Dr.Manmohan Singh, can you please help me understand this statistics?

To Beautify Bangalore - Send SMS to "Bangalore Mayor" to clear up garbage in your area.

Mayor of Bangalore Sri B.S.Satyanarayana has told in a newspaper interview that, people can call him up directly and give suggestions/complaints.

He has told that, his top priority is to clear Garbage from Bangalore and fill the pot holes on all the roads.

I think, unless people start complaining, things won't move. People should call him up or send SMS to complain about the problem. As more and more people start complaining, the BBMP will be forced to act. So, share this contact number with all your friends and relatives. Start sending your complaints to "Our Mayor". We will force the BBMP to act fast.

So, here is his contact number:

080-22975501 or 9341220836

Mangalyaan's completed the tricky "Mid Course Correction" successfully!

1.    Mangalyaan has reached a crucial stage and is now in uncharted territory as far as ISRO is concerned. No Indian spacecraft has ever travelled so far!

2.    The mission was launched on November 5, 2013, from Sriharikota, in Andhra Pradesh. It revolved around the Earth till the end of November.

3.    On December 1^st, it left the Earth's orbit and began its journey towards Mars after a crucial and tricky midnight operation to give it a nudge to escape the Earth's gravity.

4.    It was about 2.9 million km away from the Earth when the mid-course correction was done. It involved first re-orienting the spacecraft and then firing its smaller rockets to give it a nudge.

5.    The Trajectory Correction Manoeuvres or TCMs are done to fine-tune the mission, so that it keeps on the precise intended track. This was the first of four TCM, which will be carried out as the Mars Orbiter Mission heads towards the Earth's red neighbour.

6.    The Rs.450 Crore mission is expected to reach Mars on September 24, 2014. If it does that successfully, India will become the first Asian nation to do this.

7.    No country has succeeded in reaching Mars on the first attempt. More than half of all missions to Mars have ended in failure, including China's in 2011 and Japan's in 1998.

8.    The Mars Orbiter Mission is not taking the shortest route to the Red Planet. ISRO explained that it is travelling about 680 million km in an elliptical orbit as this requires the least amount of fuel. On the shorter route, scientists said, a large amount of fuel would be needed to accelerate and later decelerate to match the planet's speed.

9.    Once it reaches Mars, the Mangalyaan will revolve around the 'Red Planet' for six months and announce India's triumph. The mission has made international headlines, at least in part for its cost-efficiency.

Courtesy: NDTV Website

2000 mice dropped by US on Guam by parachute — to kill snakes!!

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/02/21724382-two-thousand-mice-dropped-on-guam-by-parachute-to-kill-snakes?lite

They floated down from the sky Sunday — 2,000 mice, wafting on tiny cardboard parachutes over Andersen Air Force Base in the U.S. territory of Guam. But the rodent commandos didn't know they were on a mission: to help eradicate the brown tree snake, an invasive species that has caused millions of dollars in wildlife and commercial losses since it arrived a few decades ago. That's because they were dead. And pumped full of painkillers!!

The unlikely invasion was the fourth and biggest rodent air assault so far, part of an $8 million U.S. program approved in February to eradicate the snakes and save the exotic native birds that are their snack food.

"Every time there is a technique that is tested and shows promise, we jump on that bandwagon and promote it and help out and facilitate its implementation," Tino Aguon, acting chief of the U.S. Agriculture Department's wildlife resources office for Guam, told NBC station KUAM of Hagatna.

It's not just birds the government is trying to protect. It's also money. Andersen, like other large industrial complexes on the Western Pacific island, is regularly bedeviled by power failures caused when the snakes wriggle their way into electric substations — an average of 80 a year, costing as much as $4 million in annual repair costs and lost productivity, the Interior Department estimated in 2005.

The U.S. has tried lots of ways to eliminate the snakes, which it says likely arrived in an inadequately inspected cargo shipment sometime in the 1950s. Snake traps, snake-sniffing dogs and snake-hunting inspectors have all helped control the population, but the snakes have proved especially hardy and now infest the entire island. Guam is home to an estimated 2 million of the reptiles, which in some areas reach a density of 13,000 per square mile — more concentrated than even in the Amazonian rainforests, the government says.

