All contact with Chandrayaan-1 was lost early on Saturday
India’s space agency has abandoned its inaugural moon mission a day after scientists lost communication with the orbiting Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft.
“We don’t have contact… and we had to terminate…,” said the head of Isro – the Indian Space Research Organisation.
The unmanned craft was launched last October in what was billed as a two-year mission of exploration.
The launch was seen as a major step for India as it seeks to keep pace with other space-faring Asian nations.
Despite the termination of the mission, Isro chief G Madhavan Nair told reporters that the project was a great success and 95% of its objectives had been completed.
“We could collect a large volume of data, including 70,000 images of the moon,” he added.
Isro scientists said the agency was in talks with the US and Russia to track the spacecraft, which was orbiting 200km from the surface of the moon.
Following its launch from the southern state of Andhra Pradesh last October, it was hoped the robotic probe would orbit the Moon, compile a three-dimensional atlas of the lunar surface and map the distribution of elements and minerals.
Useful mission?
Last month the satellite experienced a technical problem when a sensor malfunctioned.
I’ve got wonderful news to share. Sohini Nathak, is going to be my new partner. Sohini seems very kicked about the project and we’re going to work together. I’m very excited about it!
About Sohini- read her comment here, and here’s she on Twitter- a little less active, hey but very enthused about ANYthing she does!
Great start to the day. Watch this space for more…
I have spent a week in India on business earlier this month. It was my first visit to that country and boy, what an experience that was..I’ll start by writing about my first impressions of Mumbai.
We arrived in the wee hours of Sunday and headed towards our hotel – the Intercontinental, in Andheri East – which is very close to the airport after waiting for a long time until our bags turned up in the baggage reclaim. I remember leaving the air-conditioned airport and into the Mumbai night, feeling the humidity, the heat and the smell in the air, thick with a mixture of sweat, food and pollution. It was so loud and chaotic there, hundreds of taxi drivers waiting for people or trying to get business.
We were picked up and dropped off at the hotel. As I was waiting to check-in, I got a bit upset with the hotel staff for not making it any easier for us, as we were so tired after a long trip. After a long wait and lots of questions – “What is your ‘good name’, ma’am?” – we finally managed to get a room.
After sleeping for a couple of hours, we decided to go out and have a look at the city since that was the only day we could do anything touristy. I have always wanted to visit India but have read/heard a lot of conflicting stories about the place, so I decided to just not expect anything and have an open mind to the new experiences.
We took an air-conditioned taxi and headed towards the city centre, which is about 20km from the hotel. For a start, the driver decided to charge us 500 rupees (when the normal price would be Rs 300) for the ride. He then tried hard to get us into a souvenir shop with the promise of a discount in the fare – later Mark tells me this is an old trick – and we insist to just carry on.
We asked the driver to pull off at Churchgate, so we could have a look at “VT” – Victoria Terminus station, now known as the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus – a huge gothic train station built during the days of the British Raj and where the last scenes of “Slumdog Millionaire” were filmed.
After that, we continued walking under the brain-melting sun and visited the Taj Mahal Hotel and the Gateway to India, the monument built for the occasion of the George V’s visit to India – and often recalled as the place where James Bond entered Mumbai in “Octopussy”.
A lot of people loitered around that area and looked down at the sea, so I got closer to the barrier to see what was so entertaining. A bunch of guys were swimming in the water full of debris and pushing their friends in and having great fun. It was fun to watch that too, but I am not sure if I would be able to jump in there myself.
We continue walking around and I’m told the area around the Taj is one of the smartest in town. I stop for a minute to have a look at a clothes shop, which had some beautiful, unique satin clothes, with exorbitant price tags. My buying power is bigger in India then in any other country I have ever visited, but that shop was totally out of my league.
We then visited the markets of Colaba, where I saw dead rats on the street, women sitting on the pavement, peeling prawns and fish to sell and surrounded by hundreds of flies, people eating their lunchtime thalis with their hands on the street and a lot of dilapidated buildings.
After a taxi ride to Bandra (and getting ripped off again), we got off at Juhu beach, which was my first hardcore Indian experience. The place is full of food stalls and people selling all sorts of things, as well as the beachgoers themselves – there is no beachwear to be seen here, everyone bathes fully clothed.
