The real meaning behind the lines-"Ganesha banda: Chikkere gedda, dodda gere biddha

Do you know the real meaning of the lines "Chikkere gedda, dodda kere biddha" chanted during the Ganesha festive?
Our forefathers had framed this line with loads of meaning....
In those days every village had its own lakes and other water bodies. It was the duty of every villager to clean up the lake when it goes dry. But many villagers ignored it and did not take part in the de-silting activity.
So the concept of ganesha festival was cleverly planned where the villagers moulded a ganesha idol from the clay derived out of the water bodies in their villages.
They worshipped that idol with all respect. They moved to the nearby villages to dissolve the worshipped idols. This ensured that the mineral resources in the idols gets distributed to the water bodies in other villages too.
As time elapsed the clay ganesha was given some paint and other decorative things just for business which is posing a serious threat to the nature.   

Kannada novels in the comic book format

Worried that your children do not have the habit of reading novels. Gift them a Indya Comics book, they will surely cultivate it says Aknisree Karthik

Bangalore: How do you feel when somebody tells that you can read renowned Kannada novels in comic book format without diluting their theme and seriousness within half an hour?

Here is Indya Comics, a Bangalore based firm that aims at creating awareness about the rich heritage of Kannada novels among children. Indya Comics aims to enhance reading habits. It appends knowledge and networks the reader to their literary roots apart from depicting a gripping novel in a simple, concise and enjoyable manner. It takes you through the literary world of India and connects you to the Indian literary heritage.

How do Indya Comics work?

They have a team that works towards selecting eminent Kannada novels. Their art team gives shape to the main characters in the novel. The background team works towards giving the binge of feel in which the entire novel runs. The scripting team writes the script for the comic novel.

The comic books will have a summary of the whole story at the beginning. An introduction to the main characters of the comic will also be there. Novels that normally run into several hundred pages are reduced to about 2,500 words in about 32 pages and come with attractive illustrations. Though works are condensed, care is taken to see that nothing is misrepresented.

 “It is sad that students pass out of schools and colleges without knowing anything about our Indian culture and heritage. The literary heritage of India is as old as civilization itself, the greatness and pro-foundity of Indian literature is manifested among its several regional language publications” said B S Raghuram of Indya Comics.

“We select novels from seven Indian languages- Kannada, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi and Malayalam and convert it into comic book format. Novels with positive social meaning are selected. We do not select novels with vulgur outlook. By our comics we make children develop optimistic and positive attitude. We have a selection team. It takes about two months to convert one novel into comic book format. We have art team which works on painting the characters for the novel. Our background team works in giving the feel in which the novel runs, say the period in which the novel was written, setting of the village etc. Our scripting team will work towards the script” added Raghuram.

“We have already released four Kannada novels-Dr Anupama Niranjana’s ‘Madhavi’, Sudha Murthy’s ‘Dollar Sose’, Aa Na Kru’s ‘Sandhyaraga’ and Beechi’s ‘Aridha Chaha’. These 32 pages book is priced at Rs 50. One can buy and view our novels online also. Our team is working towards many other such eminent novels. Several schools like Jain School and Surana have made our comic novels as a part of their curriculum by prescribing our novels for projects”.

“We pay royalty to the novels which we convert. In this fast moving world people find no time to spare to read novels. We convert the novels into comics without hampering the main jist or theme of the novel. One should love Kannada and promote Kannada. Parents should encourage reading habits in their children. We are getting enthusiastic response from the people. We are constantly working in converting many novels and have plans to release one comic book every month” said Raghuram. 

These comic books are available in all leading book stores across the state. Interested can visit ‘www.indyacomics.com or dial 080-40849999 for further details.

Read this if you are planning to buy a ‘gift’ for your dear ones

Aknisree Karthik

Bangalore: Planning to gift something unique to your loved ones or your friends? Fed up celebrating birthday, marriage and other events in the same way by getting dressed yourself and posing for the cameras?

The memories we want to preserve is immense. If you wish to make your birthday, marriage day, anniversaries, or any other event as a memorable one just plant a tree in your name at Spoorthivana, which was started with a vision to preserve the eco-system for future generation. You can even plant a sapling on occasions of death of your near and dear ones. Spoortivana will be a ‘live museum of memories’.