But brown tree snakes have an Achilles' heel: Tylenol. For some reason, the snakes are almost uniquely sensitive to acetaminophen, the active ingredient in the ubiquitous over-the-counter painkiller. If you can get a tree snake to eat just 80 milligrams, you can kill it. That's only about one-sixth of a standard pill — pigs, dogs and other similarly sized animals would have to eat about 500 of the baited mice to get a lethal dose.

Brown tree snakes also love mice. It's easy to bait mice with acetaminophen, but how do you then deliver the mice to the snakes? "The process is quite simple," Dan Vice, the Agriculture Department's assistant supervisory wildlife biologist for Guam, told KUAM. Helicopters make low-altitude flights over the base's forested areas, dropping their furry bundles on a timed sequence. Each mouse is laced with the deadly microdose of acetaminophen and strung up to two pieces of cardboard and green tissue paper. "The cardboard is heavier than the tissue paper and opens up in an inverted horseshoe," Vice said. "It then floats down and ultimately hangs up in the forest canopy. Once it's hung in the forest canopy, snakes have an opportunity to consume the bait."

Wildlife workers do have a way to chart how well the mice work. In addition to the acetaminophen and the parachutes, some of the poison pests also come equipped with tiny data-transmitting radios.

An extraordinary book: "The Light Within"

In his latest blog post, L.K.Advani has written about a book release function he attended sometime back. I found the information interesting and posting some of it here. For reading the full article: http://blog.lkadvani.in.

Name of the book is:     The Light Within Author of the book:      Sipra Das, a Photo-Journalist. Publisher of the book:  Niyogi Books. This unique book was released in Rashtrapathi Bhavan. But, it was not released by Rashtrapathi! It was released by Pragya and Prachi, twin sisters studying in XII standard, who are blind since birth!!

                      

Publishers of this book have summed up its contents as below:

“The Light Within captures the extraordinary lives of the visually Impaired through images that stimulate genuine empathy and a certain degree of awe.

They enthrall you with their wit, their perspicacity, their ability to see beyond the obvious. In the Light Within, Sipra has sought to narrate tales of struggle and survival, of despair and hope, of resilience and triumphs.

Each story in this book is filled with drama. The characters in the book open our eyes. They teach us to see life in a new light. They help us evolve as a human being. They bring us face to face with blinding flashes of truth that would have remained outside our ken had their amazing lives not touched us through this book.  They inspire us.”

Few interesting stories from the book (as given in the original blog):

Sangeeta, 38,

School Teacher

Daughter of an iron trader in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, Sangeeta runs a residential school for the visually impaired, besides being the brain behind Shubham, an NGO that helps poor children from the villages in the vicinity.  Being sightless, she found all her efforts to study in a school for normal children thwarted.  But her academic record has been nothing short of spectacular.  She went to a school for the visually impaired and passed with flying colours, ranking tenth on the merit list.  She went on to acquire MPhil and PhD degrees.  In 1986, she was among the 300 university toppers who were invited by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi for high tea.  She was the only visually challenged person on that select list of invitees.  The PM asked her what she wanted to do next.  Her reply was prompt.  She said she wanted to help the visually challenged lead normal lives the way she does.  The rest, as they say, is history.  Sangeeta has since gone from strength to strength in her mission.

Misri Sahani, 30

Fisherman 

Misri Sahani is a sightless fisherman in Buddhanagara village, Bihar. He never returns home empty-handed. The eldest of seven siblings, he lost his eyesight at the age of two.  He was under treatment for two months, but the doctor passed away. Misri received no medical attention thereafter – his family and neighbours believed he was a victim of black magic. His luck took a positive turn when he began accompanying his fisherman-father to the Barigandak river. Misri swims and is a more than competent fisherman. He earns up to Rs.5000 a month when the going is good. The haul, he says, is the best in the months of September and October.

