any other election related matter you may approach following

Officers:-

Chief Electoral Officer—————- At the State Level

District Election Officer—————At the District Level

Returning Officer———————–At the Constituency Level

Assistant Returning Officer———–At Taluka/Tahsil Level

Electoral Registration Officer———- At the Constituency Level

Presiding Officer———————–At Polling Station

Zonal Officer     ————————For a group of poling stations

(Detailed addresses etc. to be provided by the CEO)

During every election, the Commission appoints Observers who are senior civil service officers from outside the state. If you have any grievances or problems, you should approach them.

As an Eligible Intelligent Responsible Indian Do you know about your Candidate?

Ans:-Maximum people dont know

As an eligible intelligent responsible voter, you should know your candidates before you vote.

Education – What is their qualification?

Personal Assets – What is their current asset value?

Criminal Background – Do they have criminal records against them?

Equipped with this information you can make an informed choice and vote for a better candidate and contribute towards good governance. The results will not be immediate but we should start cleansing now to achieve it at the highest level.

Did you know that there is a system in our constitution, as per the 1969 act, in section “49-O” that a person can go to the polling booth, confirm his identity, get his finger marked and convey the presiding election officer that he doesn’t want to vote anyone!

Yes such a feature is available, but obviously these seemingly notorious leaders have never disclosed it. This is called “49-O”. Why should you go and say “I VOTE NOBODY”… because, in a ward, if a candidate wins, say by 123 votes, and that Particular ward has received “49-O” votes more than 123, then that polling will be cancelled and will have to be re-polled. Not only that, but the candidature of the contestants will be removed and they cannot contest the re-polling, since people had already expressed their decision on them. This would bring fear into parties and hence look for genuine candidates for their parties for election. This would change the way; of our whole political system… it is seemingly surprising why the election commission has not revealed such a feature to the public.

The Truth about 49-O:

If an elector, after his electoral roll number has been duly entered in the register of voters in Form-17A and has put his signature or thumb impression thereon as required under sub-rule (1) of rule 49L, decided not to record his vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry in Form 17A by the presiding officer and the signature or thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark.
This Infers that in no case will there be a re polling in the said constituency, however the negative/neutral vote is registered and counted so as to cross check on the total number of votes polled. VoteIndia.in encourages Voters to cast a protest vote incase they feel there is no right candidate to vote for.

Here is what the Election Commission has to say on NEGATIVE / NEUTRAL VOTING:

The Commission has received proposals from a very large number of individuals and organizations that there should be a provision enabling a voter to reject all the candidates in the constituency if he does not find them suitable. In the voting using the conventional ballot paper and ballot boxes, an elector can drop the ballot paper without marking his vote against any of the candidates, if he chooses so. However, in the voting using the Electronic Voting Machines, such a facility is not available to the voter. Although, Rule 49 O of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 provides that an elector may refuse to vote after he has been identified and necessary entries made in the Register of Electors and the marked copy of the electoral roll, the secrecy of voting is not protected here inasmuch as the polling officials and the polling agents in the polling station get to know about the decision of such a voter.

The Commission recommends that the law should be amended to specifically provide for negative / neutral voting. For this purpose, Rules 22 and 49B of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 may be suitably amended adding a provision that in the ballot paper and the particulars on the ballot unit, in the column relating to names of candidates, after the entry relating to the last candidate, there shall be a column ìNone of the above, to enable a voter to reject all the candidates, if he chooses so. Such a proposal was earlier made by the Commission in 2001 (vide letter dated 10.12.2001).

(A petition by the People  Union for Civil Liberties seeking such a provision filed at the time of the recent general elections is pending before the Honíble Supreme Court)

Issued and Published in Public Interest by Gyandotcom.

why Marine Life Extincts 65 million years ago?

those same features characterize large predatory bony fishes, such as tuna and billfishes, that are currently in decline and at risk of extinction themselves, said Matt Friedman, author of the study and a graduate student in evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago.

“The same thing is happening today to ecologically similar fishes,” he said. “The hardest hit species are consistently big predators.”

Studies of modern fishes demonstrate that large body size is linked to large prey size and low rates of population growth, while fast-closing jaws appear to be adaptations for capturing agile, evasive prey—in other words, other fishes. The fossil record provides some remarkable evidence supporting these estimates of function: fossil fishes with preserved stomach contents that record their last meals.

When an asteroid struck the earth at the end of the Cretaceous about 65 million years ago, the resultant impact clouded the earth in soot and smoke. This blocked photosynthesis on land and in the sea, undermined food chains at a rudimentary level, and led to the extinction of thousands of species of flora and fauna, including dinosaurs.

Scientists had speculated that during that interval large predatory fishes might have been more likely than other fishes to go extinct because they tended to have slowly increasing populations, live more spread out, take longer to mature, and occupy precarious positions at the tops of food chains. Today, ecologically similar fishes appear to be the least able to rebound from declining numbers due to overfishing.

To build the database he needed to test this prediction, Friedman traveled around the world measuring the body size and jaw bones of 249 genera of fossil fishes that lived during the late Cretaceous. These kinds of direct measurements are possible in fossil fishes because many are represented by complete, articulated individuals. This is unlike the fossil record of most other vertebrates, where bones, teeth and other parts of the skeleton are often scattered and found in isolation.

This study is the first to test this theory with hard data and to quantify the relationship between body size, jaw function and vulnerability of fishes during the Cretaceous extinction, according to Friedman.

“Anyway you sliced it, the data showed that if you were a big fish with a fast bite you were toast,” he said.

Ironically, today’s large fishes with fast bites evolved relatively shortly after the end-Cretaceous extinction, apparently filling the functional and ecological roles vacated by the victims of that mass extinction. Although the two groups of fishes are not related to each other, their fates may end up being similar.

The paper is called “Ecomorphological selectivity among marine teleost fishes during the end-Cretaceous extinction” and will appear in issue 13 of PNAS. In it, Friedman describes the results of his study as robust because the large-bodied, predatory fishes that are disproportionately devastated also have the best fossil records. “In other words, we can be convinced that these forms really do die off here, and that their disappearance can’t be chalked up to a lousy fossil record,” Friedman noted.

Nevertheless, fossil fishes are not well studied because paleontologists, as a group, tend to be drawn to other animals, such as dinosaurs. Therefore, many large-scale patterns of fish evolution remain unclear.

The fossil fishes included in the study are diverse in form, and range in length from about 20 feet to less than one inch.

“This study demonstrates that fossil datasets are germane to modern diversity and evolution by allowing us to calibrate what characteristics might relate to extinction vulnerability today,” Friedman said. “Echoes of the end-Cretaceous extinction reverberate 65 million years later.

Source: Matt friedman for Gyandotcom

12-12-2012 (new update). by Gyandotcom

December 12-12-2012

End of Days

By Rohit Sharma

Over 200 predictions and counting!

Yes the end is coming, but all human predictions are wrong!

Mathew 24:35-36 “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” Jesus Christ.

An untold number of people have tried to predict the Lord’s return by using elaborate time tables. Most date setters do not realize mankind has not kept an unwavering record of time. Anyone wanting to chart for example 100 BC to 2000 AD would have contend with the fact 46 BC was 445 days long, there was no year 0 BC, and in 1582 we switched from Julian Years (360 days) to Gregorian (365 days). Because most prognosticators are not aware of all these errors, from the get go their math is already off by several years.

Will the world end in Dec 12-12-2012? No, it won’t.
Will there be a major cataclysm in 2012? Quite possibly.

This page examines some of the significances behind the date of December 12, 2012.

We are currently in a period of eleven years all of which have a day with the last two digits of the year repeated three times in mm/dd/yy form (or dd/mm/yy or yy/mm/dd). So May 5, 2005 was 05/05/05; June 6, 2006 will be 06/06/06; July 7, 2007 will be 07/07/07, etc. So what’s going to happen on December 12, 2012?

December 12, 2012 is 6 years, 6 months, 6 days from June 6, 2006, or 6/6/6 (or 2381 days)

December 12, 2012 is 7 years from December 12, 2005 (or 2557 days). Are we now in the Seven Year Tribulation Period?

December 12, 2012 is 11 years, 3 months, 1 day from September 11, 2001 (or 4110 days)

Why 2012?

THE HOW AND WHY OF THE MAYAN END DATE IN DEC 12-12-2012 A.D

Midnight ¾ April 5 , 2008.

Monday, April 07, 2008 The Logic behind.

Why did the ancient Mayan or pre-Maya choose December 21st, 2012 A.D., as the end of their Long Count calendar? This article will cover some recent research. Scholars have known for decades that the 13-baktun cycle of the Mayan “Long Count” system of timekeeping was set to end precisely on a winter solstice, and that this system was put in place some 2300 years ago. This amazing fact – that ancient Mesoamerica- can sky watchers were able to pinpoint a winter solstice far off into the future – has not been dealt with by Mayanists. And why did they choose the year 2012? One immediately gets the impression that there is a very strange mystery to be confronted here. I will be building upon a clue to this mystery reported by epigrapher Linda Schele in Maya Cosmos (1994). Visionary Perspectives and Calendar Studies (Borderlands Science and Research Foundation, 1994).

The Mayan Long Count

Just some basics to get us started. The Maya were adept sky watchers. Their Classic Period is thought to have lasted from 200 A.D. to 900 A.D., but recent archeological findings are pushing back the dawn of Mayan civilization in Mesoamerica. Large ruin sites indicating high culture with distinctly Mayan antecedents are being found in the jungles of Guatemala dating back to before the Common Era. And even before this, the Olmec civilization flourished and developed the sacred count of 260 days known as the tzolkin. The early Maya adopted two different time keeping systems, the “Short Count” and the Long Count. The Short Count derives from combining the tzolkin cycle with the solar year and the Venus cycle of 584 days. In this way, “short” periods of 13, 52 and 104 years are generated. Unfortunately, we won’t have occasion to dwell on the properties of the so-called Short Count system here. The Long Count system is somewhat more abstract, yet is also related to certain astronomical cycles. It is based upon nested cycles of days multiplied at each level by that key Mayan number, twenty:

Number of Days / Term

1 / Kin (day)

20 / Uinal

360 / Tun

7200 / Katun

144000 / Baktun Long count names: The last initial series was recorded at Tonina, on 10.4.0.0.0 (20 Jan 909 AD). Since it was no longer in use when the Spanish arrived, we are uncertain about some LC terminology. Only the period names katun, winal, and kin are known with assurance. Tun is a Yucatec word for “year,” but both LC and calendar round “years” seem to have sometimes been called haab. Baktun is only a plausible Yucatec name. Linda Schele noted that the phonetic value of the symbol form of the baktun glyph is pi. The ISIG glyph has recently been read tzik haab’, “the count of years.”

Long Count

 

 

 

glyphs represent periods of time.

 

 

 

k’in= day  winal = 20 day month tun = 360 day long count year (18 winal) katun = 7200 days (20 tun) baktun = 144000 days (20 katun)

 

The periods are listed from largest to smallest in the inscriptions. Each period glyph is preceded by a number, usually written in “dot and bar” form: Bar = 5, and dot = 1. Zero is indicated by a “shell” glyph. The first numbered glyph here reads 9 baktun. It counts 9 x 144000 = 1296000 days since creation. The long count is the sum of the multiples of each of the five periods.

 

The example can written (in the short-hand used by Mayanists) from baktun to k’in as 9.16.0.2.0. This is a total count of (9 x 144,000) + (16 x 7200) + (0 x 360) + (2 x 20) + (0 x 1) = 1411240 days.

 

 

Origin of the long count: During the Classical period (200-900 AD), only the Maya kept the long count, but it appears to have been invented by late pre-Classical peoples on the western border of the Maya area. The oldest known example is Chiapa de Corzo Stela 2, dated to 32 BC. Maya civilization emerged during the pre-Classical, perhaps as early as 400 BC, but the earliest long count that is unequivocally Maya is early Classical, found on Tikal stelae 29. It is inscribed with the long count 8.12.14.8.15 = 292 AD.Long count names: The last initial series was recorded at Tonina, on 10.4.0.0.0 (20 Jan 909 AD). Since it was no longer in use when the Spanish arrived, we are uncertain about some LC terminology. Only the period names katun, winal, and kin are known with assurance. Tun is a Yucatec word for “year,” but both LC and calendar round “years” seem to have sometimes been called haab. Baktun is only a plausible Yucatec name. Linda Schele noted that the phonetic value of the symbol form of the baktun glyph is pi. The ISIG glyph has recently been read tzik haab’, “the count of years.”

