Durga Puja Celebrations

Durga Puja is Celebrated on 27 th September all over India… ( Eighth Day of Navarathri in south india is called as DURGASTAMI…) DURGA is also Known as “KOTRAVAI” in Tamil. Let the Blessing of Durga Ma shower on us!!!!

People gathering in beautifully decorated pandal for puja to Praise Godess DURGA.

The celebration of Durga Puja goes very far back in history and there are abundant references to it in India literature from 12th century onwards. However, today Durga Puja is generally a community festival. The Puja celebration over the years has changed color often. Earlier, it was the most expensive of all festivals and could only be performed by the rich and the powerful like feudal lords, rajas and big businessmen. However, it always evoked great enthusiasm and popular support.

But in today’s ethos, The evolution of many clubs, associations and societies has made the Puja cosmopolitan in character. The social and ritualistic significance of the Puja has also been modified to a great degree. Today, this festival has become an occasion for pageantry and extravaganza. Age-old conch shells and drums have given way to loud film songs and sometimes the goddess is modeled on popular film actresses. On the flip side, animal sacrifices, a must earlier, have been dispensed with at many places and shrines.

While earlier Durga was worshiped alone, now it is, more often than not, the goddess with her family. Durga is portrayed as the supreme head; and the presence of Ganesha, Kartikeya, Shiva etc marks a wholesome picture of divinity. In southern India celebrations constitute a display of images of God and toys at home for nine days. But despite the various ways in which this festival is celebrated the feature that is common is that of the worship of the mother goddess.

Chandrayaan-1 finds traces of water on moon

In a discovery hailed as path-breaking, India’s maiden lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 has found evidence of water on the moon.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) late on Thursday confirmed that Chandrayaan-1 has detected presence of water on the moon.

“Excellent quality data from the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had clearly indicated the presence of water molecules on the lunar surface extending from lunar poles to about 60 degrees latitude,” ISRO said in a statement on its website.

Earlier in the day, M3 principal investigator Carle Pieters in a paper published in Science Express, in the September 24 edition said that Chandrayaan-1 found evidence of water on the lunar surface.

M3 was one of the 11 scientific instruments onboard Chandrayaan that ISRO launched on October 22, 2008, but the moon mission had to be aborted on August 30 after Chandrayaan-1 lost radio contact with the earth.

Acknowledging that analysis of the data from M3 had led to a path-breaking finding, ISRO quoted from the paper that hydroxyl, a molecule consisting of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom, was also found in the lunar soil.

“The confirmation of water molecules and hydroxyl molecules on the moon’s polar regions raises new questions about its origin and its effect on the mineralogy of the moon,” the space agency pointed out.

The findings from M3 show a marked signature in the infrared region of 2.7-3.2 micron in the absorption spectrum, which provided a clear indication of the presence of hydroxyl and water molecules.

The analysis of the huge volume of M3 data was carried out by a joint team of scientists from the US and India.

The scientific team was led by Pieters, a planetary geologist at Brown University in Rhode Island, and Principal Scientist of Chandrayaan-1 from Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) of the Indian Department of Space, J N Goswami.

The team had concluded that there were traces of hydroxyl (OH) and water (H2O) molecules on the surface of the moon closer to the polar region.

The experts also concluded that traces of OH and H20 were in the form of a thin layer embedded in rocks and chemical compounds on the surface of the moon and the quantity were extremely small – of the order of about 700 parts per million (ppm).

“These molecules could have come from the impact of comets or radiation from the sun. But most probable source could be low energy hydrogen carried by solar wind impacting on the minerals on lunar surface. This in turn forms OH or H2O molecules by deriving the oxygen from metal oxide,” the statement explained.

With these findings, the team revisited the data from NASA’s Deep Impact Mission of 2005, which carried an instrument similar to M3.

The Deep Impact Probe observed the moon for a week June 2-9, 2009.

“This data, along with some laboratory tests carried out from samples brought from Apollo missions, confirmed that the signature is genuine and there is a thin layer of surface mineral which contains traces of hydroxyl and water molecules,” ISRO reiterated.

