Times Of India

TIMES OF INDIA. Comments made by P.S.Remesh Chandran, Trivandrum. P.S.Remesh Chandran.

Subpages: Times Of India Comments 51 to 100.

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001. Kerala demands 'classical status' for Malayalam. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala has stepped up the demand for classical status to Malayalam, the only South Indian language which has not been accorded the honour.

May 6, 2010, 05.03PM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thiruvananthapuram/Kerala-demands-classical-status-for-Malayalam/articleshow/5898516.cms#write

PSRemeshChandra. (Trivandrum)

03 Dec, 2011 04:33 PM IST

Classic Status Languages are those ancient ones which are preserved, whose dialect and script endure adversity and time and are still in use. Since Malayalam changed script recently, it is not eligible for Classic Languages Status like Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. If only the old script is reinstated and officially used, can Malayalam considered for Classic Language Status. The present outcry of academicians and politicians in Kerala for Classic Language Status for Malayalam is for the 300 Crore. The real ancient Malayalam script before the recent change was perfectly rounded, reflecting the polished behaviour of the Malayaalees. Recent change in Classic Malayalam Script replaced rounded polishness with abrupt squarishness, reflecting the mental state of the changers. The change benefited neither printers, typesetters, type makers, nor foundry owners. It was the greatest folly in the Malayalam language and literature field ever. The script changers in Malayalam thought they were saving a Classic Language from ruin, but it was their literature that had been ruined. Since 1970 no good poem, play, novel or short story has been created in Malayalam Language. Literature no more reflects the Malayali Mind. What literature appeared in Kerala since 1970 was those ballooned up and boosted by newspapers and magazines depending upon birth and caste. Continuous dwindling of genius from Classic Malayalam Language and Literature in Kerala made students loath and abandon it in their studies. Now Kerala authorities are trying to make studying Malayalam compulsory, testifying to how abandoned it has become in schools and colleges. Abandoning Malayalam studies and the language ceasing to grow long past are mutual-causative, brought out by the stillness in their literature. No scholarships were given for studying Malayalam in Kerala, though every Paisa went to the officials, academicians and organizations. Learning the 56- Alphabet Malayalam Script helped Malayaalees learn any language in this world and settle anywhere on this globe. It is true more and more books are printed in Malayalam Language in Kerala, but it is also true that fewer and fewer books are being read.

002. New dam only option. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Protests over the Mullapperiyar conundrum continued across Kerala on Wednesday even as chief minister Oommen Chandy reiterated the state's stand that a new dam was the only option to ensure the security of millions of people.

Nov 30, 2011, 10.40PM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kochi/New-dam-only-option-Chandy/articleshow/10935640.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum.)

23 Dec, 2011 06:05 PM IST

If a dam is old and leaking heavily, it is safer to decommission it, regardless of its various present uses, rather than take the risk of it collapsing and taking away five districts in a state along with thousands of human lives, houses, cattle, vehicles, bridges, roads, crops and other developments. Tamil Nadu not only takes away water from the dam but makes electricity also out of this water, both totaling to the tune of above 10000 crores. They pay Kerala a meager amount of just below 30 lakh rupees each year as lease. Tamil Nadu knows that even if the present Mulla-Periyar dam is decommissioned and a new one built in its place, they will be given water as before but the amount to be paid to Kerala each year will raise to a realistic 500 crores, conforming to world rates and standards. That is the reason behind Tamil Nadu’s reluctance to acquiesce to the decommissioning of this century-old dam and constructing a new one in its place. It is the one and only reason behind their adamant stand. If someone, be it anyone in India, emphatically says that the dam will never burst and that it is totally safe, are invited to come with family and reside in any village or town beneath the dam for two years. Take this as a challenge. In the national scene, Mullapperiyar has significance. Mullapperiyar issue is a political creation, designed and created to divert attention from a more catastrophic disaster which may one day possibly wipe out the entire people of the sister states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Once this issue is settled or the strife and struggle stops, the Anti-Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant struggle will resume and gain force. If it collapses, the Mullapperiyar Dam will certainly cause the wiping away of three or four districts, but if it one day blows away, the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant will burn out two entire states. After pleasing Russia, our political leaders on the national level want to open and make function the plant noiselessly, that is without protest. As they wished, the people of the two states are fighting against each other, instead of jointly fighting against opening the deadly power plant. That is the trick, cunning and clever treachery of national politics. It is no wonder the Koodankulam struggle went behind the curtain when Mullapperiyar struggle came into the fore. What extremely pleases the orthodox national leaders is that the lower class blacks have again begun to fight each other.