 

 

 

Notice that the only exception to multiplying by twenty is at the tun level, where the uinal period is instead multiplied by 18 to make the 360-day tun. The Maya employed this counting system to track an unbroken sequence of days from the time it was inaugurated. The Mayan scholar Munro Edmonson believes that the Long Count was put in place around 355 B.C. This may be so, but the oldest Long Count date as yet found corresponds to 32 B.C. We find Long Count dates in the archeological record beginning with the baktun place value and separated by dots. For example: 6.19.19.0.0 equals 6 baktuns, 19 katuns, 19 tuns, 0 uinals and 0 days. Each baktun has 144000 days, each katun has 7200 days, and so on. If we add up all the values we find that 6.19.19.0.0 indicates a total of 1007640 days have elapsed since the Zero Date of 0.0.0.0.0. The much discussed 13-baktun cycle is completed 1872000 days (13 baktuns) after 0.0.0.0.0. This period of time is the so called Mayan “Great Cycle” of the Long Count and equals 5125.36 years.

But how are we to relate this to a time frame we can understand? How does this Long Count relate to our Gregorian calendar? This problem of correlating Mayan time with “western” time has occupied Mayan scholars since the beginning. The standard question to answer became: what does 0.0.0.0.0 (the Long Count “beginning” point) equal in the Gregorian calendar? When this question is answered, archeological inscriptions can be put into their proper historical context and the end date of the 13-baktun cycle can be calculated. After years of considering data from varied fields such as astronomy, ethnography, archeology and iconography, J. Eric S. Thompson determined that 0.0.0.0.0 corresponded to the Julian date 584283, which equals August 11th, 3114 B.C. in our Gregorian calendar. This means that the end date of 13.0.0.0.0, some 5125 years later, is December 21st, 2012 A.D.1

The relationship between the Long Count and Short Count has always been internally consistent (both were tracked alongside each other in an unbroken sequence since their conception). Now it is very interesting to note that an aspect of the “Short Count”, namely, the sacred tzolkin count of 260 days, is still being followed in the highlands of Guatemala. As the Mayan scholar Munro Edmonson shows in The Book of the Year, this last surviving flicker of a calendar tradition some 3000 years old supports the Thompson correlation of 584283. Edmonson also states that the Long Count was begun by the Maya or pre-Maya around 355 B.C., but there is reason to believe that the Long Count system was being perfected for at least 200 years prior to that date.

The point of interest for these early astronomers seems to have been the projected end date in 2012 A.D., rather than the beginning date in 3114 B.C. Having determined the end date in 2012 (for reasons we will come to shortly), and calling it 13.0.0.0.0, they thus proclaimed themselves to be living in the 6th baktun of the Great Cycle. The later Maya certainly attributed much mythological significance to the beginning date, relating it to the birth of their deities, but it now seems certain that the placement of the Long Count hinges upon its calculated end point. Why did early Mesoamerican sky watchers pick a date some 2300 years into the future and, in fact, how did they pinpoint an accurate winter solstice? With all these considerations one begins to suspect that, for some reason, the ancient New World astronomers were tracking precession.

The Precession

The precession of the equinoxes, also known as the Platonic Year, is caused by the slow wobbling of the earth’s polar axis. Right now this axis roughly points to Polaris, the “Pole Star,” but these changes slowly over long periods of time. The earth’s wobble causes the position of the seasonal quarters to slowly process against the background of stars. For example, right now, the winter solstice position is in the constellation of Sagittarius. But 2000 years ago it was in Capricorn. Since then, it has processed backward almost one full sign. It is generally thought that the Greek astronomer Hipparchus was the first to discover precession around 128 B.C. Yet scholarship indicates that more ancient Old World cultures such as the Egyptians and Babylonians also knew about the precession.

I have concluded that even cultures with simple horizon astronomy and oral records passed down for a hundred years or so, would notice the slow shifting of the heavens. For example, imagine that you lived in an environment suited for accurately demarcated horizon astronomy. Even if this wasn’t the case, you might erect monoliths to sight the horizon position of, most likely, the dawning winter solstice sun. This position in relation to background stars could be accurately preserved in oral verse or wisdom teachings, to be passed down for centuries. Since precession will change this position at the rate of 1 degree every 72 years, within the relatively short time of 100 years or so, a noticeable change will have occurred. The point of this is simple. To early cultures attuned to the subtle movements of the sky, precession would not have been hard to notice.

The Details of the Calanders

The numbers before the day and month names in the Java calendar designate the date in each of the two Mayan calendars.  The Mayans used two calendars running simultaneously.

The first is the religious calendar year of 260 days (numbers 1-13 X 20 day names).

The second is the solar calendar year of 365 days (20 days per month X18 months + 5 days in Uayeb).  Uayeb is an unlucky period of the year used to synchronize the calendar with the sun.  It was a period of many rituals and great sacrifices.

Together, the two calendars name the unique date in a 52 year cycle called the “Calendar Round.”

The second set of numbers, #.#.#.#.#, is called the Long Count date.  It is a day by day count of days since the beginning of time for the Mayans.

The procession of numbers though the long count is much like an odometer, the numbers increasing in value from right to left, and the rollers counting through the following numbers: (0-12).(0-19).(0-19).(0-17).(0-20)

For example, 7/28/98 which has a long count value of 12.19.05.07.00 would be calculated
(12*144000) + (19*7200) + (5*360) + (7*20) + (0*1) to find out the number of days since this calendar has been running.  This happens to be 1866740 days or about 5000 years.  This is a very ancient calendar.

Solar Sun Calander (Below)

The Maya are not generally credited with knowing about the precession of the equinoxes. But considering everything else we know about the amazing sophistication of Mesoamerican astronomy, can we realistically continue to deny them this? Many of the as yet undeciphered hieroglyphs may ultimately describe processional myths. Visionary Perspectives and Calendar Studies, the Long Count is perfectly suited for predicting future seasonal quarters, indefinitely, and precession is automatically accounted for. Some of the most incredible aspects of Mayan cosmo-conception are just now being discovered. As was the case with the state of Egyptology in the 1870’s, we still have a lot to learn. In addition, Mayanists like Gordon Brothers ton (The Book of the Fourth World) considers processional knowledge among Mesoamerican cultures to be more than likely.

The Sacred Tree

We are still trying to answer these questions: What is so important about the winter solstice of 2012 and, exactly how were calculations made so accurately, considering that precession should make them exceedingly difficult?

If we make a standard horoscope chart for December 21st, 2012 A.D., nothing very unusual appears. In this way I was led astray in my search until Linda Schele provided a clue. Probably the most exciting breakthrough is her identification of the astronomical meaning of the Mayan Sacred Tree. Drawing from an impressive amount of iconographic evidence, and generously sharing the process by which she arrived at her discovery, the Sacred Tree is found to be none other than the crossing point of the ecliptic with the band of the Milky Way. Indeed, the Milky Way seems to have played an important role in Mayan imagery. For example, an incised bone from 8th century Tikal depicts a long sinking canoe containing various deities. This is a picture of the night sky and the canoe is the Milky Way, sinking below the horizon as the night progresses, and carrying with it deities representing the nearby constellations. The incredible Mayan site of Palanquin is filled with Sacred Tree motifs and references to astronomical events suggested that the Sacred Tree referred to the ecliptic. Apparently that was only part of the picture, for the Sacred Tree that Pacal ascends in death is more than just the ecliptic, it is the sacred doorway to the underworld. The crossing point of Milky Way and ecliptic is this doorway and represents the sacred source and origin. In the following diagram of the well known sarcophagus carving, notice that the Milky Way tree serves as an extension of Pacal’s umbilicus. The umbilicus is a human being’s entrance into life, and entrance into death as well:

 

 

 

 

Chart 1.

 

Here is a full view of the sky at noon on December 21st, 2012 A.D. The band of the Milky Way can be seen stretching from the lower right to the upper left. The more or less vertical dotted line indicates the Galactic Equator. The planets can be seen tracing a roughly horizontal path through the chart, indicating the ecliptic. The sun, quite strikingly, is dead center in the Sacred Tree. Let’s look closer.

 

 

Chart 3.

 

The field is now reduced to a 5-degree span, what astrology considers to be within conjunction. The dot to the lower right of the sun is the star 4 Sgr. Amazingly, the Sun is right on target. We couldn’t have hoped for a closer conjunction. 1 day before or after will remove the sun a noticeable distance from the crossing point. December 21st, 2012 (13.0.0.0.0 in the Long Count) therefore represents an extremely close conjunction of the winter solstice sun with the crossing point of Galactic Equator and the ecliptic, what the ancient Maya recognized as the Sacred Tree. It is critical to understand that the winter solstice sun rarely conjuncts the Sacred Tree. In fact, this is an event that has been coming to resonance very slowly over thousands and thousands of years. What this might mean astrologically, how this might effect the “energy weather” on earth, must be treated as a separate topic.

But I should at least mention in passing that this celestial convergence appears to parallel the accelerating pace of human civilization. It should be noted that because precession is a very slow process, similar astronomical alignments will be evident on the winter solstice dates within perhaps 5 years on either side of 2012. However, the accuracy of the conjunction of 2012 is quite astounding, beyond anything deemed calculable by the ancient Maya, and serves well to represent the perfect mid-point of the process.

Let’s go back to the dawn of the Long Count and try to reconstruct what may have been happening.

Why

: Winter Solstice Sun Conjuncts the Sacred Tree in 2012 A.D.

First, the tzolkin count originated among the Olmec at least as early as 679 B.C. (see Edmondson’s Book of the Year). We may suspect that astronomical observations were being made from at least that point. The tzolkin count has been followed unbroken since at least that time, up to the present day, demonstrating the high premium placed by the Maya upon continuity of tradition. In this way, star records, horizon positions of the winter solstice sun, and other pertinent observations could also have been accurately preserved. As suggested above, precession can be noticed by way of even simple horizon astronomy in as little time as 100 to 150 years. (Hipparchus, the alleged “discoverer” of precession among the Greeks, compared his own observations with data collected only 170 years before his time.) Following Edmonson, the Long Count system may have appeared as early as 355 B.C. Part of the reason for implementing the Long Count system, as I will show, was probably to calculate future winter solstice dates.

We must assume that even at this early point in Mesoamerican history, the crossing point of ecliptic and Milky Way was understood as the “Sacred Tree”. Since the Sacred Tree concept is intrinsically tied into the oldest Mayan Creation Myths, this is not improbable. At the very least, the “dark rift” was already a recognized feature. Early sky watchers of this era (355 B.C.) would then observe the sun to conjunct the dark ridge in the Milky Way on or around November 18th.5 this would be easily observed in the pre-dawn sky as described above: the Milky Way points to the rising sun on this date.

Over a relatively short period of time, as an awareness of precession was emerging, this date was seen to slowly approach winter solstice, a critical date in its own right in early Mayan cosmo-conception. At this point, precession and the rate of precession was calculated, the Long Count was perfected and inaugurated, and the appropriate winter solstice date in 2012 A.D. was found via the Long Count in the following way.

How:

Long Count and Seasonal Quarters

Long Count Katun beginnings will conjunct sequential seasonal quarters every 1.7.0.0.0 days (194400 days). This is an easily tracked Long Count interval. Starting with the katun beginning of 650 B.C.:

Long Count Which Quarter? Year

6.5.0.0.0 Fall 650 B.C.

7.12.0.0.0 Winter 118 B.C.

8.19.0.0.0 Spring 416 A.D.

10.6.0.0.0 Summer 948 A.D.

11.13.0.0.0 Fall 1480 A.D.

13.0.0.0.0 Winter 2012 A.D.

Note

that the last date is not only a katun beginning, but a baktun beginning as well. It is, indeed, the end date of 2012.6

The Long Count may have been officially inaugurated on a specific date in 355 B.C., as Edmonson suggests, but it must have been formulated, tried, tested, and proven before this date. This may well have taken centuries, and the process no doubt paralleled (and was perhaps instigated by) the discovery of precession. The Long Count system automatically accounts for precession in its ability to calculate future seasonal quarters – a property which shouldn’t be underestimated.

Mayan Zodiac Signs

Mayans Zodic Singns (Above) Original Mayan Calander( below)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

glyphic tex Above Picture]

“The Maya knew the exact length of the true solar year as 365.2420 days, that is, with a minus error of 0.0002, while our present Gregorian calendar has it at 365.2425, or a plus error of 0.0003.”

 

Maya astronomers determined astronomical constants with remarkable accuracy. In our technological age, their feats seems incredible, if not impossible, without telescopes, clocks and measuring devices. But we have forgotten what can be achieved by careful naked eye observation using simple instruments, or even no instruments at all.

 

 

 

Maya sky watchers used methods similar to those of other ancient astronomers. The Greek astronomer Ptolemy would have understood and appreciated the star craft of a Maya scribe from Copan. What was required, above all else, was careful observation over long periods of time.

Only four Maya glyph books, called codices, survive. They are painted on lime-whitened bark paper, folded accordion-style. The codices were likely produced in the late post-Classical period (1200-1519 AD). Some material in the codices , including astronomical tables, appears to have been copied or adapted from manuscripts of the Classical period (200 – 900 AD). The long count entry date of the Dresden Codex eclipse table, for example, correlates to 755 AD. This may date the original version of the table.