The M3 observations are strengthened by results obtained from the analysis of archived data of lunar observation in 1999 by another NASA mission, Cassini, on its way to Saturn. This data set also revealed signatures of both OH and H2O absorption features on the lunar surface.

The NASA payload also found water molecules and hydroxyl at diverse areas of the sunlit region of the moon’s surface, but the water signature appeared stronger at the moon’s higher latitudes.

“We’ve made a very important step with this discovery, and now there are some very important steps to follow up on,” Pieters said.

Crediting ISRO for its role in the findings, Pieters said: “If it were not for them (ISRO), we would not have been able to make this discovery.”

Scientists have speculated that water molecules may migrate from non-polar regions of the moon to the poles, where they are stored as ice in ultra-frigid pockets of craters that never receive sunlight.

Though the abundances are not precisely known, about 1,000 water molecule parts per million could be in the lunar soil, the paper noted.

“Harvesting one ton of the top layer of the moon’s surface will yield as much as 32 ounces of water,” scientists involved in the discovery said.

Chandrayaan-1 Project Director M Annadurai said the discovery of water on the moon was one of the scientific achievements of the country’s maiden lunar mission.

“The baby has done its job by finding water on the moon,” Annadurai told IANS.

The scientific feat has been termed a landmark event in international space cooperation between India and other countries.

“It is one of the milestones. We have to quantify it. It was a combined team effort. Finding out presence of water or ice has been one of the mission’s scientific objectives apart from terrain mapping and mineral mapping,” Annadurai recalled.

India launches OceanSat-2, six others in 20 mts

The Indian Space Research Organisation on Wednesday successfully launched seven satellites in 1,200 seconds with the help of its most trusted Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle from the Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh coast.

The launch was carried out as per schedule at 11.51 am and ended at 12.06 pm.

India placed its second Ocean observation satellite Oceansat 2, along with six other nano satellites including two German two Rubinsats Rubin 9.1 and Rubin 9.2, and four cubesats — the Beesat (assembled by Technical University, Berlin), UWE-2 (University of Wuerzburg, Germany [ Images ]), ITU-pSat (Istanbul Technical University, Turkey) and SwissCube-1 (Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne, Switzerland [ Images ]).

Vice President Hamid Ansari, who was present at the Satish Dhavan Space Centre, congratulated the scientists and technocrats over this splendid achievement for the nation.

Earlier, in April 2008, ISRO had launched 10 satellites in one go.

Oceansat-2 is carrying an Ocean Colour Monitor and a Ku-band pencil beam Scatterometer, besides a Radio Occultation Sounder for Atmospheric Studies, developed by the Italian Space Agency.

The Ku-band pencil beam Scatterometer with a ground resolution cell of 50 KMs X 50 KMs is expected to provide the wind vector range of four to 24 metres per second with better than 20% accuracy in speed and 20 degree in wind direction.

The on-board Scatterometer is a very good instrument for getting surface wind on the sea. It is required for sea state forecasting. And for maritime navigation, the wave height and disturbance is also important.

The eight-band OCM is similar to the one in Oceansat-1 with appropriate spectral bandwidth modifications based on the previous experience.

The OCM, with 360 metres spatial resolution and a swath of 1,420 kilometres would provide extensive communication links.

Since Oceansat-2 is a continuity mission to Oceansat-1, the same polar sun synchronous orbit of 720 kilometres has been retained.

However, unlike the Oceansat-1 that could essentially look at only the colour of the ocean, the Oceansat-2 is a comprehensive system and would look at surface winds and temperature, among other things.

The satellite is intended for identification of potential fishing zones, weather forecasting and other trends of the sea, coastal zone studies and providing inputs for general meteorological observations.

Keep up the momentum, Srikkanth’s advice to Team India

Chennai: India has a good chance to clinch upcoming ICC Champions Trophy in South Africa, provided Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s men keep up the tempo they gained by winning the tri-nation series in Sri Lanka, according to BCCI chief selector Krishnamachari Srikkanth.

“They have to keep up the momentum (of the tri-series). If they perform to their potential and rise to the demands of the situation, we will certainly win the Champions Trophy,” Srikkanth told PTI on the sideline of a convention here.