It evolves itself by adjusting to the changes of the nature and will establish equilibrium in the nature. It also gives shelter to innumerable birds, insects and animals. It absorbs the poisonous gases coughed out by the industries and vehicles which heat up the earth. Prevention of soil erosion, preservation of moisture and the fertility of the land will be ensured.

Spoorthivana, an environment protection organization and a registered NGO spread over 400 acres about 35 km away from the city. Near the confluence of river Arkavathi and Kumudvathi Rivers, Spoorthivana is located on the reservoir catchment area of Tippegondana Halli (T G Halli) on the way to Magadi.

It is a combined initiative of Government of Karnataka, Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board, Forest Department and Parisara Trust which was started in the year 2005.

Spoorthivana is claimed to be the third biggest park in the city next to Lalbagh and Cubbon Park. The canopy of the so called ‘Garden City of India is decreasing. The city in some ways is in no difference with a ‘concrete jungle’. The city has lost many of its trees in the developmental activities like road widening. ‘Spoorthivana’- a garden of inspiration in the local lingo, is sure to make up the loss of all the greens here it the city.

How do I plant or gift a tree?

If you wish to plant a tree you must make a cheque or DD in the name of ‘Spoorthivana’ payable at Bangalore. ‘Team Spoorthivana’ will plant a tree in your name and look after it by giving a serial number to it. A receipt and certificate will be issued for the same. There are no limitations on the number of trees you can sponsor.

You can also lend your hands by sponsoring and supporting the activities held at Spoorthivana. What more? The list of plants and its sponsors will be made available at Spoothivana website very shortly.

“Saplings of local trees will be planted here. Till now about 4,500 trees are planted. A block will be made for every 250 trees and a serial number will be given for each tree. Every day here at Spoortivana is like a Parisara Habba and we take extra care and maintain it as unwanted weeds and plants may play a foul game. Each sampling will be planted at 7 mts space” said Eshwar Prasad, convener of Spoothivana.

Schools too can take their children on excursion to Spoothivana and create awareness about the nature.

Some hidden facts about Sir M Visvesvaraya

Bangalore: While most of the major discoveries and inventions were contributed to the world by India, many were buried without any lime light due to various reasons. Either the early Indians did not have the habit of recording those or even the British who are known to record everthing did not wish to see Indians taking a lead always. One such example to it is the far sightedness and vision of none other than Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, one of the legendary nation builders of India.

How many of you will believe me if I say that Sir M Visvesvaraya was the one who practiced the ‘planning model’ much prior to the Soviet Union? Yes. It was Sir M V who practiced the planning model during his tenure as chief engineer and Dewan of Mysore during the first decade of 20^th century.

Yes there are lots more of hidden facts about Sir M V waiting for you at the exhibition named “Sir Mokshagundam Visveswaraya-The Legendary Nation Builder” at Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum here at Kasturba Road in the city.

Apart from being an engineer Sir M V was statesman, a visionary and a nation builder. The first Prime minister of the country Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who is considered to the architect of modern India borrowed his ideas of planned economy from Sir M V who lead an active life for almost a century.

-Sir M V suggested India to be put under the industrialized nations as he believed that India can become through industries.

-Sir M V strongly believed in establishing an empirical relationship between industry and scientific research institutions. 

-He gave the vision to start the Department of Metallurgy, Aeronautics, Internal Combustion Engines at the Indian Institute of Science.

-Since river beds were costly, he came with an efficient ways of filtering water through ‘Collector Wells’ in 1895 which was rarely seen anywhere in the world.

-He has the credit of inventing ‘automatic sluice gates’ and ‘block irrigation system’ which are still considered to be marvels in engineering.

Wonder Car by city students

Aknisree Karthik

Bangalore:  Do you still have a doubt in the words of American President Barrack Obama? He has warned the students of his nation to work hard as he fears that Indians students might take the lead. True. You will firmly believe it after reading this article based on the project report of the mechanical engineering students of P E S Institute of Technology.