Admiring statements about the accuracy of Maya astronomy (like Gates’ quoted above) may distort what the Maya were trying to achieve. They were not interested in accuracy for its own sake, and had nothing like the modern notion of standard deviation to serve as a benchmark of accuracy. Like many peoples, they wanted to be able to predict future astronomical events to time rituals and make auguries. They needed reasonably good measures of such things as the lunar month and the period of Venus to do so, but the accuracy of a modern ephemeris would not have been required for this purpose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But there is another aspect of Maya sacred astronomy that was almost unique among civilizations at a similar level of technology. The Maya were intensely interested in making astronomical cycles commensurate with their calendar. They carried out observations over long periods of time to fit astronomical and calendrical cycles together. The eclipse table in the Dresden Codex is not carried out 11,960 days to achieve extreme accuracy, but because nothing less than 405 lunations can be fitted into a whole number of 260 day.

 

 

 

tzolk’in

 

 

 

cycles. The Venus table is carried out even further, but only to ensure that it runs from a tzolk’in date of 1 Ahaw to another occurrence of 1 Ahaw on a day when Venus again rises with the sun.

Maya measurements of the Venus and Mars cycles come, like the measurement of the lunar month, from the Dresden Codex. The Venus table in the Codex records heliacal rise (when Venus rises with the Sun) at 594 day intervals. However, the table has a built-in mechanism for correcting this approximation that leads to the figure of 593. 93 days listed above. The Mars table records the period of the planet as 780 days, and appears to contain no method of correction

 

 

 

So while the values of the lunar month, Venus period, and tropical year implied by Maya records are more accurate than those calculated by Ptolemy using Greek and Babylonian records, the difference was dictated by the Maya calendar, not a scientific desire for high accuracy. The Maya measurement of the synodic period of Mars is quite good, but not as accurate as the Greeks’. Mars’ period is almost exactly three tzolk’in cycles, which required only a bit more than two years of observation to fit into the calendar. The short period of observation required to make a good match with the calendar produced a measure of Mars’ period less accurate than the estimates of lunar and Venus periods.In fact, there are cases in which the scribes sacrificed accuracy to the demands of ritual. For example, while the length of the Venus period from heliacal rise to heliacal rise is very accurate, the Codex is not nearly as accurate in recording the time between other “stations” of the planet. But since the accuracy with which the scribes determined the mean synodic period proves they were skilled Venusian observers, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that they deliberately altered the length of apparitions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is likely that the Venus table was adjusted so that the auguries for the beginning of each apparition would be consistent with established auguries for days in the tzol’kin. The table is contrived to bring the apparition dates as close to observation as possible while retaining the required links with the tzolk’in.This should not diminish respect for Maya astronomers, but it does put their achievement in proper context. The Maya regarded time as a meshing of sacred cycles. Their astronomy was a monumental effort to encompass the motions of the heavens in a mathematically perfect system. Its purpose was ritual and augury, not scientific description in the modern sense

 

 

 

The fullest surviving account of Creation is found in the post-Conquest Popol Vuh of the Quiche people of Guatemala. The oldest evidence is from monuments at Izapa and other pre-Classical sites (400 BC- 200 AD). Many of the incidents recounted in the Popol Vuh parallel scenes on painted ceramics of the Classical period (200-900 AD). The Temple of the Cross at Palenque and other Classical inscriptions report the events of Creation, though in a condensed, sometimes cryptic manner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

These sources do not always agree in detail. Nevertheless, they show a remarkable continuity in the Maya conception of the cosmos over two millennia of history.

Right: Izapa World Tree (Stela 25). The crocodile represents the Earth, its hills symbolized by the rough skin of the reptile, a characteristic shared with the bark of the ceiba tree.

 

 

 

At the centre of every traditional Maya dwelling is household hearth, a triangle of three stones. The hearthstones have a sacred as well as utilitarian function. Maya rituals often begin with the centring of the four quarters of the world about the ritual precints. Household rituals are centred on the hearthstones. The Earth-Sky, the dwelling place of humans, is centred on a cosmic hearth, from which the World Tree first rose. The Popol Vuh hints at the importance of the hearth: When the wooden people were destroyed by flood, “their hearthstones were shooting out, coming right out of the fire . . . Such was the scattering of the human work, the human design.” An essential step in the reordering of the world after the deluge was the setting of the hearth stones of the new world. Toward dawn on the night of Aug 13, the constellation Orion moves toward the zenith. The Quiche people still refer to a triad of three bright stars in Orion as “the hearth stones”, and the hazy nebula below Orion’s belt is called “the smoke from the hearth”. Orion is also called the turtle stars (ak’ ek), depicted in the Madrid Codex as a turtle with three tun (”stone”) glyphs on its back. Because the sky has not yet been raised, the hearth is a location in both earth and sky. The turtle shell is an earth symbol, like the back of the crocodile at the foot of the World Tree. Here is the place of Creation, where the sky will rise again.

542 days after the lying down sky was manifested, Hun-Nal-Ye [Maize God], the First Father, entered the sky at the First Three Stone- Place. On 13 Ik, the last day of Mol, he made proper the Wakah Chan [Raised up-Sky] place (Temple of the Cross) [

 

 

 

 

 

At dawn on the night of August 13, the Milky Way is almost erect. The scribes who designed Quirigua Stela C appear to have been content to end their account of Creation here. The text ends with a brief reference to the “action” or “work” of Wak-Chan-Ahaw, the “Raised- up-Sky Lord”. The Temple of the Cross at Palenque tells more about the final act of Creation, the raising of the World Tree. To set the scene, the Palenque scribes counted forward 542 days, to Febuary 5 a year and a half later. At sunset on Febuary 5, the sky has the same configuration as at dawn on the night of August 13.

About 2 hours after sunset on Febuary 5, the hearth in Orion is very near the zenith. For the Palenque scribes, this may mark the setting of the three hearth stones at the foot of the World Tree. Just after midnight, Orion sets, and two hours later, the Milky Way lies prone along the south eastern horizon. At the zenith lies a particularly dark region of the sky that Schele identifies as the Ek’-Way, the “black dream place”, a portal to the Underworld. This is literally the darkness before the dawn.

As the night progresses, the Milky Way slowly turns erect once more. At dawn, the World Tree has been raised over the world inhabited by the true humans. It now occupies the same place in the sky as it did at sun set on Aug 13, before the destruction of the old world.

 

This is likely the image of the sky the Palenque scribes had in mind when they carved the glyphs that tell us that Hun- Nal-Ye “entered the sky” and “made proper the Raised-up-Sky Place” on Feb 5 in 3112 BC. The god who raises the sky in the Palenque Creation story is the Maize God, Hun- Nal-Ye, “one sprout revealed”. In the Popol Vuh, the gods created true humans out of corn meal. It is the stuff of life. In one of its guises the World Tree is a corn plant. At Palenque, the cosmic World Tree is paired with another, the “Foliated Cross”, with images of the Maize God’s head in its branches, like cobs of corn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summary

This has been my attempt to fill a vacuum in Mayan Studies, an answer to the why and how of the end date of the 13-baktun cycle of the Mayan Long Count. The solution requires a shift in how we think about the astronomy of the Long Count end date. The strange fact that it occurs on a winter solstice immediately points us to possible astronomical reasons, but they are not obvious. We also shouldn’t forget the often mentioned fact that the 13-baktun cycle of some 5125 years is roughly 1/5th of a processional cycle. This in itself should have been suggestive of a deeper mystery very early on. Only with the recent identification of the astronomical nature of the Sacred Tree has the puzzle revealed its fullness. And once again we are amazed at the sophistication and vision of the ancient New World astronomers, the descendants of whom still count the days and watch the skies in the remote outback’s of Guatemala.

This essay is not contrived upon sketchy evidence. It basically rests upon two facts:

1) The well known end date of the 13-baktun cycle of the Mayan Long Count, which is December 21st, 2012 A.D. and

2) The astronomical situation on that day. Based upon these two facts alone, the creators of the Long Count knew about and calculated the rate of precession over 2300 years ago. I can conceive of no other conclusion. To explain this away as “coincidence” would only obscure the issue.

For early Mesoamerican sky watchers, the slow approach of the winter solstice sun to the Sacred Tree was seen as a critical process, the culmination of which was surely worthy of being called 13.0.0.0.0, the end of a World Age. The channel would then be open through the winter solstice doorway, up the Sacred Tree, the Xibalba be , to the center of the churning heavens, the Heart of Sky.

2004 and 2012 Transits of

Venus

Transits of Venus across the disk of the Sun are among the rarest of planetary alignments. Indeed, only six such events have occurred since the invention of the telescope (1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874 and 1882). The next two transits of Venus will occur on 2004 June 08 and 2012 June 06.

The principal events occurring during a transit are characterized by contacts. The event begins with contact I which is the instant when the planet’s disk is externally tangent with the Sun. The entire disk of the Venus is first seen at contact II when the planet is internally tangent with the Sun. During the next several hours, Venus gradually traverses the solar disk at a relative angular rate of approximately 4 arc-min/hr. At contact III, the planet reaches the opposite limb and is once again internally tangent with the Sun. The transit ends at contact IV when the planet’s limb is externally tangent to the Sun. Contacts I and II define the phase called ingress while contacts III and IV are known as egress. Greatest transit is the instant of minimum angular separation between Venus and the Sun as seen from Earth’s geocenter.(Low Res or High Res) illustrates the geocentric observing geometry of each transit across the Sun (celestial north is up). The 2004 transit crosses the Sun’s southern hemisphere while the 2012 event crosses the northern hemisphere. The position of Venus at each contact is shown along with its path as a function of Universal Time. Each transit lasts over six hours. The apparent semi-diameters of Venus and the Sun are 29 arc-seconds and 945 arc-seconds respectively. This 1:32.6 diameter ratio results in an effective 0.001 magnitude drop in the Sun’s integrated magnitude due to the transit. Geocentric contact times and instant of greatest transit appear to the left corners of (Low Res or High Res).

 

Geographic Visibility of 2004 June 08

The global visibility of the 2004 transit is illustrated with the world map in Figure 2 (Low Res or High Res). The entire transit (all four contacts) is visible from Europe, Africa (except western parts), Middle East, and most of Asia (except eastern parts). The Sun sets while the transit is still in progress from Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, Korea, easternmost China and Southeast Asia. Similarly, the Sun rises with the transit already in progress for observers in western Africa, eastern North America, the Caribbean and most of South America. None of the transit will be visible from southern Chile or Argentina, western North America, Hawaii or New Zealand.

The horizontal parallax of Venus (~ 30 arc-secs) introduces a topocentric correction of up to ±7 minutes with respect to the geocentric contact times for observers at different geographic locations. Topocentric contact times (Universal Time) and corresponding altitudes of the Sun are presented for over one hundred cities in Geographic Visibility of 2012 June 06

The global visibility of the 2012 transit is (Low Res or High Res). The entire transit (all four contacts) is visible from northwestern North America, Hawaii, the western Pacific, northern Asia, Japan, Korea, eastern China, Philippines, eastern Australia, and New Zealand. The Sun sets while the transit is still in progress from most of North America, the Caribbean, and northwest South America. Similarly, the transit is already in progress at sunrise for observers in central Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and eastern Africa,. No portion of the transit will be visible from Portugal or southern Spain, western Africa, and the southeastern 2/3 of South America.

The horizontal parallax of Venus (~ 30 arc-secs) introduces a topocentric correction of up to ±7 minutes with respect to the geocentric contact times for observers at different geographic locations. Topocentric contact times (Universal Time) and corresponding altitudes of the Sun are presented for over one hundred cities.

Frequency of Transits

Transits of Venus are only possible during early December and early June when Venus’s orbital nodes pass across the Sun. If Venus reaches inferior conjunction at this time, a transit will occur. Transits show a clear pattern of recurrence at intervals of 8, 121.5, 8 and 105.5 years. The next pair of Venus transits occur over a century from now on 2117 Dec 11 and 2125 Dec 08.

Edmund Halley first realized that transits of Venus could be used to measure the Sun’s distance, thereby establishing the absolute scale of the solar system from Kepler’s third law. Unfortunately, his method proved impractical since contact timings of the desired accuracy are impossible due to the effects of atmospheric seeing and diffraction. Nevertheless, the 1761 and 1769 expeditions to observe the transits of Venus gave astronomers their first good value for the Sun’s distance.

The planet Mercury can also transit the Sun. Since Mercury orbits the Sun more quickly than does Venus, it undergoes transits much more frequently. There are about 13 or 14 transits of Mercury each century. All Mercury transits fall within several days of 8 May and 10 November. During November transits, Mercury is near perihelion and exhibits a disk only 10 arc-seconds in diameter. By comparison, the planet is near aphelion during May transits and appears 12 arc-seconds across. However, the probability of a May transit is smaller by a factor of almost two. Mercury’s slower orbital motion at aphelion makes it less likely to cross the node during the critical period. November transits recur at intervals of 7, 13, or 33 years while May transits recur only over the latter two intervals. The next two transits of Mercury are on 2003 May 07 , 2006 and Nov 2008.

