VIZAG matters - Sohan Hatangadi's Blog

The Pushkarams Phenomena http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/visakhapatnam/The-Pushkarams-phenomenon/articleshow/48129734.cms The death of several devotees at a stampede at the Pushkar Ghat on the banks of the Godavari on the first day of the Pushkara earlier this week has left everyone shocked. There are two aspects to the disaster; (a) the failure of the administration to manage the crowds and (b) the way the crowd itself behaved leading up to the stampede. There is enough being said on how the administration did not anticipate the numbers of devotees, how standard crowd control systems were ignored and the role of VVIPs in this fiasco. It is never politically correct to speak ill of the victims but it is quite clear that the mindless surge of humanity intent on being at the precise place at the most auspicious time contributed to the tragedy. Is timing everything? Relevant to this issue is our belief in the notion of “most auspicious” moment. It is difficult to ...

Read this as it appeared in the papers: Or simply read the word document here... A s it has over thousands of years, summer has come around again. As anyone interested in astronomy will know it happens because the earth’s axis is tilted. In summer the northern hemisphere is closer to the sun making it warmer. In winters the exact opposite happens making the southern hemisphere hot. This fortunate tilt is the engine that causes seasons that and is responsible for the diversity of our crops and much of life on earth. Not only does the earth change its trajectory around the sun going from elliptical to circular causing climate change but as the earth’s axis wobbles like a slow spinning top, the axis of the earth shifts back and forth changing our climate. In 11,000 years from now Vizag will be having winter in July and eating mangoes in December! Historical temperatures Though we all know it is going to be bad, we are always surprised by how terrible summer is when it visit...

Of Rockets & Rubbish The link to Times of India article  Of rockets, reptiles and rubbish Of scientific temperament and snake feeding On 5th March a rocket lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre launching a robotic satellite on its 200-million-kilometre journey to Mars . When asked why a poor, low literacy nation should be going to space, the learned men said that it was to demonstrate our capabilities, fill our hearts with pride and most importantly inculcate a scientific temperament  among  Indians. Two days after that, on C.V. Raman’s birthday, thousands of educated Vizagites, got all dressed up and fanned out into the bushes to find ant hills to feed eggs and milk to snakes! Split personality This is the quintessential split personality of India. One set of people reaching for the stars (a planet really) and the other group visiting our friendly neighbourhood Cobra which - they imagine - waits, mouth open inside an ant hill, for e...

  Carl Sagan   QUOTES BY CARL SAGAN Carl Sagan died in Dec 1996. When in Chennai (then Madras),  during the 80's, I used to watch his TV programs on my 14" B&W TV. Freaked out then and still do. A great thinker  and someone who worked tirelessly to spread a scientific temperament. I found these quotes on the net and wish to share them with my friends. A celibate clerg y is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.   All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.   But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus , they laughed at Fulton , they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.   For me, it is far better to grasp the U...