I got my camera out to take a quick picture and in the next minute, I was surrounded by kids begging for money. My chest tightened when I saw that little girl, four years old at the most, carrying her baby brother clumsily in the arms, the little boy with his monkey hoping to get some cash …they were so dirty and so extremely poor…but how could I help at that moment? Giving money is certainly not an option. Getting food for them, maybe? I was overwhelmed though, and couldn’t do anything, sadly.
We then walked away from the beach and started looking for the first place we could get some food. I really didn’t want to eat something out of one of the stalls as I had a long working week ahead and didn’t want to take any chances. So we went into the Marriott hotel and ordered some curry.
It is funny how dishes such as chicken tikka masala and vindaloo curry are not part of the typical Indian menu. Instead, what you normally see is what is served in the UK as side dishes, like saag panir (curry with spinach) and saag paneer (curry with cheese).
After that we tried to walk around a bit around the Juhu area – where apparently a lot of the rich and famous also live – but after a while dodging the crazy traffic, cows, dogs and people, we decided to get back to the hotel in an autorickshaw, which was by no means less adventurous.
I fell asleep second after I got to the hotel room, my head buzzing with all the new sounds, smells, tastes and sights of this crazy place. Still a week to go, I was looking forward to it.
So today Allison and I went to an India festival held in our hometown. It was actually really interesting, considering I have no expirience with Indian culture whatsoever. I couldn’t eat any of the food as my allergies would not permit it, but we watched some awesome dancing, Sitar playing, and got Henna tattoos. Would you like to see some pictures?
We painted traditional Diwali candle holders (or something like that). The top two belong to Allison and the bottom two are mine.
Check out the crazy tattoo...
Allison gets tatooified!
You know it was bound to happen...
My Henna tattoo (and Billiam the glitter-filled ball) before it chipped off. Now it's pretty and orange!
India has such a gorgeous culture. The traditions, the dances, the music, the clothing, the food… everything is so amazing. Here in America we have burgers, booty shorts, and Soulja Boy. Fascinating, eh? Has anyone here ever been to India? If so, I want to hear all about it. It sounds like an amazing place.
Looking at the picture in the previous post, I have had to ask myself: would there be walls of a different shade/type of concrete in the structure of a hotel?
When I look at the images of the shanty buildings I see different shades of concrete all over the place as the building has been modified and built upon or maintained with what is currently available rather than a duplicate of the original material that might be too difficult or costly to source.
When making a new building like a hotel the concrete will probably be mixed either on site and poured into plywood mouldings or created elsewhere and shipped in, in either case the mixture and type of materials should remain reasonably consistant.
Therefore, I think that to create a realistic looking building, I will need to use a wide variety of textures, BUT have them colour matched to a single image so that they all look like they belong to the same set. This will give the image the consistant look and feel that I want yet retain the natural randomness of the texture of the concrete that would be found in the real world.
What exactly is globalization? As described by the Levin Institute, “Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology.” (Globalization101) Many people in the world, especially those in power see globalization as a way to spread “freedom” to the more unfortunate peoples of the world. But with such thinking, people never come to realize the detrimental effects of globalization. Attempting to entrench one’s own ideals onto another with force and pressure destroys a society that cannot adapt to such changing circumstances. Take for example, the Mayans and the Aztecs. The Spanish originally came to South America hunting for gold and other treasure, but unfortunately, they at the same time killed off a complete civilization that had no chance of adapting to steel weapons and gun powder. Such a mysterious culture vanished off the face of the planet, and many cultures today are also at risk of having the same thing happen to them. The immense western ideals of freedom and free speech are at the moment trampling on cultures around the world. Why do the people of Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda rebel against America and the rest of the western world? Simply because Afghanistan cannot handle the internalization of western influence. (Al Qaeda’s Hypocrisy: The Globalization of Terrorism) Many cultures and countries wish to expand and evolve at their own rate, with their own ideals and their own consequences. Yet, the western world does not allow them to do this, and so they rebel and consequently, have their own culture die at a fast pace because the western culture takes over.