The sky on December 21st, 2012 A.D. showing a rare astronomical alignment – The winter solstice sun is right in the “dark rift” in the Milky Way.The Milky Way Galaxy is the inspiration for the symbol of the Ouroboros. Myth refers to a serpent of light residing in the heavens. The Milky Way is this serpent, and viewed at galactic central point near sagittarius, this serpent eats its own tail

the Solar Eclipse on May 20 2012 shows the planatery positions  see below

In 2012 the centre of the Galaxy is at 0 degree of the Western zodiacal sign Capricorn. 0 degree Capricorn is the point of the zodiac where the Sun is during the December solstice.  

At December 21, 11.12 GMT during the December solstice the Sun is at the exact centre of the Galaxy. According to the Mayas the center of the Galaxy is the cosmic womb: the place of dead, transformation, regeneration and rebirth. This moment shows the end of their calendar.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE ASTROLOGICAL CHART
The Sun is at 0 degrees Capricorn, the point of the December solstice. It makes a sextile to Neptune, right at the beginning of Pisces. This is an almost exact sextile. The orb is less then half a degree. This aspect can point towards a spiritual experience, a loss or both.

The most important configuration is a yod which we find in the chart. This is also called the Finger of God. It looks like an arrow in the chart and it indicates change and transformations. .

The yod consists of:
1. A quincunx (150 degree aspect) between Jupiter and Pluto.

2. A quincunx between Jupiter and Saturn.

3. A central opposition (180 degree aspect) made between Jupiter and the Mercury/Venus conjunction.

The two quincunxes are almost exact, they have an orb of less then half a degree. In fact the quincunx between Jupiter and Pluto is exact at December 21 2012.   

THE MEANING OF THE ASTROLOGICAL CHART

Pluto is the planet of radical transformation, death and rebirth.

Saturn is the planet of the earthly realm and of learning experiences, especially those of a more painful nature. 

Jupiter is the planet of expansion. It is the focus of the yod, the planet which receives the strong energy of the other planets involved. It also expands the energy of the other planets involved (especially Saturn and Pluto).
This yod indicates transformational processes which can be painful for many.

Jupiter has a central place in this because it is the focal point of the energy. This indicates changes in our religious systems, beliefs, philosophical systems. These fall under Jupiter.
 
 
Another notable configuration is the T-square with Neptune as focal point:
Jupiter makes a square (90 degree aspect) to Neptune.
Neptune makes a square to Venus.
Venus opposes Jupiter, this is the central opposition that activates the yod.
Therefore Neptune, the planet of spirituality, ascension, confusion and floods is a cruxial planet in this chart.

 

 

Keep Reading as My Research is Going on to find the truth behind december 21-12-2012 Mayans Calander.

By Rohit Sharma

 

 

 

 

The tzolk’in is a cycle of 260 days. Each day in the cycle is identified by both a day number and a day name glyph. The tzolk’in date in this example is a day 3 Ahaw. Thirteen day numbers and 20 day names were used. The sequence of day names is Imix, Ik, Ak’bal, K’an, Chikchan, Kimi, Manik’, Lamat, Muluk’, Ok, Chuwan, Eb, Ben, Ix, Men, Kib, Kaban, Etz’nab, Kawak, Ahaw. The day before 3 Ahaw is 2 Kawak. On the day after 3 Ahaw, the sequence of 20 day names begins again, with 4 Imix. The day numbers continue to increase to 13, then revert to 1. Thus counting ten days from 3 Ahaw, the day 13 Ok is reached. It is followed by 1 Chuwan.

 

 

 

Because 13 x 20 = 260, each day in the tzolk’in cycle has a unique name-number combination. The day 3 Ahaw repeats only after 260 days. This system may seem rather complicated, but it is really little different than combining week day names with the day of the month in our system. Thus, for example “Tuesday the 31st” might be followed by “Wednesday the lst.”

 

 The haab is a 365 day year. Since the Maya often aligned buildings to sunrise on the solstices, it is clear that they were aware that the solar year is not exactly 365 days long. The haab was likely set to 365 days to make it more easily commensurate with other calendrical cycles. The haab was divided into 18 named months (winals), each 20 days long, with a 5 day period at year end, the Wayeb, during which New Year rituals were performed. A haab date combines the day of the month with the month name. In this example, the date is 13 Yaxk’in. The Yucatec names of the months are: Pop, Wo, Sip, Sotz’, Sek, Xul, Yaxk’in, Mol, Ch’en, Yax, Sak, Seh, K’ank’in, Muan, Pax, K’ayeb, Kumk’u. The name glyphs, ending with the Wayeb glyph, are illustrated in order at the right.

The post-Classical Maya numbered the days of the month from 1 to 20, but in Classical inscriptions, the last day of the month was written as the day on which the new month was “seated” (chum). Thus the last day of Yaxk’in was usually written as chum Mol, rather than as 20 Yaxk’in. This amounts to taking chum Mol as the first day of Mol, and numbering the days of the month from 0 (chum) to 19.

 

 

 

The tzolk’in and haab dates. The lowest common multiple of the 260 days in the tzolk’in and 365 days in the haab is 18980. This is 52 haab, just short of 52 years in our calendar. Thus a combined tzolk’in and haab date repeats only after this lapse of time.

 

The calendar round was the longest calendrical period recorded by the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican peoples outside the Maya zone. Only the Maya and their pre-Classical predecessors kept the long count that fixes a date unequivocally in time. 

 

Solar System – Did you notice? In February 2001, the Sun did a magnetic polar shift. The next one is due again in 2012. NASA scientists who monitor the Sun say that our star’s awesome magnetic field flipped 22 months ago, signaling the arrival of a solar maximum. But it wasn’t so obvious to the average human.

The Sun’s magnetic north pole, which was in the northern hemisphere just a few months ago, now points south. It’s a topsy-turvy situation, but not an unexpected one. “This always happens around the time of solar maximum,” says David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight Center. “The magnetic poles exchange places at the peak of the sunspot cycle. In fact, it’s a good indication that Solar Max is really here.”

The Sun’s magnetic poles will remain as they are now, with the north magnetic pole pointing through the Sun’s southern hemisphere, until the year 2012 when they will reverse again. This transition happens, as far as we know, at the peak of every 11-year sunspot cycle — like clockwork.

Earth’s magnetic field also flips, but with less regularity. Consecutive reversals are spaced 5 thousand years to 50 million years apart. The last reversal happened 740,000 years ago. Some researchers think our planet is overdue for another one, but nobody knows exactly when the next reversal might occur.

Although solar and terrestrial magnetic fields behave differently, they do have something in common: their shape. During solar minimum the Sun’s field, like Earth’s, resembles that of an iron bar magnet, with great closed loops near the equator and open field lines near the poles. Scientists call such a field a “dipole.” The Sun’s dipolar field is about as strong as a refrigerator magnet, or 50 gauss (a unit of magnetic intensity). Earth’s magnetic field is 100 times weaker.

When solar maximum arrives and sunspots pepper the face of the Sun, our star’s magnetic field begins to change. Sunspots are places where intense magnetic loops — hundreds of times stronger than the ambient dipole field — poke through the photosphere.

“Meridional flows on the Sun’s surface carry magnetic fields from mid-latitude sunspots to the Sun’s poles,” explains Hathaway. “The poles end up flipping because these flows transport south-pointing magnetic flux to the north magnetic pole, and north-pointing flux to the south magnetic pole.” The dipole field steadily weakens as oppositely-directed flux accumulates at the Sun’s poles until, at the height of solar maximum, the magnetic poles change polarity and begin to grow in a new direction.

Hathaway noticed the latest polar reversal in a “magnetic butterfly diagram.” Using data collected by astronomers at the U.S. National Solar Observatory on Kitt Peak, he plotted the Sun’s average magnetic field, day by day, as a function of solar latitude and time from 1975 through the present. The result is a sort of strip chart recording that reveals evolving magnetic patterns on the Sun’s surface. “We call it a butterfly diagram,” he says, “because sunspots make a pattern in this plot that looks like the wings of a butterfly.” In the butterfly diagram, pictured below, the Sun’s polar fields appear as strips of uniform color near 90 degrees latitude. When the colors change (in this case from blue to yellow or vice versa) it means the polar fields have switched signs.

The ongoing changes are not confined to the space immediately around our star, Hathaway added. The Sun’s magnetic field envelops the entire solar system in a bubble that scientists call the “heliosphere.” The heliosphere extends 50 to 100 astronomical units (AU) beyond the orbit of Pluto. Inside it is the solar system — outside is interstellar space.

“Changes in the Sun’s magnetic field are carried outward through the heliosphere by the solar wind,” explains Steve Suess, another solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight Center. “It takes about a year for disturbances to propagate all the way from the Sun to the outer bounds of the heliosphere.” Because the Sun rotates (once every 27 days) solar magnetic fields corkscrew outwards in the shape of an Archimedian spiral. Far above the poles the magnetic fields twist around like a child’s Slinky toy.

Because of all the twists and turns, “the impact of the field reversal on the heliosphere is complicated,” says Hathaway. Sunspots are sources of intense magnetic knots that spiral outwards even as the dipole field vanishes. The heliosphere doesn’t simply wink out of existence when the poles flip — there are plenty of complex magnetic structures to fill the void.

Or so the theory goes…. Researchers have never seen the magnetic flip happen from the best possible point of view — that is, from the top down. But now, the unique Ulysses spacecraft may give scientists a reality check. Ulysses, an international joint venture of the European Space Agency and NASA, was launched in 1990 to observe the solar system from very high solar latitudes. Every six years the spacecraft flies 2.2 AU over the Sun’s poles. No other probe travels so far above the orbital plane of the planets. “Ulysses just passed under the Sun’s south pole,” says Suess, a mission co-Investigator. “Now it will loop back and fly over the north pole in the fall.”

“This is the most important part of our mission,” he says. Ulysses last flew over the Sun’s poles in 1994 and 1996, during solar minimum, and the craft made several important discoveries about cosmic rays, the solar wind, and more. “Now we get to see the Sun’s poles during the other extreme: Solar Max. Our data will cover a complete solar cycle.”

by  Rohit Sharma for Gyandotcom

The truth Behind Ramayana (New Research Update 2009) Must Read

update 6-6-2009

Time Concept of the Vedas
Linear Versus Cyclic Time
The modern historical scientists’ linear concept of time strikingly resembles the traditional Judaeo-Christian concept, and it strikingly differs from that of the ancient Greeks and Indians. The cosmological ideas of several prominent Greek thinkers included a cyclic or episodic time similar to that found in the Vedic literature of India.

For example, we find in Hesiod’s Works and Days a series of ages (gold, silver, bronze, heroic, and iron) similar to the Indian yugas (ages). In both systems the quality of human life becomes progressively worse with each passing age. In On Nature, Empedocles speaks of cosmic time cycles. In Plato’s dialogues, there are descriptions of revolving time and recurring catastrophes destroying or nearly destroying human civilization. Aristotle said often in his works that the arts and sciences had been discovered many times in the past. In the teachings of Plato, Pythagoras, and Empedocles on the transmigration of the soul, the cyclical pattern extends to individual psycho-physical existence.

When Judaeo-Christian civilization arose in Europe, another understanding of time became prominent — time going forward in a straight line. Broadly speaking, this concept of time involves a unique act of cosmic creation, a unique appearance of human beings, and a unique history of salvation, culminating in a unique denouement, the last judgment. The drama occurs only once. Individually, the life of a human being mirrors this process; so, with some exceptions, orthodox Christian theologians rejected transmigration of the soul.

Modern historical sciences share the basic Judaeo-Christian assumptions about time. The universe we inhabit is a unique occurrence: Humans arose once on this planet; the history of our ancestors followed a unique though unpredestined evolutionary pathway; and the collapse of the “Big Bang” universe will bring everything to a close.

One is tempted to propose that the modern account of human evolution is a Judaeo-Christian heresy that covertly retains fundamental structures of Judaeo-Christian cosmology, eschatology, and salvation history while overtly dispensing with the scriptural account of divine intervention in the origin of species, including our own.

The Vedic Calculation of Time:  The Vedic concept of time is cyclic, rotating in cycles of four yugas:

                                  Satya-yuga: 1,728,000 human years
                                  Treta-yuga: 1,296,000 human years
                                  Dvapara-yuga: 864,000 human years
                                  Kali-yuga: 432,000 human years

This yuga cycle totaling 4.32 million years is also called a maha- or divya-yuga. One thousand such cycles, 4.32 billion years, make up one day of Lord Brahma, the demigod who governs the universe. Such a day of Brahma is called a kalpa. Each of Brahma’s nights lasts as long as his day. Life is manifest on earth only during the day of Brahma. With the onset of Brahma’s night, the entire universe is devastated and plunged into darkness. When another day of Brahma begins, life again becomes manifest.

