Monday, April 23, 2007

Another Babel?

The building under construction will be the tallest one in the world, on completion of it. Taller ones will be coming up in some other part of the world without much delay. I took this photo when I visited Jumeirah beach. From the beach, I got this far view of the building.

Earth Day - April 22nd.


The above picture is copyrighted by NASA, and is a real image from space. A very high resolution image is available in NASA’s official website which can be downloaded freely. See how blue our planet is!

April 22nd is Earth Day. Not sure how many environmental activists are aware about this. Many of you who have opened Google.com today may have noticed that the picture of Google.com is made out of an ice-berg floating in the Ocean. Google may be thinking of making people aware of the Global warming that is happening increasingly and the after effects of it – “Ice from polar region being melt more”. Some people consider March 21st as the appropriate earth day, where the day and night is equal in duration, due to the equinoctial position of earth – the time when spring starts in the Northern hemisphere and Autumn starts in the Southern hemisphere of earth.

We all are aware of many kinds of pollution and disorders, we humans are causing to the nature. Many international communities are now bothered about some new kind of pollution.

One is light pollution – polluting the dark sky. Yes, people like me who came from a village to a city life can understand the pollution that happened to the dark sky without any brainstorming session. Sky was dark in my native. But sky is purple or rose in cities. I am no more able to enjoy the dark black or blue – black sky with stars and moon decorating it. Neon lamps and all other lamps are making sky polluted with light. Many a times, I was not able to sleep in the city, not because of noise pollution, but because of light pollution. The lights peeping into my bedroom from near by street lights and other sources where annoying my sleep. Now I got used to it. It is indeed interesting to search in Google about dark sky and organizations working towards ensuring that dark sky will exists in future. You can get so many such links from NASA’s official web site.

One other kind of pollution, that the modern society is facing is the pollution caused by radiation or Wi-Fi networks. Wi-Fi network is such a great technology that people are enjoying enormous mobility with their PDAs, notebook computers and many other electronic gadgets. But there are many reports that the radiation caused by such networks are creating many problems like headache, nausea, sleeplessness, lack of concentration etc to people who are continuously exposed to such radio magnetic signals.

During the time of life emerged on our planet, the only source of radiation or electromagnetic waves where the sunlight as well as the cosmic rays. A major percentage of cosmic rays are blocked by atmosphere. Yeah, it is very dangerous to be in space without a very high protective suit. Space is not at all empty. A very small amount of radiation was emitted from radio active elements on earth, but that was negligible.

At present, Wi-Fi Networks, including mobile phone networks, radio signals, TV signals, satellite signals and a lot of other kinds of communication signals are emitting enormous amount of radiation energy into the air. Electromagnetic radiations are one billion times stronger than the natural electromagnetic fields in which living cells have developed over the last 3.8 billion years – a recent study revealed. Many of our “bio-encoding” may have undergone mutation to accept it or creating a new defect. Many schools in UK and Australia are asked not to enable Wi-Fi networks in the institutions because of this. Children’s skull is thinner than others, more vulnerable to radiation, that is one of the reason they raise against it. Masts, in many countries are used to set up wireless signal transmission points, are asked to be moved because of local people facing issues like this. Hope the future community will be concerned about Wi-Fi pollution also and will take necessary actions.

Let us look towards a greener earth, and let our planet be blue for ever for all Astronauts who look from above.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Vikara.. Noukayumaye. (Jumeirah Beach)


The above photo is taken from Jumeirah beach, Dubai. When I downloaded the image to a pc and viewed it, the song from the Malayalam movie - “Amaram” came into my mind. The song, sung by Padmashree Dr. K J Yesduas is “Vikaranoukayumaye”. In the above picture you can see a boat or a ship far away near the horizon. The yellow-red rays of the sun and the mood made me remember this song. I believe the Malayali readers can remember the situation where that particular song was pictured in the movie.

The above picture is taken with a circular polarizer attached to my Canon Powershot S2 IS to reduce the reflection from the sea. More pictures from Jumeirah beach will be posted soon.

