articles

Breathing Therapy

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 04:39:37 +0100

The nose has a left and a right side; we use both to inhale and exhale. Actually they are different; you would be able to feel the difference.
The right side represents the sun, left side represents the moon. During a headache, try to close your right nose and use your left nose to breathe. You will be relieved of your headache

If you feel tired, just reverse the process. Close your left nose and breathe through your right nose. After a while, you will feel your mind is refreshed.

Right side represents 'hot', so it gets heated up easily, left side represents 'cold'.
Invariably women breathe through their left nose, so they get "cooled off" faster.
Men breathe with their right nose, so they get worked up.

Have you ever noticed the moment we wake up, the way we breathe? Left or right? ? If you breathe in rapid speedthrough the left nostril you tend to get tired. So, close your left nostril and use your right nostril for breathing, you will get refreshed quickly.
This can be taught to kids, but it is more effective when practiced by adults.
My friend used to suffer from severe headaches and had to frequently visit the doctor..

He took painkillers, did not work. Hence he
to try out the breathing therapy. He closed his right nose and breathed through his left nose.

In less than a week, his headaches were gone! He continued the exercise for one month.
This alternative natural therapy without medication is something that he has experienced.
So, why not give a try?

Who says there's global warming?: An appeal to reason----

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 04:40:15 +0100

The review of the book "An appeal to reason: a cool look at global warming"---- sounds interesting. Perhaps there is more heat generated discussing global warming making the issue look more scary than real. The book comes heavily on the establishment for presenting an exaggerated picture of a phenomenon which is as natural as anything. The author finds the arguments not well founded. But a rebuttal to his statements is equally interesting saying" he dosen't have much gunpowder to mount a serious onslaught". The truth lies somewhere in between. The politics shrouded in science is more complex than the science of politics.

Invest in biocultural diversity

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 04:41:43 +0100

It is another dawn as the sun rises above the horizon. The wind wafts through the forests carrying the fragrance of flowers to far off places. The plants and the trees that exude the atmosphere with the pleasant smell have many medicinal properties. So what the wind transports is no ordinary matter. Also it is another day for the local aborigines. Wading through the water, walking through muddy paths, climbing up the mountain slopes, they go singing

Alikade jungle

Palikade jungle

Shodu chala

Pudhe----

Shodu chala

Pudha---

(Here lies a jungle, there lies a jungle, here we go, In search of (our) roots)

Each tree each plant has a story to tell these local inhabitants, for they are no strangers. It is a relation, which is beyond the comprehension of you and me. It is a dialogue very silent, which transpires among them.

So close is the diversity linked to the life of a tribe, that it is inevitable to ignore the different facets of man while addressing the problems related to the sustenance of biotic life in this planet. Hence a biologist’s inquiry into the area of environmental science culminates into the study of linguistic studies and anthropology. The anthropologists and linguists on their inquiries into cultural and linguistic diversity finally end up learning the significance of the surrounding environment. This understanding has led to the emergence of a science called ‘Cultural biodiversity’.

Survival of this planet depends on ecosystem diversity, species diversity and genetic diversity. An imbalance in any of these factors is sure to tilt the balance and that has worried the ecologists, economists, and sociologists in general. It is an alarming situation the globe faces since the last 25years. As per the alerts given by concerned people one species is lost per hour! 20% of bird species ,30% of medicinal plants and 90% of big aquatic fishes .

This takes us to the question- how did our ancestors maintain a symbiotic relation? The answer is simple. The local people whom we call “aborigines” maintained the structural balance. They knew the eco system as they would know their neighbours. They understood the inter dependency and the intricate implications of ignoring nature.

We in our greed to grab lands which belong to none, have partially destroyed these custodians of great wisdom, who can still unlock the great secrets of mother Earth. All over the world their number has dwindled reaching a point of extinction..

The biodiversity is directly related to linguistic sciences. Death of a language is the demise of a traditional wisdom. To preserve the diversity, the existence of a community that is closely related to nature and its communication medium is a must. You discover the world through a spoken language. Loss of this medium is a loss to civilization. It is observed that places rich in biodiversity are also places of biolinguistic diversity. Eg.-Africa, India and South America. Papua is a country in Africa abundantly blessed with biodiversity. It is also the place where as many as 820 languages are spoken.

Going back to the past, the folk songs, folklore, myths and proverbs made literature rich. It was an encyclopedia of information that gave us a glimpse into the social life, economy and the symbiotic relation between man and his surroundings indicating the role of culture in sustaining diversity. Each language symbolized how the surrounding nature moulded the cultural differences of each society and how that culture responded to nature.

When a language dies, various accumulated knowledge of survival also fades into oblivion irrevocably.

Tamanna Aurora X1 Commerce (A)

Arya Prabhu

The God Particle

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 04:41:51 +0100

The ultimate goal of all religious experiences is salvation, to attain the super conscious level where the individual loses his identity and dissolves into a sublime state which is beyond all existence. Religion, which is dogmatic by nature, assertsthe presence of an all pervading force called ‘GOD’.

The scientists who are more rationalistic refuse to accept things until the statementsamenable to reasoning and physical proof. As the religious group indulges in metaphysical explanation of universe related issues, their counterpart, i.e. the rationalist cries from house tops "that which is not susceptible to scrutiny and scientific investigation does not deserve much concern. There is no secret in nature that science cannot discover nor that which cannot be quantified or explained exist. So the existence of a superior force is a point of contention until proved otherwise by philosophers.” So the inference is ‘There is no God.’ Yet the Nobel Laureate and scientist Leon M Ledrermanin his novel,‘If universe is the answer what is the question’, has dubbed the Higgs Boson - a particle which would answer many skeptics as God Particle

.What is God Particle? It is an elementary particle predicted to exist on nature. It is a controversial particle, which can bestow mass to matter. Gravity gives weight to object but we do not know what gives mass to particle. The finding that will solve the mystery behind the phenomenon is God Particle. The world massive physics experiment ‘Large Hardon Collider’ aims to unlock the secret of dark matter and also understand the entity that makes 85% of the universe. Perhaps this would discern the mystery behind the God Particle-.a theory, which could rock the entire foundation of physics..