Each kalpa (day of Brahma) is divided into 14 manvantara periods, each lasting 71 yuga cycles. Preceding the first and following each manvantara period is a junction (sandhya and sandhyamsa respectively) the length of a Satya-yuga (1,728,000 years). Each manvantara period ends with a partial devastation and starts with a partial recreation of the universe.

Brahma lives 100 years, consisting of 360 days and nights (the Vedic year is based on the cycles of the moon, not the sun). Thus Brahma lives 100 x 360 kalpas = 36,000 days plus 36,000 nights. In human years, Brahma’s life span lies far beyond our power of imagination: 72,000 x 4,320,000,000 human years = 311,040,000,000,000 human years.

The life span of Brahma is identical with the duration of the universe. This time span, called a maha-kalpa, is also the duration of one breathing in and out of Maha-Vishnu, the Personality of Godhead. Maha-Vishnu lies down within the ocean of causality and sleeps. He is eternal, and He dreams the material world in His cosmic slumber. When He exhales, all the universes emanate from the pores of His skin, and a Brahma is born within each universe. When He inhales, Brahma dies, and He sucks the universes into His mouth and destroys them. With each exhalation, the entire process starts anew. This cycle goes on eternally and is therefore also called eternal time.

The four yugas can also be calculated in demigod years:

                                  Satya-yuga: 4,800 demigod years
                                  Treta-yuga: 3,600 demigod years
                                  Dvapara-yuga: 2,400 demigod years
                                  Kali-yuga : 1,200 demigod years

Each six months of human time is one day for the demigods, and another six months is one night. When the sun is in the southern side of the universe (summer in the Southern Hemisphere), the demons have day and demigods have night, and vice versa when the sun is in the Northern Hemisphere. One of our years is one of their days, and 360 of our years is one of their years.

Most demigods maintain their positions within the universe for the duration of one manvantara (age of Manu). Because the demigods live for one day of Brahma, they change their positions each manvantara and become other demigods. Since 14 manvantaras (14 Manus) reign in one day of Brahma, a total of 14 x 360 x 100 = 504,000 Manus and demigods change shifts in the lifetime of Brahma.

The Four Yugas :

The Vedic Puranas describe the four yugas as follows:

Satya-yuga, or the golden age, is the ideal age, characterized by virtue, wisdom, religion, and practically no vice or ignorance. Humans do not hate or envy each other, nor do they ever feel anxious, fearful or threatened. They solely worship the one Supreme Personality of Godhead, hear the one Veda, obey the one law, and practice the one religious process — meditation on the Supreme. People live for about 100,000 years.

In Treta-yuga vice is introduced. The good qualities that humans had in Satya-yuga reduce by one third. People introduce religious rites, sacrifices, and ceremonies. They start to act with fruitive desires, expecting a reward for their work and religious activities. They live for a maximum of 10,000 years.

In Dvapara-yuga uprightness is only half of what it was in Satya-yuga. The Vedas are divided into four parts, and only a few people study them. Sensual desires and diseases begin to well up, and injustice spreads in human civilization. People live for a maximum of 1000 years.

In Kali-yuga only one fourth of human uprightness remains and gradually reduces to nil as the age progresses. We now live in Kali-yuga, the iron age, the most degraded of the four ages (kali literally means “quarrel and hypocrisy”).

In this age men are short lived and have less intelligence. They are especially lazy in performing their spiritual duties and exceedingly slow to surrender to the Lord. They are misled, frustrated and, above all, always disturbed. The qualities of religion (truthfulness, cleanliness, forbearance and mercy) and the qualities of life (intelligence, duration of life and bodily strength and beauty) all diminish. The maximum duration of human life is 100 years, and even that is rare.

Where We Are Now

According to the Vedic scriptures, we are now in the first day of the second half of the life of Brahma (even he gets old, and he is now 50). Within this day of Brahma, we are in the seventh manvantara (of Vaivasvata Manu), in the 28th turnover of its 71 yuga cycles.

Modern astronomy calculates the beginning of the present Kali-yuga at 2:27a.m. on February 20th in the year 3102 B.C.

Man has been on the earth a lot longer than generally accepted. Space images taken by NASA reveal a mysterious ancient bridge in the Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka.It has been believed that there is no evidence to determine the dates of events in the Ramayanic era. Some historians of the past even refuse to acknowledge that Rama and other characters from the Ramayana even existed. However, Sage Valmiki has recorded the dates if events in detail, albeit by describing the positions of stars and planets. To decipher the astronomical encodings has not been a trivial task, and not many have attempted to do so. It should be noted that the ancient Indians had a prefect method of time measurement. They recorded the ‘tithis‘, days according to the nakshatra on which the moon prevailed, the months, the seasons and even the different Solstices. By therefore noting a particular arrangement of the astronomical bodies, which occur once in many thousand years, the dates of the events can be calculated. The correct astronomical records goes to show that Valmiki’s has chronicled an account of a true story and also, that the an advanced time measurement system was known to the Hindus (Indians) atleast 9000 years ago.

The recently discovered bridge is made of a chain of shoals 18 miles long. The bridge’s unique curvature and composition by age reveals that it is man made. Legends as well as archeological studies reveal that the first signs of human inhabitants in Sri Lanka date back to a primitive age, about 1,750,000 years ago and the bridge’s age is also almost equivalent.

This information confirms the mysterious legend of the Ramayana, recorded to have taken place in the Treta Yuga (more than 1,700,000 years ago). At that time the inhabitants in the world were much more spiritual than they are today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE SCIENTIFIC DATING OF THE MAHABHARAT and RAMAYANA WAR (16th OCTOBER 5562 B.C.)  

 

(by Gyandotcom )

SOME FACTS.

MAHABHARAT, RAMAYAN ARE NOT MYTHOLOGY BUT HISTORY OF VEDIC PEOPLE, I.E. INDIANS.

THE THEORY OF ARYAN INVASION IS NOT TRUE. VEDIC CULTURE EVOLVED IN INDIA. THE THEORY WAS PROPAGATED BY BRITISH HISTORIANS TO SHOW INDIANS THAT THEY ARE INFERIOR TRIBES.

HINDU KINGS ( SOUTH INDIA) RULED OCEANS IN ALL THREE DIRECTIONS FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS ( EVEN DURING EARLY STAGES OF MUSLIM INVASIONS ON NORTH INDIA ). THEY USED TO CALL THEMSELVES AS “TRISAMUDRESHWAR” MEANING, THE ONE WHO RULES THREE OCEANS. THEY RULED ISLANDS LIKE “MARICHASYA” (TODAY’S MAURITIUS) to JAVA, SUMATRA, INDONESIA. (THAT’S WHY THESE CULTURES HAVE STORIES OF RAMAYAN IN IT).

 

An example is the so called “Taj Mahal”. This was a monument built somewhere in 12th century B.C. by some Hindu king. After death of Mumtaj-Ul-Zamani, wife of Mughal emperor Shahajehan, Shahajehan took this palace from a king Mansing of Jaipur and converted this palace in to Today’s Taj-Mahal just by changing Hindu imprints to Holy Quran scripts.

Even in official history of Mughal (”Badshahnama”), Shahajehan has no where said that Taj Mahal was built in his tenure. It was a palace called Tejo Mahalay ( a Sanskrit name).
Read my Article on Tajmahal

 

Is Tajmahal Really Built by Shahjahan. Gyandotcom Revealed.INTRODUCTION

The Mahabharat has exercised a continuous and pervasive influence on the INDIAn mind for millennia. The Mahabharat, originally written by Sage Ved Vyas in Sanskrit, has been translated and adapted into numerous languages and has been set to a variety of interpretations. Dating back to “remote antiquity”, it is still a living force in the life of the INDIAn masses.

Incidentally, the dating of the Mahabharat War has been a matter of challenge and controversy for a century or two. European scholars have maintained that the events described in the ancient Sanskrit texts are imaginary and subsequently, the Mahabharat derived to be a fictitious tale of a war fought between two rivalries. Starting from the so- called Aryan invasion into Bharat, the current Bharatiya chronology starts from the compilation of the Rigved in 1200 B.C., then come other Ved’s, Mahaveer Jain is born, then Gautam Buddha lives around 585 B.C. and the rest follows. In the meantime, the Brahmanas, Samhitas, Puranas, etc. are written and the thought contained therein is
well-absorbed among the Hindu minds. Where does the Ramayan and Mahabharat fit in ? Some say that the Ramayan follows Mahabharat and some opine otherwise. In all this anarchy of INDIAn histography, the date of the Mahabharat (the mythical story!) ranges between 1000 B.C. to 300 B.C. Sanskrit epics were academically attacked occasionally in an attempt to disprove the authenticity of the annals noted therein. For example, the European Indologiest Maxmuller, tried the interpret the astronomical evidences to prove that the observations recorded in the

Are We Corrupt? or We are Promoting Corruption? Focus Story.

 The most disquieting aspect of the widespread corruption in India is the fact that it is not anymore confined to politicians or the government machinery alone. It is prevalent amongst almost every section of the society at every level.As the practice of corruption is a dishonest act, one has to think that most of the Indians are dishonest, which could be different only in degree between the individuals. As the reason for the dishonesty is greediness and the desire to get things done at any cost one can think that most of the country men are greedy and do not anymore think that the means should justify the ends. This is not a flattering statement and many readers would desire that it would not be so and such statement could have been avoided. But, the fact is that most of the Indians are involved in corrupt practices in one way or the other, either due to greed or due to so called compulsion. In any case, the willingness to sacrifice for the sake of not getting involved in corrupt dealings is conspicuous by its absence amongst the most.Today, if one would say that any particular Indian is honest to the core, it could only be a case of exception rather than a rule.The study of world phenomenon on corruption has repeatedly branded India as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Unfortunately, this view has not disturbed most of the Indians at all and they do not seem to care as to what others think of them; so long as the existing systems and practices would allow them to make money and get things done in one way or the other.The irony is that India is still considered to be a very religious country and it is still widely believed that the religion is the basis of Indian life, thoughts and actions. This is obviously true, considering the fact that there are hundreds of temples, churches and mosques spread all over the country and they are all densely visited day in and day out by the feverishly praying Indians.
 Is not religious ethos contrary to corruption and dishonest practices ?The unfortunate situation in India is that those who call themselves most religious are often found to have indulged themselves in dishonest practices on many occasions. Several of the religious centres, of all religions, are suspected to be steeped in nepotism, as such incidents have been repeatedly published in the press & Media.

 It does not shock Indians anymore to know that not only the politicians, ministers and IAS & IPS officers are corrupt but even the judges, professors, doctors,Bankers,Lawyers,Railways, Transport,Police, Govt low cadre Employees and NGO organisations are almost 90% are corrupt 10 % remains is the public who paid bribe to these people.Corruption is not only prevalent amongst rich who are greedy in spite of possessing enough but also prevalent amongst poor.Now,

 what can be the future of the Indian society in such conditions?

It can be only frustration, chaos, unrest and even bloodshed in the not too distant future.What is very sad and extremely disquieting about this country is that Ministers suspected to be involved in murder. Chief ministers of swindling crores of public money, senior police officers of molestation charges are all living in comforts and enjoying positions, thus effectively exposing the fact that the crusade against corruption has finally failed in India.Even as the vicious cycle of corruption would continue with one swindling the other, there could be a number of persons who would be left out of this cycle due to inefficiency or commitment to the cause of truth and such persons would be driven down to despair.

Corruption not only has become a pervasive aspect of Indian politics but also has become an increasingly important factor in Indian elections. The extensive role of the Indian state in providing services and promoting economic development has always created the opportunity for using public resources for private benefit. As government regulation of business was extended in the 1960s and corporate donations were banned in 1969, trading economic favors for under-the-table contributions to political parties became an increasingly widespread political practice. During the 1980s and 1990s, corruption became associated with the occupants of the highest echelons of India’s political system. Rajiv Gandhi’s government was rocked by scandals, as was the government of P.V. Narasimha Rao. Politicians have become so closely identified with corruption in the public eye that a Times of India poll of 1,554 adults in six metropolitan cities found that 98 percent of the public is convinced that politicians and ministers are corrupt, with 85 percent observing that corruption is on the increase.How serious is corruption in India, and how great an obstacle to fast growth? Most people would say corruption is very high and a serious obstacle to the 10% growth now sought by politicians.

A joint study by CMS and Transparency International in 2007-08 asked people of their experiences in dealing with 11 government departments. No less than 62% of people said that they had paid bribes or paid “facilitators” to get goods and services that they were entitled to. The study estimated that Rs 21,068 crore per year was paid in such “small” corruption. Three-fourth of citizens felt that corruption was increasing. An interesting point has been made about corruption by Deena Khatkhate in his recent book Ruminations of a Gadfly. He cites sociological studies to show that in non-corrupt states like Denmark people in a village hardly know one another, and family ties are weak — members do not even regularly attend family weddings. But people in an Indian village are in close contact with neighbours, and have strong ties within families and communities. People in authority will be much more corrupt in India, says Khatkhate, since tradition approves the giving of priority to one’s family, caste and religious group over abstract ideals like the public interest. But in Denmark and other developed countries, public interest is viewed as top priority, and this notion is facilitated by the lack of strong family and social networks.