Desert Rain


Does it rain in desert? Yes. The first week of my life in Dubai was welcomed by a rain. That too in the end of March! It may rain around January it seems. But raining in the last week of March and April 1st week is strange! Any way I was lucky to experience the rain in the dessert and more happy to witness the rain since the coming summer for the next six or seven months in Dubai will be extreme and the temperature may go above 50%. Till now I was living in the natural air conditioned climate of Wayanad and ok kind of climate of Bangalore. Now I am going to experience the other extreme and I have to live in artificial conditioned air.

I was not carrying my camera along with me at the time, but I was lucky, my new mobile had a VGA camera. It did the purpose. The above photo is taken by the same.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Who is really mad?

Who ever is reading this article; I am sure he/she may have seen a mad man or woman at least once in his/her life for sure. I had the same many times. But most of us may not have visited a mental hospital I guess. What kind of expression or feeling does the scene creates in your mind? Sometimes we make fun out of these human beings, thinking that they don’t remember us, they don’t think, they don’t take revenge. Better to say, we don’t care about their intellectual feeling or their identity.

Here I would like to mention something about the protection given by our constitution or any country to mentally handicapped people by birth or who became mentally disordered in some point of their life. I am doubtful about the law since I am able to find a lot of contradictions on how these people are treated by the rest of the world. Following are the arguments that strengthen my doubt.

1. Mentally disordered people are not given voting rights. (I have to verify for the accuracy of this statement, since the above statements are on the basis of what the society do).
2. Decision that comes out of the minds of these people is not considered as valid by others, including the judiciary system.
3. Once a human being is proved to be mentally disordered, crimes committed by him/her are not taken into consideration by the court.

We may have seen many cinemas where one is freed from the crime if he/she is able to prove that he is mentally ill during the time of committing the crime. Yes, it may be true, decisions and actions taken by a mentally handicapped person may not be upon his/her own will or with their own mental awareness. We should be really considerate to mentally handicapped persons. But theses privileges are widely misused by many. It is very easy to prove that one person is mentally ill. Some times a prescription for a medicine which is used for treating mental patients and proof that the person was using the particular medicine will be sufficient to prove that he/she is mental.

People who are really having mental disorders never feel that they are. For them, the rest of the world is mad. The rest of the world treats them as mental patients. We have seen many times stories of people being rescued from situations like where they were kept away from the society after being allegedly proved mentally disordered. The motives behind such crimes are generally to acquire the possessions of them. They are not allowed to live freely, talk and denied justice.

The other side of the above scenario is people makes people mentally disordered. The movie “Manichithrathazhu” in Malayalam is a best example for such an incident. When a human is told to be mad by some one, all others take every action of these people as indication of madness. Just, the attitudes towards them by others make them mad, or madder. Once they are doubted to be mentally disordered, their feelings are not cared any more.

I identified three kinds of mentally disordered people.
1. People who are really mentally disordered.
2. People who are allegedly treated as mentally disordered.
3. People who are made mentally disordered because of others.

It is great that there are government procedures for the treatment of mentally disordered people and many other charity institutions that takes care of such abandoned people. But there are institutions which accept money and make people mentally disordered.

My point here is there should be very strict laws and special authorities and procedures to verify whether any one is mentally disordered or not. Once any one is proved to be mentally disordered, there should be special procedures for their treatment and to keep watch the improvements of mentally disordered. I mean that, there should be some authorities who make sure that no human rights violation occurs. There should be some one who can speak on behalf of them. When a child is given baptism, their parents or grand parents speaks to the priests on behalf of them. Parents very rarely do hate their children, so their decisions will be 99.99% towards their good will. Similarly, in the case of mentally disordered people, there should be some one who can speak or take decisions on behalf of them who do really care for their rights.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Too dangerous a move by CPM

For all citizens of India, Judiciary system is the most reliable and last source for justice. It may be too costly to get a well known and successful advocate for presenting ones own case. But the judiciary system is always available for rich and poor alike. There is no any kind of discrimination in court, on the base of cast, religion, rich, poor etc.