This same force of globalization is spreading rapidly throughout the world. This sort of globalization is not the same archaic movement of conquering countries and their people. This force of globalization is more technologically based. Through the media with news outlets and television shows, movies and music, popular brands of sodas such as Pepsi or Coca Cola, and even through clothing. (The Globalization Website – Issues) Though many argue that globalization is very beneficial to the world, they do not look at their claims often enough to realize the loopholes in their arguments. It is true that globalization can create ties between treacherous countries and create greater pathways to proper communication. And communication is something that is not used that greatly between foreign countries, unlike violence, as it has been for thousands of years.
Globalization is not new to the world. It is merely expanded over the past many centuries. One such moment of globalization was the Silk Road across the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. Merchants have been buying and selling merchandise for many years that has created prosperity and friendly relations for many people. Merchants today are big CEO’s of multi-million dollar companies that trade internationally. Unfortunately, these modern merchants are more forceful and apathetic to economic and environmental concerns around the world; they pave their way with force in order to further expand their reach of power and trade. Such globalization creates detrimental affects at the places it reaches. For example, if a simple country is attempting to boost their own economy from a downtrodden state, they will try to get out of the situation creating their own companies. But when a market giant like Wal-Mart steps in, the economic condition turns for the worst. Jobs are then used to support Wal-Mart, at minimum wage, rather than supporting companies that are created, led, and based in their own country. Corporate giants like Wal-Mart increase in size every year, and this is at the expense of valuable cultures, local enterprises, and the common people. This is the way I see it and henceforth, it provides me enough evidence to say that globalization is indeed, not for the best.
Because of globalization, developed nations such as Canada have outsourced white collar jobs almost completely to developing nations such as China. Well recognized and high paying jobs such as scientists, computer engineers and programmers, and accountants have lost their jobs due to outsourcing to places where the cost is much cheaper. The Canadian people see this happening everyday; with a change in government policy and economic demand and supply, proper jobs where decent education and hard work is required are being sold off to places like China or India where governments and businesses find that they can save tremendous money by doing so (Nelson 7). By doing this, it is only stealing away jobs from people who deserve them. Hence, many companies such as local GM car manufacturing companies are being shut down and many small businesses that are trying to compete with corporate giants find that they cannot due to outsourcing; which they are unable to do. Another detrimental effect caused by globalization that is very well known throughout the world is child and POW (prisoners of war) labour. Manufacturing jobs such as the making of cars, furniture, clothing, sports equipment, computers, and imported foods are being taken are being thrust upon children and POW. They are being forced to work for less than $11 a month, where hours can range from 12 to 16 hours of work a day, with not one day of rest. (Edmonds 1) This is especially horrible for children, where their childhood is being corrupted in order to manufacture good materials and work with machines where there is absolutely no safety standards set in order to protect them. Children from the ages of 5 to 15 are exploited in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and many other countries around the world. (Edmonds 1) Because of no instruction on how to produce goods properly and to protect themselves from the harm of factory machines, children and POW end up losing limbs and are exposed to toxic chemicals that are extremely harmful to the respiratory system. If such a thing happens, they are simply thrown out of the factories because their productivity has decreased substantially, and the factory owners simply hire new workers; which are never low in supply.
The world is a tough environment and competition is practically everywhere. Now, in terms of evolution, competition between people is good for the survival of the species. But with technology nowadays and human reliance on it, evolution within mankind is practically non-existent. When globalization was just starting out and before it became what it is today, jobs were very secure and competition for those jobs was very rare. This is not the case today. Because of globalization and technological advancements in the information age, competition has exponentially increased. Most people cannot go a single day of their lives without feeling insecure about their jobs and how they would feed, clothe, and shelter themselves and their family if they lost their jobs. As said above, jobs are being outsourced and hard working men and women are being laid off in order for corporate companies to reduce their costs. Good sums of salaries and wages are being cut because of outsourcing. (Nelson 7) At the same time, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are becoming poorer. (Kentor 435-46) Unlike the story of Robin Hood, such a case is practically impossible in this day and age. Corporate companies are ruling with an iron fist, stronger than that of the government and countries like the United States of America are speedily introducing capitalism to the rest of the world. A political system such as capitalism is allowing corporations to take more from the people and give them less back. These same corporations are now using their power to influence political decisions from elections to governing laws. (Nelson 7) Hence, not only can they choose who deserves the right to govern, they can now even dictate where and what people buy. This can be seen by carefully inspecting companies and brands such as Sony and Samsung. These same companies deploy new brands that make people think that they are made by small independent companies from the common man and woman, when in actuality, they are a smaller brand from a larger brand; meant to force the consumer to unknowingly buy from the major brand in the end.