How do you feel while your car automatically drives you to the destination you wish while you sit back and relax watching a movie of your choice on your car wind shield while you are on a long drive? Do you believe when I say that a car can adjust its colour, music and light matching your mood variations?

Do you think all these are possible? Yes it is possible. The mechanical engineering students of PESIT have designed a mechanism for a car, where the car will take you the destination which you wish on its own. The car has a mechanism which enables one to park it automatically.  

The students have worked on a project statement given to them by PACE and fully supported by General Motors. They had to conceptualize, design and build a ‘Sustainable Urban Transport’ (SUT) for the year 2030, which has to be economical with negligible carbon footprint.

The problem required the students to develop the entire manufacturing and industry scenario for the car after a comprehensive market research. They conceptualized this project statement and applied it to an Indian scenario by taking Ahmadabad as the city for targeted market research.

 “We wanted our car to be suitable for Indian roads and the Indian scenario while also being in conformance to all the rules, regulations and conditions set by PACE.

We have been involved in this project for over a year now. It began in August 2010. There were seven teams, consisting of five universities each working on this project. We were heading Team 3. Our team included National Institute of Design (Ahmadabad), Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico), SJCE (Mysore) and Michigan Tech University (USA)” said Vishwanath Sundaram, a team member, PESIT.

Team 3 is currently headed by PESIT, which is working on ‘Steering and Propulsion systems’. The students have done comprehensive analysis on the chassis design and propulsion of the car.  They have also incorporated special steering mechanisms to combat the increase in traffic at 2030. The car has sensors which will detect any obstacles while driving and avoid it. This is an electric car which runs on battery and the steering can be turned up to 90 degree.

“PACE provided the college with the necessary hardware and software to complete the entire project. If we require any special software from one of its partners we can ask them for the same and they will provide it for free” said Vishwas Pai, a team member from PESIT.

As of August 2011, Phase I of the project is complete. Phase I consisted of conceptualization of the car, virtual design and modeling and engineering of the various subsystems. Phase II of the project involves manufacturing of a prototype, providing complete technical specifications of all inner workings of the car and providing data about the different infrastructures and manufacturing units required to actually start the production of the car. Phase II is set to begin by the end of August 2011 and is scheduled to be completed by July 2012.

“The car has many distinct features. Its body will be covered by LED where one can change the whole colour and design of the car whenever he wishes. All the things will be networked. The nearest gas station, food station, the battery levels, etc will be displayed. This will be a gift to parents as they can send their children without any feat anywhere as the car will be monitored and they will know as where the car is” said Prof Sathish, research guide to the project.

The team has won prizes at the International PACE Forum 2011, Vancouver held recently. They have secured 1^st places in design and market research. They have won 2^nd places in product engineering and manufacturing and has managed to emerge as the winners of overall best collaboration.

National Institute of Design is responsible for the design and the market research of the car. They have provided an intensive research report on the market analysis and what type of car is favorable for the same. SJCE is responsible for the GPS and networking. They are responsible for providing the interface between the user and the car and also the inter car communication protocols.

UIA is responsible for the braking and suspension. They have designed state of the art swiveling suspensions, which is required for slot parking and rough Indian suspension. Michigan Technological University is responsible for the electrical controls in the car and incorporation of drive by wire technology.

 

Untapped potential of human mind

Aknisree Karthik

Bangalore: All normal human beings have five senses. You hear from your ears, see through your eyes, feel with the skin, taste with the tongue, and smell through your nose. Do you have any sense other than this? I bet that you have it.

Apart from those above said five senses humans have one more sense and that is ‘The Sixth Sense”. Everybody has it in them but they wouldn’t have known about that.

For instance, while walking on a deserted area have you ever felt as if someone is following you and did you really find anyone really following you?  I am sure that you would have experienced this and the thing which poked your mind by hinting someone is following you is what is known as ‘The Sixth Sense’.

Here is Praveen C A, a mentalist who can train and guide you to develop your “Sixth Sense”. What more? He can enter your mind and pluck out your thoughts. There are only few select people who know to enter the minds of the people and tell them what their thoughts.