Misri also owns a general Provisions store, which he set up with the help of a small government loan.  His father and mother run the shop when the young man is out fishing.  He often spends the entire night in his boat.

Reshmi Sonawane, 32

Beautician

Reshmi Sonawane isn’t your average beautician. Nor does she fit into the image of a visually challenged woman. The mother of a boy, she is genetically blind.  But that hasn’t stopped her from running a beauty parlour from her well-appointed Mumbai home. She provides a range of services – from basic beauty treatment to hairdressing to aromatherapy.  Reshmi’s condition was detected when she was a five-year-old student of Hillgreen school, Peddar Road. “I do not know the cause of my blindness,” she says. “It was during my 12th standard exams that the letters of the alphabet began to merge,” she recalls.  A counselor helped her tide over the disability and she completed her education – Reshmi is a History Honours graduate – with the help of readers and writers. She then went on to acquire additional training in export-import management. Because of her pretty eyes, Reshmi often encounters boorish behaviour from bus conductors who refuse to accept that she is actually sightless. “I find it very humiliating,” she says. Her husband is a Tata Motors dealer. She married him against her family’s wishes. Her parents severed all ties with her. Today, the gutsy Reshmi has no reason to regret her choice.

Riyazuddin, 55

Motorcycle mechanic

Riyazuddin is a motorcycle mechanic in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. His skills in his chosen field are legendary. Engineers and mechanics from around the country consult him when they need specialized help with repairs. One of ten siblings, Riyazuddin, also known as Munnabhai, lost his eyesight at 23.

In the early 1970s, he had been taken to a doctor with an insect bite on the eyelid. The doctor gave him a medicine that was past its expiry date. He lost vision in one eye. Six months later, the strain affected his other eye as well. His family was too poor to afford further treatment. In 1980, he went to a shop in Delhi to buy tyres. Hoping to take advantage of his sightlessness, the shopkeeper gave him a used tyre. Riyazuddin felt it with his hands and instantly realised that it was defective. He returned the tyre and asked for another.  The shopkeeper gave him three old tyres one by one.  Each time, Riyazuddin called his bluff.  Eventually, the shopkeeper realised the futility of his ploy.

The fifth tyre that he handed over to Riyazuddin was spanking new. As the latter turned to leave, the sheepish shopkeeper apologized. “I’ve shortchanged many customers over the years, but you’ve opened my eyes. I will never cheat a customer ever again,” he said.

Riyazuddin is a finicky mechanic – he handpicks every part.  His repairs come with a one year guarantee. The early days were tough, but thanks to the consistent quality of his service, his clientele expanded quickly. Today his eldest son, Faisal – Riyaz has nine children – has learnt the ropes from him.

Engineers from Enfield Chennai often come to Bhopal to seek his assistance.  Even other mechanics, when they cannot repair a motorcycle, turn to him for help.  He hears the sound of a motorcycle on the mobile phone and can tell what is wrong with the engine.  It is not without reason that his customers swear by Riyazuddin.

Preeti Monga, 49

Public Relations Executive

Punjab-born Preeti Monga is an exceptionally driven woman. Sightless since the age of six, she is a public relations executive with an eye hospital in Delhi.  “I follow my heart.  Nothing can prevent me from achieving what I want to. It might take time, but I don’t give up,” she says. Her life is a living testimony to that spirit. She was a student of Loreto Convent, Delhi Cantonment, until Standard VIII. Expelled because of her condition, she had to sit at home for a while. She then enrolled in an open school, but that didn’t help matters either. She felt frustrated and unhappy. Her marriage led to more problems. Her jobless husband, who fathered two children, was abusive and physically violent.  Back then Preeti was an aerobics instructor for the blind and earned enough to sustain herself and her children. She divorced her husband. Preeti’s second husband is a colleague ten years younger. “When I proposed, he took two days to decide,” she recalls. They’ve been married for over a decade now.  Today a proud owner of a flat in an east Delhi locality, she designed the interiors all by herself.  Preeti loves to be in control.