been running, running, running and now look back to find some of the best years of life gone down the memory lane...
Atypical Bong - a blog on Life and Perspectives
Silent student drive lights up village lives
Anyone who is cynical about today’s youth could draw some inspiration from a silent movement sweeping across colleges and schools in the country.
Working under the aegis of Project Chirag with its origin in Mumbai’s HR college, the initiative has been lighting up lives in the rural hinterland by way of solar technology.
What started out two years ago when five HR college students informally decided to step out and “do something” has today snowballed into a movement involving over 12,000 students across 15 schools of Mumbai. Numerous corporates and benevolent individuals have loosened their purse-strings — allcollectively contributing to bringing light to over 4,000 homes across 106 villages in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, UP and Karnataka.
“When we started out in 2010, we randomly visited a few villages in Wada tehsil of Thane district of Maharashtra. We were shocked to find that some of the villages were plunged in darkness,” recalls 25-year-old Jyotirmoy Chatterji, who co-founded Project Chirag, saying the stark disparity had hit them hard.
Barely a few kilometres from the financial capital, villagers didn’t even have electricity poles and the few who had mobile phones often walked over 10km to the district town to charge them.
The friends started out by snapping lights in their college corridors to sensitise fellow collegians
about living in the dark and doubled it up with a modest fund-raising plea for Rs 10. They raked up an overwhelming Rs 5.5 lakh in the first week itself, motivating them to broaden the canvas of their work. At a budget of Rs 4,000 per home, they involved students in setting up a solar light, solar panels as well as mobile charging facility in over 100 homes in Ujjaini village of Maharashtra. Interestingly, they involved differently abled children to assemble the solar lights.
With their first project a runaway success and enthusiasm scaled, they started approaching schools to involve more under-20-year-olds. Gradually they won the faith of corporates who agreed to fund the solar lights.
“Satisfying,” is how Chatterji describes the journey, saying the best reward was when they re-visited Ujjaini village a year later and found that more students had cleared the Xth standard SSC exam than previous years. “They said the lighting enabled them to study through the night.”
Earth to contact aliens in 12 years!
Humans could make contact with alien life within the next 12 years, says a former official from the British defence ministry's UFO project.
The development of a supersized radio telescope called Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will unleash "new and exciting possibilities" on whether there is life out there in the universe, former UFO Project leader Nick Pope told the Daily Express.
Pope, who studied UFO sightings at the ministry for 21 years, said: "I will be controversial and give you an exact year of when I believe first confirmation of contact will be made - and that is 2024, the year in which if everything goes according to plan (when) the SKA will be fully operational."
The SKA, to be started in 2016, will be the world's largest radio telescope made of thousands of receptors covering around 5,000 square km of the Earth's surface in the Australian outback.
Scientists have said the SKA will be 50 times more sensitive, and will survey the sky 10,000 times faster than any other telescope.
"If there is a civilisation within 100 light years this telescope could find it," Pope said.
The belief in aliens - or euthology - has received worldwide support and a recent poll suggested more people actually believe in aliens than they do in God, the daily said.
Nearly 60 percent of people believe we are not alone in the universe and that alien life forms exist, according to the poll by Opinion Matters.
Another study by the University of Chicago claims that just 37 percent of people believe in God.
The development of a supersized radio telescope called Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will unleash "new and exciting possibilities" on whether there is life out there in the universe, former UFO Project leader Nick Pope told the Daily Express.
Pope, who studied UFO sightings at the ministry for 21 years, said: "I will be controversial and give you an exact year of when I believe first confirmation of contact will be made - and that is 2024, the year in which if everything goes according to plan (when) the SKA will be fully operational."
The SKA, to be started in 2016, will be the world's largest radio telescope made of thousands of receptors covering around 5,000 square km of the Earth's surface in the Australian outback.
Scientists have said the SKA will be 50 times more sensitive, and will survey the sky 10,000 times faster than any other telescope.
"If there is a civilisation within 100 light years this telescope could find it," Pope said.