The eight-nation ICC Champions Trophy is commencing in the rainbow nation from September 22.

Speaking on ‘Creating Winning Organisation of Tomorrow’ at the convention, the 49-year-old former cricketer cited the example of master batsman Sachin Tendulkar and former captain Rahul Dravid to explain what makes a champion player.

“In cricket, any player will know his position is in danger (if he fails to perform well). But one must have a strong mind, especially during difficult times to be in the team. Players like Sachin and Rahul have gone through those difficult times and that is why they are great,” Srikkanth said.

Google acquires reCAPTCHA

reCAPTCHA, another one of the internet’s most innovative projects in now in Google’s grasp.

Not only is reCAPTCHA an effective device for security against spam, it also manages to accomplish a mission, to convert a large volume of printed literature to text.

While most such services generate distorted letters programatically, making them difficult for anyone but a human to discern, reCAPTCHA goes about it a different way.

With reCAPTCHA, every time you prove that you are a human you are effectively helping the process of digitizing printed documents. Instead of using better and better algorithms to generate better distortions which can only be recognized by humans, reCAPTCHA instead uses portions of scanned documents which failed to get recognized by the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) algorithms used to digitize it. Many times these can easily be recognized by humans.

With the support and resources of Google, behind reCAPTCHA, it is possible for the project to reach an even higher gear. With all Google services using reCAPTCHA, and with more resources from Google to make reCAPTCHA more easily available and implementable, it is bound to see in increase in adoption.

Projects like Google Books and Google News Search already use reCAPTCHA to help in digitizing a great volume of scans of old books, magazines and newspapers. Word by word, reCAPTCHA aims to digitize a large part of past documents which right now only exist in print, making more and more of our history indexable, searchable, and accessible to a greater public.

For more information read the post on the Official Google Blog.

Bharat Sanchar, HCL Tie-up For Rural Broadband Services

State-run telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and software solutions provider HCL Infosystems Wednesday signed an agreement to work together on the National Broadband Penetration Programme (NBPP), a nationwide initiative to accelerate spread of information technology in rural India.

In order to implement the project, BSNL will leverage the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) set up by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), which has granted subsidy to the state-owned company for providing broadband services in rural areas at cheaper rates.

USOF will provide a subsidy of Rs.4,500 per broadband connection that BSNL will roll out through its 27,789 rural and remote telephone exchanges.

A customer can avail the service by paying Rs. 2,250 followed by Rs. 300 per month for the computing device and subsidised broadband package at Rs. 99 or Rs. 150 per month.

Personal computers will be available at HCL’s Touch outlets that has a network across more than 4,000 towns.

“This is indeed one of the major initiatives to bridge the digital divide by offering personal computers plus broadband at subsidised rates to our customers,” said BSNL chairman and managing director Kuldeep Goyal.

HCL will set up two call centres for enquiry and technical support each

Microsoft launches new Zune to rival Apple iPod

Microsoft Corp launched a slimmer, revamped version of its Zune handheld music and video player on Tuesday as the software giant makes its latest attempt to compete with Apple Inc’s ubiquitous iPod.

The touch-screen Zune HD, which features a radio receiver and wi-fi, is priced just below Apple’s comparable iPod Touch in the hopes of grabbing market share as the US holiday shopping season nears.

The device, which goes on sale on Tuesday, has a claim of technical superiority over Apple’s iPods, with a state-of-the-art organic light emitting diode screen and ability to relay high definition video to a television.

But it will struggle to make an impact on the stylish iPod, which took the digital music player mainstream when launched in 2001 and now controls more than 70 per cent of the market.

The original Zune did not come onto the market until 2006.

Microsoft announced the pricing of the new models last month, pitching its black 16 gigabyte model at $219.99 and platinum 32 gigabyte version at $289.99.

Customized red, green and blue colors are also available. At the time, that was well below $399 Apple charged for the 32 gigabyte iPod Touch, but Apple has since cut prices and is now offering an updated version of the same memory size for $299.

Apple also now offers a 64 gigabyte Touch a video camera on its iPod Nano model.

There are no plans to add a camera to the Zune, marketing manager Brian Seitz said on Monday.