People of Kerala may have well noticed the dangerous move from CPM leaders that happened after the public statement made by Minister Paloli Mohammed Kutty who belongs to the Communist Party of India. CPM declared that Paloli need not resign despite being found prima facie guilty of committing contempt of court by the High Court. This was followed by an attack by Prakash Karat – general secretary of CPM. Prakash Karat came up with public statements against court. News agencies reported these events as an indication of the decision of CPM to continue “go against court”.

Citizens of India should be too much bothered about this issue I guess. Judiciary is not run by an organization or a political party. Decisions of court always come out as a result of arguments and counter arguments. A particular judgment made by the court may not be true because of the way the particular case is presented. Still the judgment is based on the arguments or evidence provided. It is no way related to who is the ruling judge of the court. It is true that the judgment is made by human and there may be a small percentage of human error, which decreases when the system becomes more experienced and process oriented.

Government decisions always turns to be the decision of the ruling party which will be too much inclined to personal perspective. Many a time, government decisions turned out to be against the will of public of injustice. It was always the judiciary system that came to the relief of the citizens in such case. CPM is well aware of the power of judiciary system that now it is trying to overcome it by shameless and irresponsible public statements. CPM is trying to deface the court in front of the public and trying to make the legislative members beyond the power of court. The extreme extend of this movement will be the demolition of democratic system of our country where any government officials or ministers and legislative members of the government turns out to be monopolist rulers, where the decisions never can be challenged. Communist Party tries to portray the recent happenings as attempt by court to over come the government.

But the shameless leaders should understand that all the citizens cannot be fooled anymore. Judiciary system as such is not run by a group of people who have a common interest of attacking the government or people. CPM is trying to present the court as a political organization in front of the citizens and trying to attack.

Citizens of India may have seen many a time, the ruling government making amendments to the constitution many a time just for the sake of vote bank politics or preserving their power against justice. It is high time the CPM ministers who ever had made such a public statement should resign. The morality of CPM has gone down too much. Judiciary system and Legislative system should go hand in hand and government should be responsible for protecting the belief of public in Judiciary system.

CPM is trying to figure the judiciary system as a political party or organization and trying to deface the belief of public. CPM is trying to make the public agitated against the court. We may not be sure about how far this will go and how many of the public will be the victims this dangerous action. CPM was always in need of so called martyrs (I do respect true martyrs of any party). They always achieved the same by making an unwanted agitation against the government or police or some how. The true fact is that, these martyrs never knew the real cause for which they are agitating, nor do they know whether they were right or wrong. They were just brain washed.

High court of Kerala banded “Bandhs”, then politics in schools and colleges. Not only CPM, but all political parties are still giving public opinions against these verdicts. Any way, even after these bans, “Bandhs” took the form of “Hartals” and continued to disrupt the life of a citizen for a matter which is not at all related to him/her. Students’ politics is one field where political parties can make agitations over any matter, where the young future citizens release tires to release their energy on the command of political leaders but not by ones own will. Even the most fundamental rights of citizens are sometimes not kept during “Hartals” and “Bandhs”. The verdict against these cancers turned to be a huge blow for political parties on their ability to do what ever they wish.

Recent statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Sing, that judiciary activism should not exceed limits may presented in a different way by our ministers. Reservation for OBC cannot be done on the basis of statistical data collected during 1930s. That was the statement made by court while government tired to implement the reservation for O.B.C.s’ in premiere institutions of our country. Can any one find a fault in that statement? India is far different from what India was in 1930s, not even we had freedom then, India was a British colony. Court gave government the option to take the survey of the current situation and implement the law accordingly. This may be the provocation of Manmohan Singh to make this statement.

Some funny explanations by Paloli
When court found that Paloli is guilty, he came with a different explanation of his public statement. But court did not accept his explanation. If court would have accepted his explanation, he would have celebrated the event proclaiming that judiciary has accepted what he told in public. It is strange that he told “1” in public and at the time of trial he explains that he actually meant “2”. How can a minister make such irresponsible statements in public and claim that he meant something different? Again I feel that he is trying to fool the public as well as court at the same time. Will he be having a translator always who explains to the court what he actually meant on any single statement he makes?

Why can’t these ministers express their concerns directly to court for which enough process are existing instead of making public statements that tries to deface the court in front of the public?