Fast food restaurants (or so they still call themselves) are shipping away from North America to developing nations in order to increase business. Companies such as McDonalds and Pizza Hut are setting up all over the world and are forcing bad diet habits onto them as well. (The Globalization Website – Issues) We have seen the detrimental effects of bad diet through fast food in North America, especially in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Obesity is greatly prevalent from fast food restaurants and many developing nations are now relying on such food as part of their daily caloric intake. By creating bad eating habits and diets, globalization is certainly shortening the lifespan of many human beings around the world. Corporations are destroying the environment by setting up factories and other industries that release toxic pollutants into the air. These pollutants are much more easily handled in North America, but in developing countries, it is much harder to do so. Places like China and India have the worst pollution regulation with practically no laws setting the standard of how to not release pollutants into the air and destroy the global environment. Arguably, the greatest cause of globalization has to be the media and very recently, the Internet. Bad influences from North America with violence and sexual activity are being spread to countries where cultures tend to avoid these taboos. Cultures around the world are being hammered with propaganda and conflicting images through television and movies. The Internet has allowed hate groups and terrorist groups to openly communicate with each other and recruit individuals for their causes with hate speeches and other ways. The media is a vice that is destroying valuable cultures and traditions in the world in order for them to only bow down to the public western society. (The Globalization Website – Issues)
The purpose of this essay is not to say that globalization should be stopped in its tracks completely. I only exclaim that globalization should not nose its way into the rest of the world and force cultures that are vulnerable to change to try and adapt in cases where they cannot. Globalization is very beneficial to the world, as it allows communication between people from different races and countries to mingle between each other and learn about each other. This is a method that creates peace, because from communication, people can learn to understand each other and get along. But western ideology should not trample on people’s thoughts and sacred beliefs, as that is the opposite of peace. The environment is currently suffering due to corporate giants wasting away fossil fuels and destroying important natural landmarks in the world. Cultures such as the Inuit who live on seals as their main diet, are now being threatened due to the polar ice caps melting and seal hunters hunting hundreds of thousands of baby seals a year. (About the Canadian Seal Hunt) If the world was simply to ask cultures and nations if they would like to participate in the phenomenon that is globalization, rebels who take a violent stance against globalization may not do so. Another terrorist act such as 9/11 may never happen again. To reduce the detrimental effects of globalization, the world must retain manners and coincidentally, look before it leaps. If globalization grows at the rapid rate it is now, valuable cultures and history will be lost just as the Aztecs and Mayans once did.
There is a growing number of Americans, who are very much in awe of Bollywood, especially its music and songs.
Daphne Beal, who set her well-reviewed 1998 novel In the Land of No Right Angles in America, Nepal and Mumbai’s Falkland Road, wrote in The New York Times recently about her discovery of Bollywood music, and helpfully provides a list of dance-worthy Bollywood hits with links to the songs/videos.
Beal’s top 10 list includes two songs from the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Dil Se — Chaiyya Chaiyya and the title song.
sharukh
Chaiyya Chaiyya, it will be recalled, was a crowd-pulling feature of the Broadway show Bombay Dreams and the peculiar thing about the song was that it was choreographed by ace choreographer Farah Khan on a train.
Katrina Kaif is encashing her newly accomplished success and star status to full now. She tracked the fastest to the top slot in
bollywood.
Now, she has agreed to do an item number in Ashtavinayak’s Sanjay Dutt and Akshay Kumar starrer, “BLUE“. Surprisingly, Katrina has demanded
and received a whopping 1.5 crore for the same. With that the much maligned item number has assumed a new high and also a prestigious new
name- Hot and sensational dance number.
Many of the top and respectable names in the industry have decided to take the plunge too. First of the type is going to be the woman of
substance, Preity Zinta, who has consented to do an item number in the Salman Khan-Kareena Kapoor starrer, “Mr And Mrs Khanna“.
Well, here is no matter to be surprised if more top names join the bandwagon and agree to do (as per our new nomenclature) hot and
sensational dance numbers