He also said there were no plans to create a Zune phone, which might rival Apple’s popular iPhone, despite recurring talk in the tech industry. He did, however, say that Zune’s capabilities could be added to other platforms, including Windows Mobile, suggesting that a smartphone with a Zune function may yet be realized.

Microsoft’s player is backed by the Zune Marketplace, which rivals Apple’s iTunes store, where users can stream, buy or rent music, videos and films.

The device features only a handful of applications, such as MSN weather and some video games, but it is planning to add applications featuring social networking sites Twitter and Facebook in November.

Unlike Apple, Microsoft does not have an open marketplace for application development, and is not charging for them.

INDIA Wins Compaq Cup

Team India ride Sachin ton to victory

Sachin Tendulkar’s 44th ODI century and Harbhajan Singh’s five-wicket haul scripted India’s tri-series triumph as the visitors raised their game when it mattered most and cruised to a 46-run win in the final cricket match against Sri Lanka in Colombo on Monday (September 14). Thumped by 139 runs in their Saturday’s meeting which cost them world number one ODI team’s tag, India first amassed 319 for five and then shot out Sri Lanka for 273 in 46.4 overs to settle score. Chasing a mammoth 320-run target, Sri Lanka got the perfect start from Tillakaratne Dilshan (42 off 29 balls) and Sanath Jayasuriya (36) before running out of steam. Down the order, the 70-run stand between Thilina Kandamby (66) Chamara Kapugedera (35) was a mere act of defiance and not enough to turn the match on its head. Harbhajan Singh (5/56) was the wrecker-in-chief even though he missed a hat-trick chance. Earlier, the Indian top order fired in unison and Tendulkar’s majestic 133-ball 138 lifted them to a massive 319 for five wickets after Mahendra Singh Dhoni had won an important toss and elected to bat. Tendulkar raised 95 runs with makeshift opener Rahul Dravid (39) and 110 with next man in Dhoni (56) and then Yuvraj Singh (56) provided the late charge to take the tally past the 300-mark. The target was tough but Sri Lanka looked game for a fight with Dilshan going after Ishant Sharma. Dilshan greeted Ishant with back-to-back fours in his first over and then went on a rampage. The famous Dilscoop was not far behind either as Dilshan executed the shot against his bemused Delhi Daredevils teammate Ashish Nehra. Desperate for a breakthrough, Dhoni pressed in service Harbhajan Singh as early as in the eighth over and the offie did not let his skipper down, dealing a double strike that knocked the stuff out of Sri Lanka’s chase. Harbhajan castled Dilshan with his fifth delivery and then returned to catch Mahela Jayawardene (1) off his own bowling in his next over. Encouraged by his success, Dhoni tossed the ball to Yusuf Pathan and the lanky offie claimed Jayasuriya, just when the left-hander had started looking menacing. Two more quick wickets and Sri Lanka had lost their top half for 131 and once Sangakkara fell to a freak dismissal — his bat came loose and fell on the wicket on follow through — the hosts had the writing on the wall. Earlier, 36-year-old Tendulkar seemed to be in imperious form as he notched up his 44th ODI century with a stunning display of stroke play. With Dinesh Karthik failing in both the matches, India opted for a new opening pair of Tendulkar and Dravid for the summit showdown and the experienced duo clicked together. The two experienced batsmen found runs easy to come by as they took the total to 50 by the end of the 10th over and sought to accelerate the pace of scoring from then on. Dravid got a reprieve when he was on 24 with Tillakaratne Dilshan dropping a fairly simple catch at gully, Thushara being the unlucky bowler. Sangakkara introduced Lasith Malinga in the 13th over and Tendulkar greeted him with a glorious backfoot punch to the fence. Dravid then lifted spinner Ajantha Mendis for a six but the wily Sanath Jayasuriya removed him in the next over. Dhoni promoted himself to the number three slot and got into the act almost immediately with a flurry of strokes. He and Tendulkar kept up the pace of scoring without taking too many risks as they brought about the 100-run partnership to pile up the agony on the hosts. Tendulkar took a single by cutting Mendis to the sweeper cover to notch up his 44th ODI century. The hosts finally broke the partnership when Dhoni mistimed his pull shot and Kandamby took a well-judged catch. A tired Tendulkar, who called in a runner after suffering from cramps, was dismissed at the fag end of the innings, being trapped leg before wicket by Mendis. His sublime knock of 138 came off just 133 balls and was laced with ten boundaries and a six. Down the order, Yuvraj chipped in with an unbeaten 41-ball cameo of 56 that had six fours and a six in it. // <![CDATA[// <![CDATA[ var zz=0;var sldsh=0; var bellyaddiv = ' '; var stindex=100; var stp=150; var taglen=0; var tmp; var tagcheck = new Array("div","span","br","font","a"); var storycontent = document.getElementById("storydiv").innerHTML; var firstpara = storycontent.substring(0,storycontent.toLowerCase().indexOf(" ")).toLowerCase(); function findptt(cnt){ zz++; if(zz == 10)return; var xxx=-1,yyy=-1; var ccnt = cnt; for(ii=0; ii < tagcheck.length; ii++){ xxx = ccnt.indexOf("<"+tagcheck[ii]); if(xxx != -1 && xxx < 150){ stp = stp; var tmp1 = ccnt.substring(ccnt.indexOf(“”); if(yyy != -1){ taglen += yyy; stp = stp + yyy; yyy+=1; } break; taglen = taglen + tagcheck[ii].length + 3; } } if(xxx == -1 || xxx >= 150){ return; }else{ var tmp2 = ccnt.substring(0,xxx); tmp2 += ccnt.substring((yyy+xxx),ccnt.length); findptt(tmp2); } }findptt(firstpara); if(firstpara.length <= taglen + 150){ stp = firstpara.length; } var tmpminus=0;var tmpcon = storycontent.substring(0,stp);if(tmpcon.lastIndexOf(“<”) “)){}else{ tmpminus = tmpcon.length – tmpcon.lastIndexOf(“

