A news that needs to be highlighted

Gujarat wins UN award for public service

Have you heard of Narayanan Krishnan?

Have you heard of Narayanan Krishnan? This is one of the most incredible stories of personal commitment.
 
Narayanan Krishnan, all of 29 years old now, does what he was professionally trained to do as a chef. Feed people. Only Krishnan does not do this in the swanky confines of a 5-star hotel. Every day, he wakes up at 4 am, cooks a simple hot meal and then, along with his team, loads it in a van and travels about 200 km feeding the homeless in Madurai , Tamil Nadu. 
 
Krishnan feeds, often with his hands, almost 400 destitute people every day. And for those who need it, he provides a free haircut too. 

According to CNN, eight years ago, this award-winning chef with a five-star hotel chain was all set to go to Switzerland for a high-profile posting. On a visit to a Madurai temple, he came across a homeless, old man eating his own human waste. That stark sight changed Krishnan's life. 

Much to the dismay of his parents, CNN says, Krishnan abandoned his career plans and decided to spend his life and his professional training in looking after those who could not care for themselves. He has provided more than 1.2 million hot meals through his nonprofit organisation Akshaya Trust, and now hopes to extend this to shelter for the homeless too. 
 
Krishnan is the only Indian in a list of 10 heroes that CNN has picked worldwide to honour. One of them will be chosen CNN Hero of the Year, selected by the public through an online poll. If many Indians get together to vote for this inspiring man, he can win by a long mile. 
 
If Krishnan wins he will get $100,000 in addition to the $25,000 that he gets for being shortlisted for the Top 10. Akshaya Trust needs all the monetary support it can get to build on Krishnan's dream. Let's help him get there.
Vote for Krishnan here. The poll continues through November 18 at 6 a.m. ET. 

I have voted. do you want to contribute

IIT Delhi at night

IIT Delhi  at 10. 45 pm at Night 0n 8^th October 2010. 

 Do we have this culture at other colleges in  India

Acknowledgement

I was thinking today that I should start acknowledging my family and friends who have contributed towards my PhD, lest I forget to mention those who truly count. In fact by joining Ph.D, I have realised the importance of teamwork and coordination, as for  one man alone it is very difficult to achieve this uphill task. Though in official acknowledgement family is mentioned in last, but here I would like to place my family first here. Anshu, My wife, is  wonderful companion and it is because of her continuous  support and  encouragement  that I am here. She is managing two houses with great skill and effort. Pankhuri , my elder daughter misses me very much but she puts a  brave face. Medha, my younger daughter does not have idea of time yet but keep asking me that when we will be together. Dr. K. L Sapra, My father in law and Shanta Sapra , My mother in law keeps me free of worries regarding my children and home.  Contribution by my family is so huge that I can right treatise on it but I will keep short here so that it does not become very boring for reader.

Among my friends, I will like to first acknowledge, Dr. Rajan Aggarwal , who instigated me to do Ph.D. He encourages me to complete Ph.D in time and  provides technical as well as moral support. Madam Samanpreet, helps me with technical papers, data without which it would have been difficult make progress in research work.

Then there are other friends who have put in effort to send journal papers and book from various parts of the world. Taranjit Singh, a batch mate from Thapar, sent 150 scanned pages from USA. If you ever scanned one page you know amount of time it must have taken besides procuring and returning the book from library.  Sanjay Kaushal, an IIT course mate, sent 100 Photographs from a  book when he was in Germany. Gurpreet Bala , one of my best friends and batch mate from Thapar, presently settled in Canada kept sending research papers as and when need arises. My students, Amit Sharma and Jaspal Lamba, presently in USA sent research papers as per my requirements.

Varios persons are guiding  me by sharing expertise in their field by helping me to acquire data  .  Dr. Bijay Singh, National Professor at PAU,Ludhiana Dr. PK Sharma, Director Punjab remote sensing, Mr. Pawan Bansal , Directorate of water resources, Chandigarh and Dr. Joginder Singh , Deputy director Animal Husbandry, Ludhiana  are prominent among them.

Then in IIT, my  co-students Raktim, Maheswaran, Sudhir  helps me Daily in my  day to day work. Without them how would I have made progress, I do not know. Did I mention about my guides, presently they are keeping me on my toes. Previously unknown persons have also helped in acquiring data from various agencies.  

Of course, financial Support of PAU, Ludhiana and QIP program of AICTE, Delhi was prerequisite to venture into PhD study

I will keep on updating this acknowledgment as and when I find time.

Ashwani  Soni                                                                                                                                  

 Dated  9-10-2010

Top American graduates heading to India for employment (Good news 2)

watch this video 

Top American graduates heading to India for employment  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPDHfqpEVD4

Positive news

With negativity all around I have decided to select Positive news and display on my blog . The first in the series  is
ISRO's answer to google earth

Chain that needs to be broken

Before forwarding chain mails, these can be checked at 

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/
http://www.breakthechain.org/  
http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/chainletterhoaxes.php
http://www.snopes.com/

an interesting article on  Email Security: The Dangers of Chain Emailing

http://www.brighthub.com/internet/security-privacy/articles/3112.aspx

Latitude and Longitude

Latitude is the angular distance from the Earth’s equator and is expressed as either north or south. Longitude is the angular distance from the Greenwich meridian and is expressed as east or west.

Latitude 

The largest latitude circle is the equator itself, which is zero degrees. Other latitude circles are parallel to the equatorial plane, and grow smaller nearer the poles. You can imagine a toy with bottom most ring as equator (Figure 1). The earth is divided into two hemispheres : Northern and Southern . The northern circles are marked as 0º to 90 º N and southern circles are marked 0 an 0º to 90 º S. All the circles are parallel to each other so these are sometimes referred to as parallels (Figure 2)

Figure 1 Toy with rings of reducing   diameter

Figure 2 Latitude  measurement (http://homepage.mac.com/kvmagruder/bcp/sphere/terreslat.htm)

Longitude 

Longitude circles are not parallel to each other, but pass through both poles and intersect the equator perpendicularly. All longitude circles are great circles of equal diameter. The prime meridian, which equals zero degrees longitude, is the longitude arc from the North pole to the South pole that runs through Greenwich Observatory in England. The longitude arc 180 degrees opposite (the other half of the same great circle) is the international dateline. Longitudes are measured in degrees east or west of the Greenwich meridian (Figure 3).

Figure 3 Longitude measurement (http://www.physics.miami.edu/huerta/class/110/110_gif/LATITUDE_LONGITUDE_MERIDIA.GIF

Atoms elements molecules comounds