He also gives examples of Indians who blossomed when they went abroad, but could not have achieved similar success in Indian conditions, marred by cronyism, political interference, and wooden bureaucratic rules. Lakshmi Mittal says that if he tried to buy an existing steel plant in India, he would spend half his life chasing netas and babus, whereas he could complete takeovers abroad in a few months. Economists like Amartya Sen and Jagdish Bhagwati, management gurus like CK Prahlad and Pankaj Ghemawat, and astronomers like S Chandrashekhar all attained great heights abroad, which they couldn’t have in India. If corruption, political interference and senseless rules in India make life so difficult, economic growth should be slow. Investment and growth can be high only if property rights are safe and contracts are honoured. If both are endangered by corruption, then investment and growth should be low. But, surprisingly, India has averaged almost 9% growth in the last four years.

Look at different states. The 2006-7 survey showed that the five least corrupt states were Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra. These states (with the possible exception of Kerala) have attracted a lot of investment in the last decade. This suggests that low corruption does indeed improve growth.

The most corrupt states, according to the survey, are Assam (top most in Corruption) Bihar (worst by far), Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan,UP. Investors certainly avoid the three worst states, but invest massively in Karnataka and Rajasthan, both of which are fast-growing. Tamil Nadu is also corrupt and fast-growing. How do we explain this? Maybe petty corruption is high in Karnataka and Rajasthan but big corruption — serious extortion — is low. We simply do not know. The Corruption Perceptions Index of Transparency International measures business perceptions, covering big as well as petty corruption. It does not provide statewise data for India, but provides comparisons across countries. It measures corruption on scale from 0 (totally corrupt) to 10 (no corruption at all). This index consistently shows countries like Denmark, Finland New Zealand and Singapore among the least corrupt countries, with a score of more than nine. Developing countries generally have appallingly low scores, but improving over time. India scored just 2.63 in 1996. This rose gradually to 3.5 in 2006.This is only a marginal improvement. But it’s better than the worsening that many citizens claim to see. China is no better than India. China’s score has also improved just marginally, from 2.43 in 1996 to 3.5 in 2006. Pakistan fares worse, edging up from 1 to 2.4. But all three are fast-growing countries. Indeed, China is a growth superstar. This would seem to imply that high corruption is not fatal for growth. Yet in Africa, corruption appears to be a major cause of economic stagnation.

How do we explain this puzzle?

First, there are many sorts of corruption, and some are worse than others for growth. In states where businessmen pay a hundred fixed, petty sums for clearances, corruption can be no more onerous than a modest tax. In some states, politicians want to maximise money to the exclusion of all else, while in other places politicians want to facilitate industrial growth even while making money. Businessmen say there are “honest” politicians (and states) that will take money and deliver, while other “dishonest” ones will take money and then not deliver.

We need a lot more research to throw light on different sorts of corruption and their different impacts on growth. Only then will we understand why exactly corrupt Bihar grows slowly while corrupt Tamil Nadu grows fast & how to eliminate the root cause of Corruption in india.

by

Gyandotcom

Bihar Flood and New Flood Mitigation System for india. A Report by Gyandotcom

Despite measures taken by the concerned departments to prevent them floods continue to menace the country. The situation demands a more scientific and efficient system in place.
THE GEO-CLIMATIC CONDITIONS of India make the country prone to natural disasters like floods and tsunamis. The frequency and intensity of floods has grown in the country over the years primarily because of the increased encroachment of flood plains. India receives an annual rainfall of 400 million hectare meters. 75 per cent of the annual rainfall is received during monsoon (from June to September) and, as a result almost all the rivers carry heavy discharge during these four months. Flood situation arises in India almost every year and hence it is important to prepare for a disaster in advance. Floods displace a number of people and cause heavy loss of life and property. The economy also gets affected due to damage of crops directing affecting the agriculture sector. The country needs a better and effective flood mitigation system to ensure the safety of its people and economy.

The Survey of Bihar by Gyandotcom detailed Report

NATURE OF THE DISASTER: FLOODCurrently the flood situation is improving and the relief and rehabilitation process is continuing in the affected districts.Approximately 16.5 million people have been displaced by flood this year in Bihar, where 394,900 houses have collapsed rising the death toll to 419.AREA AFFECTED:• Number of Districts : 24 (Sitamarhi, Nalanda,Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Patna, Katihar,E.Champaran, W. Champaran, Sheohar, Gopalganj,Smastipur, Madhubani, Saharsa Supaul, Shekhpura,Siwan, Araria, Kishanganj, Purnea, Madhepura andKhagaria, Begusarai, Saran, Lakheesarai)• Numbers of Blocks Affected: 203• No of Panchayats 2,252• Numbers of Villages affected: 8,197• Numbers of marooned Villages: 357• Life loss: 419 [Govt. sources]• Cattle Loss: 1,377• Population affected: 15.7 million• Houses damaged: 394,900 estimated value isRs.4,502.4 million• Total Area affected: 1.85 million hectaresDISTRICT DETAILS :No of DistrictsNo of Blocks affectedSitamarhi17Nalanda9Darbhanga18Seohar4Saharsa6Muzafarpur8East Champaran19West Chamaparan7Saran6Siwan5Gopalganj7Samastipur9Madhubani19Supaul8Madhepura3Patna4Katihar10Khagaria6Begusarai4Shekhpura6Lakhisarai4Purnea8Araria9Kissanganj7