We caught up with Praveen after he performed all his mind readings, magics, spoon bends etc at an interactive session with the media here in the city recently said “Everyone has that sixth sense in them up to a certain degree. The only thing is they fail to use and train it. For example it is like a muscle and you need to exercise it so that you can flex and pose it”.

“The sixth sense is probably the most hilarious, captivating, interactive, motivating and baffling show one would have ever seen. It is a unique way of entertaining people and not many people know about it. There are hardly very few people who do it in an intellectual and professional way” said Praveen.

When we asked Praveen about how he achieved and mastered this art he said “I always did this as my pass time when I was in my navy. My wife Feena happens to be a psychiatrist. The common thing we always discussed was about the way people think, their behavior and psychology. I was inspired by the TV shows of magician Darin Brown. I reached this stage by studying many book on human psychology”.

He is capable of many things which one must see to believe it. The range of his abilities includes speed calculation, heightened memory, subliminal suggestions, psycokinesis.

He can bend a metal spoon by combining his mental powers and applying it on it. He even has the potential to break it by just concentrating by using his mental powers.

In his ‘mind experiments’ he asks some of the people from the audience to volunteer and select a book of their choice from the bunch of book he offers. The volunteer can think of a word from any page of a book selected at random from a choice of books given to him. The mentalist will unlock the volunteer’s mind and reveal what word he was thinking.

The Mentalist who was born and brought up in Kerala is also an expert in revealing your thoughts of your childhood friends name, a geometrical design, your mobile numbers, the colour you think etc.

“It is all about practice and correct timing one must have to enable these acts successfully. I may not be correct at all the times but I achieve 99% out of 100% most of the times” said Praveen.

Praveen has many things in his store for the school children and corporates. “As we advance, children are fed with new knowledge and the schools do not teach the children to remember it. What they do is, they make the children to learn all the things by heart with more repetitions”.

He has logical and new techniques which will increase ones memory power irrespective of their age. It will increase your level of intuition and the hidden potential of sixth sense.

A whitener turned to paint the life of rag pickers in black

Aknisree Karthik

Bangalore: A whitener can be used to re-write and correct the mistakes or errors committed by us while typing or writing. But the rag pickers at the fruit market have a different meaning and purpose of the whitener.

They mix it with a cloth waste or toin rope and start smelling it. As they inhale it they get high and repeat the same. Due to this the crime rates have shooted up in and around K R Market area. The fruit merchants are facing lot of problems due to these rag pickers who inhale solution.

“We do not have any shops here. We sell all our good openly and these rag pickers threaten us with a razor or knife and demand money from us. They elope with the money while we are busy with our business. Many of the fruit merchants have hit them hard till they bleed. But nothing seems to have an effect on them. All their nerves have become lose due to the effect of continuous inhalation of solution. They have become nub to all our blows and even we are fed up with these fellows who spoil our business” said Sathya B Lazaras, fruit merchant.

All these rag pickers are in their age of 8 years and above. They earn their living by picking plastic covers, milk covers, plastic products, etc. They dare to do anything to get their solution bottle. They steal goods. They threaten and grab money from the people. The rag pickers can always be seen inhaling a toin cloth dipped with the solution.

“Even all the petty shops are catering with whiteners in and around market area. This was not here earlier. What purpose does this whitener serve here? The petty shops have started to make money out of this. These rag pickers quarrel among themselves when they get high. They take out their razors and start playing with it. They cut each other and enjoy doing that. Most of them reside here below the city market flyover.” said Joseph, banana merchant.

Even the police cannot do anything regarding this. But these rag pickers have accelerated the number of crime rates in and around city market area. Market is the apex of all businesses and lakh together of money if turned over throughout day and night. With increasing activities of all these rag pickers all the vendors and business man with fear. The vendors have to keep a constant vigil on their goods.

These rag pickers if left unattended now will surely turn into an anti-social element posing a serious threat to our society in future. Also they dare to do anything to grab their solution bottles. So other people might use these people for their own selfish gains by just fetching them a whitener bottle.

These rag pickers do not have any family or people who guide them. It will be better if some NGOs can come forward by uniting with the police department and take them under counseling and rehabilitation.