Here comes the paradox. Science, on it’s race to unravel a profound truth and the

spiritualists, though they appear to be dogmatic, have the same objective - to understand what the universe is, the mystery behind the origin of this UNIVERSE. Be it ‘GOD ‘as the religious saints call it or the ‘GOD PARTICLE” as the rationalists or the scientists prefer to label it. My---my my parallel lines meet!

Shri Yeshwant Gaonkar is in charge of the Physics Department. He has a lot of Hindi poems written to his credit apart from the scientific articles published in various science periodicals.

Waste paper

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 04:42:02 +0100

Waste paper is not “waste” after all. It is a flourishing business that is now attracting big players

Be it newspapers, magazines, bills, memos, diaries or notebooks, they all land with the scrap dealer after being used. But what happens after that?

Well, after that the waste paper changes several hands before reaching the recycling mills. The paper is then de-inked, made into pulp and again into paper, before it reaches the market as recycled paper. In this story, DARE tracks down the route that waste paper takes before reaching the paper recycling mills, which could be a lucrative business opportunity.

The industry landscape
The operating capacity of the Indian pulp and paper industry has been estimated to be 8.5 million tons by the Indian Agro and Recycling Paper Mills Association (IARPMA). Paper mills can be broadly divided into three types—wood-pulp-based mills, agro-residue-based mills (non-wood-based segment) and waste-paper-based mills. According to the IARPMA, waste-paper-based mills account for almost one third of the industry at approximately 40 percent, whereas the wood-based mills account for 29 percent and the agro-residue-based mills comprise 31 percent of the total industry pie. Despite the fact that more than one third of the industry is dependent on waste paper, waste paper recovery is very low. In fact, according to available figures, only 2 million tons of the paper finally finds its way to the recycle mills. This means that nearly 6.5 million tons of paper reaches landfills and is lost forever.

It has been estimated that the recovery rate of paper in India is only 26 percent, compared to Thailand’s 45 percent, China’s 38 percent, and Germany’s 80 percent. This is mainly due to low awareness among people as well as the unorganized nature of the business. In India, waste paper collection is mainly done by rag pickers and kabariwallahs (scrap dealers), who collect waste in a crude manner. This makes India highly dependent on waste paper imports from countries like Canada, the USA, the European Union and Middle East. Within India, waste paper is mostly collected from the western region that comprises 39 percent, followed by northern region at 28 percent, southern region at 23 percent and eastern region at just 10 percent.

The business model
As mentioned above, waste paper collection in India is very low compared to other countries, and whatever paper is collected passes through several hands before reaching the paper mill. Briefly, it passes through three middle men—the scrap dealer, the local area dealer and the wholesaler—before it is converted back to reusable paper. Nitin Goel of GreenOBin, an organized player in this sector says, “A street raddiwala cannot directly go and sell to the recycler due to the limitation on the collection amount. Any paper mill based on waste paper as their raw material has got a daily requirements in tons and the street raddiwala cannot cater the same daily.” The cost escalation during this process is twice the amount when compared from a street scrap dealer to the paper recycler.

The first link to the chain starts with the scrap dealer, also known as the kabariwallah, who collects waste from homes. The scrap dealer’s major cost heads are a cycle, a weighing scale and some sacks. This dealer collects all kinds of waste from homes like old newspapers, magazines, loose paper, old bottles, metal waste, and so on. He does a basic level segregation and sells his goods to the local dealer. In terms of paper waste, newspapers are what hold the key to his profits because of large quantity compared to magazines, old books and loose paper. A scrap dealer tells us that these days a number of households generally get at least two papers and moreover, the weight of the newspaper is also more because a number of add-on supplement papers and content. He buys the newspaper at approximately Rs 5.50 per kg from the households and sells it to the local dealer at Rs 7, whereas magazines go at approximately a rupee less because of the glossy paper used. Ultimately, his profits depend on his negotiating skills—the better his negotiating power the more profit he earns.

After collecting all the waste, the scrap dealer sells his goods to the local area dealer. The major cost heads of this local area dealer is space to store different kinds of waste, a weighing scale, and manpower to segregate the waste. This local dealer has several scrap dealers working for him. For example, Mohammad Irfan, a local area scrap dealer in Delhi, has 25 scrap dealers working for him. These scrap dealers sell all their waste, be it paper, bottles, or metal, at the end of each day. After collecting the waste from the dealers, another level of basic segregation happens at this level. In case of newspaper waste, each newspaper has to be straightened, sorted and bundled neatly before it can be sold further. These dealers work with different wholesalers—there are separate wholesalers for different kinds of waste. In the case of newspaper waste, he buys it from the scrap dealer at Rs 7 (the current rate) and sells it to the wholesaler at approximately Rs 7.20 (a ballpark figure). This is when the transportation is taken care of by the wholesaler. This price fluctuates and depends on the demand and supply of paper in the market.

Hope

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 08:32:13 +0100

Hope

Milena Souza

As I lay on my bed one night

I felt the arms of god around me’

I was surrounded and held tight

As I felt the Angels touch.

I did not know why

God should love me so

That He send His only son

To hang on the death -row.

He guards me night and day

And brings me love and hope

I know that I will survive somehow

For He will help me cope

as a father has compassion on his child

so also my Lord has compassion on me.

I know I can count on Him

There is nowhere from His love I want to flee.