(DAMAGE BY SECTOR)Lifeline and critical facilities: Estimated Value of damage to public properties – Rs. 2,980.5 millionAgriculture:• Cropped area affected: .8 million hectares• Estimated value of crop loss: Rs. 3,963.7 million• Standing crops in 0.2 million hectares worth 1,730 million. have beenaffected so far.Road And Communication:National Highway 57 has a long breach, National Highway 104 has breachesat 19 places and National Highway 77 has breaches at 40 places. The roadcommunication to Sitamarhi, which was completely cut off, has been restoredand the repair work is still continuing. Heavy loss had occurred in road networkespecially in north Bihar due to the recent floods affecting the relief work.Road, power and communication infrastructure had become dysfunctional in Madhubani, Darbhanga and Sitamarhi districtsbut now in some places the road communication has been restored.UNV doctors assisting with medical helpHealth Facilities: There are increase in the number of diarrhea, kala azar andmany cases of snakebites in the flood-affected districts. Health infrastructureshave been damaged. Some of the PHCs require live saving drugs like ORS, Antisnake venom, Anti rabies, Drugs for fever, cough and cold. as reported byDistrict Magistrates. Now around 560 health centers and 281 veterinary centersare operating. At least 18 people have died due to Kala azar disease in EastChamparan district of north Bihar. Waterlogged houses and cattle-sheds arelikely to emerge as a breeding ground for the kala-azar vector and sand fly’.Currently 2 UNV doctors are providing health assistance to Sitamarhi/Darbhanga DistrictPucca houses damagedShelter:Flood had its severe impact on the habitat and shelter sector. A total of houses394,900 have been damaged. More damage is expected once the floodwaterrecedes from the water logged and submerged places. Most Pucca houses havebeen washed away near the line of breaches. There is very little flood proofing inthe existing structures.PROJECTED EVOLUTION/SECONDARY THREATS:• Sanitation will be a major problem for these areas as most of the peopleare residing on the roads and embankments. Temporary toilets arerequired to keep the environment clean, which will help in controlling the spread of epidemic.• Ready to eat food is more suitable for these areas as availability of fuel will be a problem.• As rainfall trend shows that there will be heavy rainfall in the month of August and September and the situation maycontinue till October.• ORS packets are not adequate for the affected areas. Most of the doctors are busy in health camps and may needmore doctors with medicines after receding of the water. There is a need of bleaching powders, lime and halogentablets immediately for the 24 districts. Threat of epidemic as water recedes• Health problem will be a major threat to these areas. Immunization istotally stopped after 2ndJuly 2002 due to communication disruptionand people are on the road.• Fodder will be a major problem for these areas after few days, andthere is chance of epidemic among the animals due to stagnation ofwater.
There will be no Crop in all affected areas before October. Here most of the people are marginal farmer oragricultural labour, they may not get any opportunity for their livelihood. Migration cannot be ruled out.• Food is required for the affected population for next three months, as government has already declared that eachfamily will get one-quintal wheat and 250/- per month, the existing stock is inadequate.• Fuel will be a major problem in terms of availability when wheat is distributed.• Drinking water is a major problem those who are residing on the road and embankments.• Most families are having cattle’s and there is no separate space for the cattle’s, vaccination and fodder. Govt. supportis not adequate. • Apprehension of eye flu and diarrhea in the affected areas cannot be ruled.NATIONAL RESPONSE: Army in Relief• 3 Army helicopters and military boats had been engaged for Reliefand Rescue. 29,397 food packets have been airdropped and 154,744packets by military boats and 1,918.15 quintals of other materialshave been air dropped in Seohar, Darbhanga, Madhubani since 24.07.2002• Govt. has provided polythene for 40,000 families• Facing a grim flood situation in 24 of 38 districts, Bihar has requestedthe federal government to release Rs. 2 billion from the NaturalCalamity Relief Fund to speed up relief and rescue work.• With the flood water receding in many places spraying of DDT isunderway and more is required in view of Kala azar cases being reported.• Centre has announced to provide 25,000tonnes of food grains free of cost to the state for distribution among the floodaffected people• State govt. asked for Rs 6,000 millions at once from the Centre.•The Central Team has already visited Bihar [22nd to 25thof this month] for damage assessment.•CRF has released Rs.600 millions to Bihar and an amount of Rs .2 millions, to each district for medicalhealth has been allotted as part of Central Relief Fund.• Bihar is facing an acute shortage of SAG [Sodium antimony Gluconate ] regarded as the first line Kala Azar drug inIndia has asked the federal government for immediate supply of 25,000 vials of SAG.ADMINISTRATIVE MEASURES: Relief Camps• Action has been taken to assess the drug position of each district toidentify any health problem. Temporary shelters are beingmobilized for the evacuees.• The relief and rehabilitation department have already allocated Rs.160 millions for relief work. Government flood control camps havebeen activated/ Police outposts have also been activated. Reliefstocks available at Panchayat & block head quarters. People’srepresentatives are busy in distribution of relief materials. ReliefCamps: 764 functioning.• Bihar, Chief Minister have directed the district collectors to assessthe damage and Indira Awas Yojana houses to be constructed forBPL house holds. The dependents of each people killed will be paid Rs. 50,000 as compensation.OPERATIONS / MOBILIZATION OF RESOURCES:o 7,112 boats been deployed; three helicopters were used for air dropping. 19 Powerboat had been sent to the affecteddistricts and some army boats had been deployed.o Gratuitous Relief as Wheat distributed: 161,367.10 Qtls.o Readymade food distributed: 7,446.94 Qtlso Matchboxes: 151,458 [nos]o Candles: 179,973 [nos]o Polythene Sheets [distributed]: 3,790,49 metres.o Kerosene. Oil distributed: 79,583 litres.
Cash Dole: Rs.66.2 milliono Mobile healths Units are functioning at certain sites in Sitamarhi, Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur.o State government has provided tents to around 5,000 families only and unable to mobilize more temporary shelters.They are requesting all developmental agencies to provide tents and polythene. Temporary shelter is priority need ofthe state.CO-ORDINATION:On 28.082002 the 4th coordination meeting was held in the Relief Commissioner’s Office, Govt. of Bihar, Patna which wasattended by the Deputy Secretary & under secretary of Relief and Rehabilitation department along with representatives fromUNICEF, Indian Red Cross, State Director, Care India, Jharkhand Branch & CENCORED Patna. Gradually more and moreorganizations are now interested to attend the meeting for supporting the government of Bihar to tackle the unprecedentedflood situation. The Deputy Secretary, Relief and Rehabilitation, Govt.of Bihar chaired the meeting and shared the presentsituation and requirement to fulfill the basic needs of the flood affected population. He also assured to provide all possiblesupport to agencies involved in relief and rehabilitation work. Discussions were made on agencies to work on different districtson various interventions. . CARE India suggested intervening in Khagaria and Madhubani district and necessary plan of actionwill be decided soon. Then Under Secretary, Relief and Rehab briefed the participants on UNDP’s support in the flood-affected areas along with setting up of state/District control room. He also briefed about the efforts taken by the state govt. totackle the flood situations. According to him people have started going back to their own village as water has receded in thevillages.On 4.09.2002 the 5thCoordination meeting was held in the Relief Commissioner’s Office, Govt. of Bihar, Patna, which wasattended, by the Deputy Secretary & Under Secretary of Relief and Rehabilitation dept. along with representatives fromUNICEF, Indian Red Cross, UNDP, CONCERN-Orissa, BGVS- Patna, EFICOR-Delhi, CEDev- Patna, CENCORED- Patna,Action Aid- Patna. The Deputy Secretary, Relief and Rehabilitation, Govt. of Bihar chaired the meeting and shared the presentsituation. The issues discussed upon:o Relief Commissioner’s office support to agencies involved in relief and rehabilitation work.o Organizations present in the meeting were asked to share their strategy and area of intervention with reliefcommissioner’s office and similarly consult District Magistrate for selection of Block /G.P/ Village level interventions.o Participant to avoid duplication of efforts and suggested organizational mapping of intervention. It was also discussedthat local NGOs in consultation with the district Magistrate should initiate district level coordination.o Then Under secretary, Relief and Rehab briefed about the efforts under taken by the state govt. to tackle the floodsituations and apprise all participant about the gaps in intervention.o Considering the large scale devastation in housing sector, Deputy Secretary and Under Secretary relief andrehabilitation suggested organization to undertake construction of temporary houses with water/fire resistanttechnology which has been introduced by HUDCO and is suitable for flood affected areas. Capacity building ofcommunity through training programme on such technology was suggested by different organization.o View was shared that the water has started receding and population residing on the embankment are going back totheir villages. Cracks have started appearing on the silted areas due to lack of water in few areas.o UNICEF representative proposed flood preparedness training programme at district level on vaccination andalternate housing technology.oStandard IEC material on hygiene promotion and sanitation as flood preparedness/awareness was also suggested.
Items mobilized so far are :AgencyPolythene/tarpaulins/ tentsPVCRollFamilypacketMedicineBleachingpowder(kg)ClothsVolunteers/HumanresourcesAny otherUNICEF15 millionHalogenTablets forChlorination36,000 kg[1,420bags]IndianRedCross Society5,000polythenes, 45tents, 38 rubberboats2,400sqfeets4,000families2,000childrenUNDP3,500 familieshave beenalready given toSamastipurdistrict10 lifejacketshave been givento DM Khagariafrom UNDPMedicinehave beendistributedthroughmobilehealthcamps inSamastipurandDarbhangafor 20,000populationIT facilitator,Logistic andother HumanResources forimmediateassessment, 2Doctors aresupporting thedistrictadministrationwithmedicines.One set ofComputerto StateControlroom withinternetfacilityCENCOREDVolunteers forreliefdistributionSatya SaiSeva SamitiFoodpacketsORS,HalogenClothesEFFICORFood for1,000families.Govt. ofOrissa[ThroughUNDP Orissa]1,000 communityTentsSamadhanHealthcamps atMadhubandistrictSwadhinamAssessing thelooms forrevivalPRIORITY NEEDS: Shelter on Embankments• The immediate need is dry food and baby food• Polythene- as there are so many people taking shelter on embankments, railtracks and roadsides.• Drinking water is a major problem for these areas especially for those who areliving on the embankment and roads.• Sanitation is a problem for women.• Cattle feed and veterinary camps / vaccination Programme in various places.•Temporary shelter and family kits.• Inadequate health care facilities are available for the evacuees and somecares to be taken for specific diseases like Kalajar ,Diarrheoa.• All schools are closed and no educational activities for last one month
Health Secretary has stated that they have stocks of medicines to cope with the floods, with the exception of anti-snake venom sera.• The government has requested for kala azar drugs be supplied by any agency as they are facing an acute shortageof SAG [Sodium antimony Gluconate ] regarded as the first line Kala Azar drug in India.• ClothesGAP ANALYSISSectorItems RequiredProvidedBalance RequirementHousing: 335,809house damaged –Temporary Shelter for1,510,855 population• 670,000 polythenesheets250, 000 polythene sheets1000 community tentsfrom Orissa Govt.20,000 polythene sheets• Boats for reliefdistributionandevacuation6902[mechanized,country, govt. and privateboats]More rubber power boat is requiredfor relief distribution as the water flowis increasing at Khagaria andBegusarai dist.Rescue and reliefdistribution• Life jacket forvolunteers, those whoare involved for rescueand relief distribution10 Jackets90 life jackets• Safe drinking waterNot adequateHalogen tab., mobile water purifiers,tube well at embankments• Bleaching powder1,00,000 Kg8,000 bagsDrinking water for15.32 millionpopulation• Tube wellArranged locally20000 tube wells for camp site andthe embankments, roads, railwaytracksSanitation: 1510855people atembankments /roads/ railway tracks• Sanitation facilitiesNot adequateUrgent need as people are living onthe embankments and contaminatingthe areasFood• Baby food/supplementarynutrition for thechildrenNot suppliedBaby food required for more than 5.4million children for three months• ORSAvailable in PHCs50,00,000 packets• Life saving drugsAvailable in PHCs andfundprovidedforprocurementAnti snake venom, anti rabies, ARI,Fever, skin infection, Kalajar.DiarrheaHealth• Doctors forinaccessible areasHealth camp at 10 areaspatient checked 900.Clothes• Clothes7,300 piecesChildren and WomenEducation: 7,967school buildings aredamaged• Study materials/ booksfor students• Temporary schoolbuildingAgriculture: 1.25million hac. crop landaffected• Short duration cropseeds• Support for removal ofsand
Support for Pre-Rabiand RabiLivestock: 920cattle’s lostAffected 24.49 Lakh• Support for people wholost their cattle• Fodder for theremaining animals• Vaccination of theanimals & vetenarycareVillages surroundedwith water – 3191• Cooked Food / DryStuffs• Health Camps• Safe drinking waterSupply of Cooked Food / Dry Stuffsfor the marooned persons withadequate Drinking water and Healthcamps with Medicines.Achievements till date : UNDP Support•UNDP is supporting the local administration in providing temporaryshelter and other essentials. UNDP is assisting the Relief Commissioner,Bihar in setting up of a strong coordinating System with the help ofCoordination Specialist, Information Technology and ManagementInformation System support. OCHA and Govt. of Norway Grant are beingused for provision of temporary roofing and emergency drinking waterprovision for population living on roads, embankments and railway tracks.NUNV livelihood and Habitat Specialist have assessed the need andpossibility of a recovery programme. 2 NUNV doctors are providing healthassistance to Sitamarhi / Darbhanga Districts.• UNICEF has mobilized 1,420 bags of bleaching powders to health dept. for onward transmission to districts.ORS packetsare not adequate for the affected areas.• IRCS, Patna is reviewing the relief operation and condition of health services in the flood-affected areas. In most of theplaces the Indian Red Cross is supporting government for relief distribution. So far 5000 Polythenes have already beendistributed 4000 family packs, 60 boats, 150 tents and 500 packets Atta for 500 families• USAID and Concern World Wide have shown their interest and will conduct a preliminary assessment. Swiss Red Crossteam is here for assessment of the situation.• UNDP has provided polythene for 3,500 families at Samastipur and 1,000 community tents from Govt. of Orissa havealready been supplied to Bihar.•One set of Computer with all accessories have been provided to State control room for database and information sharing.• Sahara India Parivar has distributed 3100 polythene sheets, 3,300 sarees and dhotis to the flood affected population.Future Plan of action:• UNICEF, Bihar will provide 30,000 polythene sheets .100,000 kg bleaching powder, 500,000 halogen tablets have alreadybeen provided to health department for water chlorination.•IRCS is planning to provide 50,000 family kits to the affected areas.• UNDP is planning to support strengthening the coordination system at state and district levels. It has discussed its futureplan of action for Recovery Programme wherein 30 model villages will be established for shelter and livelihoodinterventions. Representative from UNDP shared the strategy of the relief operation. Immediate relief operation has beenplanned for children food need, temporary shelter, Health and Veterinary camps and survival kits for the flood affectedpopulace UNDP and UNICEF have committed to provide support for strengthening the State Relief Control Room. Thiswould enhance the:o Communication Systemo Developing database system and vulnerability mapping for decision makingo Regular updating of information on the website.UNDP discussed about its plan to upgrade control room in five most affected district of Bihar with a view to strengthen theDistrict Disaster Information Management database. UNDP has requested IRCS for providing IT Volunteers for the aboveinitiative. IRCS would confirm the deputation of the volunteers soon.•Indian Red Cross Society will provide medicine worth Rs.15 lac in 11 districts and 10,000 family kits worth Rs. 1,500 isplanned to be provided.
Situation: Bihar Flood CONCERN is planning to provide immediate basic shelter and water needs for 2,000 flood affected families, and Items tobe distributed are ORS, Halogen Tabs. , Polythene sheets, Jerry Cans, Rope and Kitchen Utensil.• EFICOR has selected Dhanoli block of Darbanga district for flood interventions. They have surveyed 20-25 villages andare planning to provide different kinds of support to 4,000 families.o Food support for at least 2 weeks will be provided.o As per present need assessment, people have requested for blankets instead of plastic sheetso Water and Sanitation Programme will be undertaken – 15 days medical camps will be organized and hygienekits will be provided.o 10-hand pumps renovation in each village will be done.CE-Devo Planning to take-up construction of houses using locally available indigenous housing materials like bambooand grasses in Darbhanga District.o Water quality monitoring will be done for water bodies and shared with govt. department for furthersanitation Programme.Action Aid, Patna:o Will organize health camp in Kusareswar, Kiratpur blocks of Darbhanga district and would provide medicinefor Kalazar.

The Flood Mitigation system for india.

During the flood event, four decision-supporting systems are the required tasks for flood mitigation center. They are the flood forecasting system, the real-time monitoring for flood scenario system, the flood warning system, and the emergency response system. Based on these tasks, the flood mitigation grid was formed. the application and service. the system is responsible for building grid resources and varieties of platforms. Network, storage, and computer are the key resources to form the Cyber-environment and the data grid, computing grid. To enrich the pervasive computing capability in the flood Cyber-environment, the technologies that support real-time communication, remote-taking sensor data, and advanced visualization are incorporated. Access Grid technology has been used for real-time communication for group-to-group interactions across the Grid. The development integrates the modern video codecs, such as MPEG4 and H.264, into the video program. Hence, it is able to do the high-quality video conference. In the sensor network technology,the embedded system and worked with hardware companies to layout the necessary boards to collect the field river and reservoirs data for flood monitoring. The embedded system is targeted to be remote-controlled via IPv6 and IPv4. All the data, including video, audio and data from data logger, are collected real-time and archived to be analyzed by domain knowledge experts.

 

The structure of the Grid application system could be depicted as a three-level architecture based on the functions it provides. They are the fabric service level to connect facilities such as network, computing, and storages; the grid platform level developed by Middleware; and many kinds of application in the grid application level. And the main categories of the grid application level could be divided as the data grid to acquire and transfer the distributed hydraulic data swiftly; the computing grid to apply distributed high-performance computing resources; the sensor network to get the hydrological scenario of the river through remote monitoring images; and the Access Grid to communicate among relevant members for the mitigation policy by holding a multi-users video and data conference easily and smoothly. The job of flood forecasting couples the application of Data Grid and Computing Grid, while the job of dealing with emergency situations resulting from floods might couple the sensor network to assess the flood and hazard, and the Access Grid to have the consultative conference about policy decision.

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gyandotcom

How relevant are the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi today?

“How relevant are the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi today? “

This is the question that is uppermost in the minds of all thinking people who have learnt to set great store by the revolutionary ideas of Gandhi and this is the question that “How relevant are the ideals of mahatma Gandhi today? “ tries to explore, objectively and from  many points of view.

The study of Gandhi is not merely the study of his life, work and ideas; it is also the daily evolving application of those ideas to new challenges and situations. If the burden of the article is that Gandhi is intensely relevant to our times, it makes this assertion not dogmatically but with the humility of scientific exploration.

Gandhi is certainly as relevant if not more for the country today. His vision for the country and his dreams for the community as a whole still hold good for India. He taught us that irrespective of obstacles you encounter, you should pursue the goals you have set. He got the community to assimilate and reflect true values of humanity and to participate in tasks that would promote the greater good of society at large. These issues are still relevant to what free India is and represents.

Gandhi’s ideas are still very relevant, but I really don’t know if people in this day and age see a way of translating it into today’s context. True, what he promoted and the causes he espoused were so long back and so long distanced from today, but I feel that his ideals just need re-interpretation to the India we live in now. Though not much is spoken about Gandhi as it was said about two decades ago, there is still a lot of truth and substance in what he stood for and who he is.
While our senior citizens still uphold Gandhian principles, the younger generation does not adhere to most of these values. I feel that his relevance is not so strong now as a citizen of the nation have failed to pass on Gandhian values to the youth and have also failed to make Gandhi’s ideals pertinent to the India of today. How can we say that any of his visions are being upheld today?

Till few years ago no one could have even dreamed of asking the question suggested in the title to this article. How can Gandhi be the subject of a debate! His achievements are so obvious. But after two decades of reforms, India is a different country. Indians, as a people have changed; our aspirations and our ambitions have changed. Now we are ready to take a new look at our historical past and perhaps glean new perspectives from it. Imbued with a new iconoclastic streak, we are no longer ready to accept leaders at their face value; now we yearn for a healthy debate over their contribution to our society.