A tribute to YSR , Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh

The sudden demise of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy shattered the hopes of Congress Party and the people of the state. Reddy was always known for his commitment and innovative schemes for poor and farmers.

THE HOPE of the Congress party and that of the people of Andhra Pradesh was shattered with the sudden demise of YS Rajasekhara Reddy. A man of commitment and compassion, Reddy was a masses man and was always coming up with schemes for poor and farmers. His strong desire to provide free electricity to the farming community when there was a severe shortage of power in the country as well as in the state, shows his kindheartedness toward his people. He fearlessly announced it and successfully implemented after he came in to power and with that he became a guide for his fellow chief ministers, irrespective of political affiliations. He also played a big role in waving the crop loans to the tune of seventy thousand crore of rupees for the farmers.

He suggested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to waive off more loans but that could not be materialised for various reasons. Otherwise more than one lakh crore of rupees would have been waived. As he was not satisfied with the waiving of loans for only defaulters, he himself took a decision to please the honest payers, giving confidence to them and announced an incentive of five thousand rupees. This had cost the exchequer for fifteen thousand corer of rupees.

Jalayagnam, a pet programme of Reddy made some progress in the state agriculture sector. Already 20 lakh acres of land was brought under irrigation through some new irrigation projects and many such projects are still in progress. His dream of Polavaram project has got clearance and will be materialised by the end of 2014. To irrigate Telangana area, he took up number of lift irrigation projects on Krishna River. Pranahita-Chevella will be the major project, which he wanted to complete during this term.

Besides agriculture, he also gave importance to the education sector. Thinking that poverty restrict brilliant students only to degree courses like BA and BCom, he announced the reimbursement of fee, which amounted to nearly twenty five thousand crore of rupees. This helped thousands of poor students to study engineering and management courses. Regarding education, one can remember his innovative idea of starting IIIT institutes in three regions of the state. Every institute is a deemed university and accommodates 2000 rural students every year. Apart from these, he also fought with the Central government for an IIT and it was achieved.

As a politician, he was left out by his seniors and high command of the party, he never discouraged and proceeded further to strengthen the party. Padayatra was one among his programmes, which gave boost to the party in state of Andhra Pradesh. He was a leader who never faced defeat in his life. He was elected to legislative assembly for six times and four times to Parliament.