The belief in aliens - or euthology - has received worldwide support and a recent poll suggested more people actually believe in aliens than they do in God, the daily said.
Nearly 60 percent of people believe we are not alone in the universe and that alien life forms exist, according to the poll by Opinion Matters.
Another study by the University of Chicago claims that just 37 percent of people believe in God.
Ireland govt plans law to legalize abortion
Ireland has finally decided to allow termination of pregnancy in cases where the mother’s life is in danger. The Irish government said that it would bring legislation to allow abortions in hospitals when doctors determine that a mother’s life is at risk.
The move comes seven weeks after the death of 31-year-old Savita Halappanavar, who was 17 weeks pregnant. She had a miscarriage and died of septicaemia three days after requesting an abortion at Galway hospital which she wasn’t allowed to undergo.
Abortion is banned in Ireland as per a papal diktat. It is one of two European Union countries — the other being Malta — where women cannot have an abortion even when their lives are in danger.
Ireland’s cabinet made the announcement of legalizing abortion after intense public pressure came from secular elements following Halappanavar's death. The bill will be drafted in the New Year and debated by the Irish parliament’s health committee before it is voted upon in the house known as the Dail.
As a doctor I welcome the decision to legalize abortion. People who still argue that a ban on abortion is pro-life, Savita’s case should have made it clear by now that it can often end up taking lives that could have been saved otherwise.
HR Manager, His Assistant, An Old Woman And Her Young Daughter
HR Manager, His Assistant, An Old Woman And Her Young Daughter Are Traveling In A Train And During The Course Of Time Get Themselves Introduced To Each Other And Become Temporary Friends...
The Train Goes Through A Tunnel And It Gets Completely Dark...
Suddenly There Is A Kissing Sound And Then A Slap !!!
... The Train Comes Out Of The Tunnel...
The Women And The Assistant Are Sitting There Looking
Perplexed...
The Manager Is Bending Over Holding His Face, Which Is Red From An Apparent Slap.
All Of Them Remain Diplomatic And Nobody Says Anything...
The Old Woman Is Thinking :
These Managers Are All Crazy After Girls. He Must Have Kissed My Daughter In The Tunnel. Very Proper That She Slapped Him...
The Young Girl Is Thinking :
The Manager Must Have Tried To Kiss Me But Kissed My Mother Instead And Got Slapped...
The Manager Is Thinking :
Damn It... My Assistant Must Have Kissed The Young Girl. She Might Have Thought It Was Me And Slapped Me...
Now Guess What The Assistant Is Thinking...
.
.
Now Hold Your Breath And Read What The Assistant Is Thinking...
If This Train Goes Through Another Tunnel I Will Make Another Kissing Sound And Slap My Manager Again...
The idiot Keeps Harassing Me In The Office...!!
The Train Goes Through A Tunnel And It Gets Completely Dark...
Suddenly There Is A Kissing Sound And Then A Slap !!!
... The Train Comes Out Of The Tunnel...
The Women And The Assistant Are Sitting There Looking
Perplexed...
The Manager Is Bending Over Holding His Face, Which Is Red From An Apparent Slap.
All Of Them Remain Diplomatic And Nobody Says Anything...
The Old Woman Is Thinking :
These Managers Are All Crazy After Girls. He Must Have Kissed My Daughter In The Tunnel. Very Proper That She Slapped Him...
The Young Girl Is Thinking :
The Manager Must Have Tried To Kiss Me But Kissed My Mother Instead And Got Slapped...
The Manager Is Thinking :
Damn It... My Assistant Must Have Kissed The Young Girl. She Might Have Thought It Was Me And Slapped Me...
Now Guess What The Assistant Is Thinking...
.
.
Now Hold Your Breath And Read What The Assistant Is Thinking...
If This Train Goes Through Another Tunnel I Will Make Another Kissing Sound And Slap My Manager Again...
The idiot Keeps Harassing Me In The Office...!!
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