Though Gandhi died within few months of independence, it is his philosophy that guided the young nation during its formative years. His philosophy of non-violence, temperance and simple living may not have led us on the path of being a superpower, but it did help us survive those tumultuous years. Amongst many nations that became independent during the 1940s, 50s and 60s, only India remained a democracy, where reasonably free and fair elections get held on a regular basis. Most other nations in Asia and Africa succumbed to the lure of communist or military dictatorship.

Indian democracy survived and became stronger over the years, only because we had something that other nations like Pakistan, Bangladesh and China didn’t. We had Mahatma Gandhi and his message – “that the answer to violence does not lie in violence; that hatred should not be countered by hatred; that the moral imperative must prevail; that right ends can be obtained only by right means; that eradication of poverty and service of the poor through education and effective empowerment ought to be the priority goals of economic policy; that there is no clash of civilizations but only a pressing need for the celebration of diversity, pluralism and mutual tolerance.” The name of Mahatma Gandhi, today, transcends the bounds of race, religion, and nation- states, and has emerged as the Prophetic Voice of the twenty-first century Gandhi is remembered for his passionate adherence to the practice of Nonviolence and his supreme humanism After the Great Buddha and Jesus, he once again demonstrated that Non-violence could also be an effective instrument of social change.

Gandhi successfully demonstrated to a World, weary with wars and continuing destruction that adherence to Truth and Non-violence is not meant for individual behavior alone but can be applied in global affairs too.

The unshackling of the majestic personality of Black Power, destroying the enslaving apparatus of Apartheid in South Africa, was the culmination of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s non-violent fight against racial discrimination that he had launched on the cold wintry night, on the isolated railway platform of Petermaritzburg in faraway South Africa on June 7, 1893.

Had Gandhi been alive today he would have been the least surprised, at the new turn of events in South Africa, for this is only an affirmation of the implicit faith he had in his mission.

Gandhi had relentless and unshakable optimism He remained an optimist till his last Gandhi would often say, “My optimism rests on my belief in the infinite possibilities of the individual to develop non-violence”.

“Good” said Gandhi, “travels at a snail’s pace” On another occasion, he wrote, “Non-violence is a plant of slow growth It grows imperceptibly but surely” The sheer power of these words and the impression they leave on our hearts, derives from the fact that they are the quiet expression of the credo of a man, whose beliefs and actions were in complete accord. Gandhi would have us work ceaselessly for the realization of what the sociologists call “common human” values, for the triumph of the common human way of life.

Mahatma held up before all mankind the image of what every human being could be; he held up before us all a mirror reflecting the spiritual heights all of us could reach The world in which Gandhi was born, lived, worked and died, was beset by a number of problems, some peculiar to his age others recurrent in every age He worked for universal human values His life is a sure guide to a meaningful existence He embodied the Eternal Indian concept of the superior  being-of the Mahatma Anyone can become a Mahatma if one makes a vocation of living the meaningful life- putting principle above expediency, duty above pleasure-service above self, as reflected in  the life of the Buddha or several of our epic heroes. Gandhi had a dream for India Realizing this dream has become a nightmare Today, we are living in a constant adjustment to changing conditions, which require a different kind of discipline. Now it rests on our shoulders, yours and mine to see that the democratic values in our country remains intact and that social justice, equity, gender equality is achieved for all Rights should follow duties If we are able to achieve this, we shall be helping to reinstate Mahatma Gandhi’s dream, I firmly believe it can be done. Gandhi’s unfinished task is the biggest challenge before the youth After all it is their future It is their world Does not look like it Does it? But it is Gandhi had great faith in the ultimate success of his mission, because he had infinite faith in the individual’s capacity to change He firmly held that the human nature is capable of radical reorientation; all one needs is a will to explore his own true self This explains why Gandhi, all through his life was striving to take humanity on to the path of spiritual and moral growth The progress of civilization, as it has evolved through the ages, id proof that human nature is a developing entity, capable of change for the better.

Remember that the contemporary crisis demands not only a careful analysis of the roots of current social disorder and strategies of transition away from the current violent system but also demands a total rejection of some of our present narrow cherished beliefs, images, creeds , and above all, a drastic reorientation of our life style and restructuring our political, social and economic institutions on radical moral lines.

Can we face the challenge of Gandhi’s ideals and ideas? They have not yet been fully utilized The Revolutionary Gandhi, who was far ahead of his times, has not been fully understood by the younger generation Gandhi’s thoughts need to be disseminated amongst our youth It is the ideas, which have a stupendous role in taking the human society forward; towards the desired pacifist goal. It is said that it is not the conquerors but the long line of men and women of thought, individually powerless, who are ultimately the rulers of the world Mahatma Gandhi certainly belongs to this August Hall of Fame- His Life’s message will lead a new humanity on to a new path of Universal love and Harmony. Today, Gandhi is the sign at the World’s crossroads. Is it too late to retrace the steps and follow the non-violent path of recovery shown by Mahatma Gandhi? But is there a future for us at all, if we don’t- is the moot question.

What a clichéd question! It has been asked a countless times and will continue to be asked a countless times. While it’s always answered as yes or no, some basic elements of the principle that’s being popularized today as “Gandhigiri” are missed out.

The context is so important. For a plant to grow, it’s not enough that the seed is of good quality. It should also be planted in fertile soil, and further it has to be nurtured well for it to yield good fruit.

Let us not be overawed by Gandhi and the path he took. He was a human being like anyone of us, but the big difference was, he was an extraordinary man. He was a genius; he was one in a million. No one could rally around a disparate mass of people like he did. He devised a plan, worked selflessly for it to succeed. The British as rulers of the world had simply no answers to Gandhiji’s posers. An empire, where the sun never set, was humbled. Never before had one single man brought an empire down without spilling blood.

But, there is another side which reminds us that Gandhi was not a God. He was not a Saint. He was a politician. He was a strategist, only that the world hadn’t seen a politician like him. Gandhism had its limitations.

Ultimately, India won its Independence with so much blood spilt. It must have pained Gandhiji so much. His writings reflect his awareness of the limitations of his philosophy. It’s not a philosophy that guarantees absolute success. It doesn’t work everywhere with everyone all the time. How we apply his principles and on whom, how, when and where are equally important.

We didn’t spill blood fighting the British. It’s also important that the British, being what they are, respected Gandhiji, and didn’t allow blood to be split. But we spilt blood fighting among ourselves. We spilt blood, not while driving the British out, but while winning the freedom for ourselves. Gandhian principles worked with the British, but did it work with our own people? Blood continues to be spilt.

Everyone talks only of truth and non-violence; but very few of “spirit of sacrifice”. That, I think, embodies Gandhian ideals the best. Not surprisingly, that’s also the least practiced. Probably that’s what is needed for non-principle to succeed, that’s what is needed to ensure that blood is not spilt.

From what I have understood after reading about Gandhiji, is that he is one person who made full use of the “one-step-back-two-steps-forward” principle. He never hesitated to withdraw or retreat, when he was sure he could then rebound much stronger, which would then take him much farther. That was a crucial element of his strategizing. And it worked.

The word sacrifice has an aura around it. There’s no need for it. The little pleasures that we give up in our daily lives, the little adjustments that we all make in our daily lives with people around us, are also small sacrifices that make our lives much simpler, happier and worthwhile. Probably, this world can do with a little more of such sacrifices.

I guess, it’s here that we need to understand Gandhiji’s strategies, learn them and apply them in our everyday lives, wherever appropriate. We may or may not be able to change the entire world. But definitely we can, in our own small way, make a small change to the small world around us. The synergy of it works; only that we need to exploit this synergy much more.

2nd October Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday. It is also the International Day of Nonviolence – a day to contemplate not just Gandhi’s effect on world politics, but to actively think about how his concepts of peace, nonviolence and civil disobedience can be applied to redress the injustice that characterizes our world today.

Gandhi’s contribution to the Indian freedom struggle was revolutionary because it brought the British government to its knees without resorting to violence. But more importantly, it gave the world a vision of alternative politics – that it was possible to counter violence with nonviolence. Additionally, Gandhi called upon those pitted against hegemony to draw upon their inner strength and courage of conviction more than logistics. The relevance of this thought is not lost in a world where the oppressed have very little to use in their fight against violent states and oppressor groups.

Gandhian thought looks hopelessly outdated in a world where violence is the preferred option rather than the last resort – irrefutable proof of which is emerging from Myanmar. But the politics Gandhi advocated offers no shortcuts to the world’s problems. It begins with those who intend to bring reforms, encouraging them to undergo an intense process of moral contemplation before they are ready to fight injustice.

Another important Gandhian philosophy is the belief in the morality inherent in all individuals, including the oppressors. So, the oppressed are not to indulge in violence but embrace its opposite until the oppressor comes face-to-face with his own violence and its dehumanizing effect on himself and the oppressed.

While Gandhi did diverge from Karl Marx, who saw social structures of oppression as having a life of their own (unlike Gandhi, who privileged the individual), the apostle of peace did see the structural basis of the British Empire and what was feeding into it. He advocated an economic nationalism which, more than seeking to replace British goods with Indian ones, radically redefined consumerism that would strike at the roots of capitalism itself. He advocated that no person should have more than he or she needs, so people could live frugally without overburdening the Earth. Gandhi lived this thought, using not more than two pieces of loincloth to clad himself – a practice that earned him the epithet of the “half-naked Fakir” from Winston Churchill.

Interestingly, Gandhi’s thoughts resonate today in most protests built around consumption. Protest groups target the brand image of corporations in an effort to force them give up environmentally unsound practices. As a final resort, consumers are encouraged to boycott products from unethical corporations. Though this strategy fulfills the short-term goal of getting the corporations back on track, it leaves the larger question of consumerism intact without targeting its excesses.

Gandhi also made an important contribution to the notion of human rights and, by extension, civil rights. The civil rights movement of the 1960s strongly drew from Gandhian thought with Martin Luther King Jr. acknowledging Gandhi as his hero. Gandhi believed that human rights were inalienable, which also applied to the human rights of the oppressor. He held these rights sacred and believed they should not be violated under any exigency. This explains his abhorrence of violence. Gandhi called off the no cooperation movement after the Chauri Chaura incident in which nationalists torched a police station, killing 22 police officers. Gandhi believed that the nation was not yet ready for mass movements, as morality continued to be an issue.

Gandhi’s uncompromising stand on violence and his propensity to see rightness more often on religion’s terms sits uneasily in a postmodern world. Equally troubling is his idealism that refuses to adapt to the situation. The absolute morality that he practiced often brought him in conflict with many, including his own son Harilal.

Gandhi inspires an alternative vision of politics and resistance at a time when oppression is not only getting more overt and physical but also more insidious. His ideology of nonviolence is a good point to start from when the temptation to answer violence with violence is overpowering. It may not succeed, but it opens a world of possibilities and encourages us to think outside of the box. More importantly, his life illustrates how radical ideas are first dismissed, only to be tested and embraced later.

But the greatest appeal about Gandhi for me is that he always knew he had feet of clay. He strived to achieve a state of moral impeccability by acknowledging his mortality. More importantly, he showed that it is ordinary people who make history.

by

Rohit Sharma

Gyandotcom

yeh kaisi bhakti? yeh kaisi Puja? Yeh kaisa Utsav? yeh kaisi Parampara?

aap khud dekhiye yeh kaisa ganesh festival hai jisme khud bhgwan ganesh ki murtiyon ki kya durdarsha hai?

 

kya yahi hai hamari parampara or bhakti devtao ke liye. kal mumbai me ganesh visarjan kiya gaya aaj bhi kiya gaya ..or visarjan ke baad unhi pratimaoo ki halat kuch aisi hoti hai..dukh hota hai aap bhi dekhe.

see your self plzz click to inlarge photos.

kya yahi hai bhagwan ? kya yahi likha hai hamare vedo or grantho me? kya yahi hai asli bhakti ?

kya yahi hai hamara dhram?

ya yeh hai sirf lakhoo rupye chanda jutane ka mehaz ak tareeke.

kindly comment on the reality behind indians festivals like ganesh & durga festival.

is this the right way to celebrate our Festivals?

kya hum sub ko milkar in festival ke liye koi our alternative nikalna chiye taki murtiyon ki yeh durdarsha na ho after the festival over.

by Rohit Sharma

for Gyandotcom

Assam State Zoo Guwahati Unable to Save Loris

In the last two years, the Assam State Zoo has rescued over six Slow Lorises from the outskirts of Guwahati city. Although listed under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, these primates are still searching for a semblance of their natural habitat at the State Zoo. “We have not been able to provide them with proper enclosures having lights and other facilities. The Assam State Zoo does not yet have any nocturnal behavioral enclosure where we can put the Slow Loris together,” stated N. Mahanta, DFO Assam State Zoo.