003. Chikungunya fear in city. On the appearance of Chikungunya in Trivandrum.

Mar 9, 2012, 10.44 PM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thiruvananthapuram/Chikungunya-fear-in-city/articleshow/12201800.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

21 Mar, 2012 09:17 PM

''First Ger Rid Of Those Dogs. Then Dengue And Chikungunya Will Go Away. Dengue Fever is a Zoonosis, a disease occurring primarily in mammalian animals that can be transmitted to humans. The viruses responsible for this disease survive in nature as infections in animals; human infection is not necessary for their survival. Dengue Fever is an Arboviral infection, the viruses being transmitted by arthropod vectors such as ticks. House dogs and street dogs are the common Animal Reservoir Hosts to these viruses, as almost all of these animals are tick-affected. The recent outbreaks of Dengue Fever in Kerala were exclusively caused by the millions of dogs roaming the streets and in the houses. Otherwise the healthy and clean people of Kerala would not have succumbed this much easily to this disease and this much frequently too. Actually, reports from Kerala indicate that the State has been in the grip of dog-transmitted diseases for long. Hundreds of people there are daily admitted to hospitals following severe group attacks by dogs in the streets. The recent outbreaks of Dengue Fever rendered health services helpless, claimed hundreds of human lives and incapacitated tens of thousands more. Everyone talked about mosquitoes, stagnant pools, dirty canals and the like, but no one admitted the possibility of these diseases being spread from dogs, lest it would be commented as trivial. With this many dogs on the loose in streets and houses, there may occur yet another outbreak of Dengue and Congo Fevers in Kerala which would be fatal. The health authorities and dog lovers know this but they fear revealing this for fear of retaliation from amorous dog lovers. Chikungunya is a viral disease closely similar to Dengue fever that recently swept through Africa, Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Europe and America. As the African name denotes, it causes a contorted and stooped appearance and may take years and decades for the patient to get a slight relief. Full recovery is never. There is no treatment or vaccine available for this disease. Victims are incapacitated and cannot work or earn a living for many years. The destructing power of this virus is such that it is considered as an ideal agent for future biological weapons and warfare. ''

004. Chikungunya fear in city.

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

21 Mar, 2012 09:33 PM IST

''Chikungunya is an Arboviral infection which need an animal reservoir host for the virus to survive and thrive in nature. It will need an animal reservoir host or a primate other than men to reside in and multiply for a time. Usually they are monkeys and dogs. Outbreaks of this disease happened very recently and very frequently too. Nothing especially happened in the environmental conditions of the world which was why world health authorities could not predict the coming of this disease. What they could not see clearly and take into account was the number of dogs increasing inconceivably everywhere. Or even if they knew, they were forced to remain silent about it, knowing well the iron hand of dog-lovers, many of whom the dignitaries who design and govern the modern world. Assuming all things in the environment remained the same, and also given that the number of some available animal host increased in the world considerably lately so as to cause repeated massive outbreaks of this disease, we are forced to believe that it was only the number of dogs in the world that increased lately, due to nations one after another blindly passing laws banning the killing of dogs. Even W.H.O. articles on Chikungunya carefully remain vague about the role of the abundance of dogs in bringing about this disease which is sweeping through almost all continents. Some get a few minutes’ pleasure from dogs and the world pays too high a price for the pleasure to be justified. All research organizations working in this field, including the W. H. O. is very careful in avoiding the words Arboviral Infection, Animal Reservoir Hosts, Monkeys, Dogs, etc when they make learned talk about Chikungunya. Are they plain and adamant dog lovers or are they interested in human health? This farce has been going on for a long time. When they have to prove the usefulness of the huge amounts of money granted to them, they will come up with some new article, research or warning regarding chikungunya, publish some new boring jargon about mosquitoes and hide effectively the name of the real animal carriers of this virus. Why don't they dismantle these organizations? ''

005. Protests by pro-Left bodies turn violent. Left youth organizations protesting against the state government decision to increase retirement age of government employees to 56.

Mar 22, 2012, 05.06PM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thiruvananthapuram/Protests-by-pro-Left-bodies-turn-violent/articleshow/12368644.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

22 March, 2012, 06:46 PM IST

Times Of India reports that riots and destruction are going on all over Kerala over the raising of the retirement age of Kerala government employees, led by pro-left youth organizations. Pro-left youth organizations in Kerala means only two active organizations, the Democratic Youth Federation of India led by the CPIM and the All India Youth Federation led by the CPI. We all know that these organizations declared endless war on corruption and petrol price hike. After conducting one or two routine marches and issuing a few press notes, they returned to their cozy, sequestered cool quarters. Corruption in Kerala continues as before and the price of petrol was never lowered. They have lost the stamina for unending struggles till victory. They are part of the rotten establishment now like any other organization. A well-groomed, beautician-touched moustache, fashion clothes, costly vehicles and 30000 Rupee mobile phones will not bring about revolutions. The leaders of these organizations perfectly well know that Com. Achuthanandan clinged to the Chief Minister’s chair even after 87 years’ age. The cases of Comrades E.K.Nayanar and P.K.Vasudevan Nair were not different. Why are most of their Parliament Members and State Assembly Members 70 and 75 years old? They will reply that consul of the wise is needed in the field of higher administration. What startles us all is their argument that wisdom degenerates in the qualified government servant all of a sudden at the age of 55 years. The real reason behind the youth organizations’ fury is another thing. The minds of all the members in DYFI and AIYF are fuming and burning at the injustice of their party leaders remaining in authority long after their desirable retirement age. They, through these riots, are actually though symbolically, telling their party leaders to voluntarily retire at a decent age. But if they tell it directly or through a press release, the state secretaries of both these organizations would be thrown out of the party the instant. And they all know this. Just sympathize with them in their helplessness. Tolerate their atrocities lest they may go mad with their suppressed anger and fury.

006. Capital's mayor in Kozhikode for waste disposal tips. KOZHIKODE: A delegation led by Thiruvananthapuram corporation mayor K Chandrika visited the Njeliyanparamba trenching ground on Sunday to study the waste disposal method adopted by the city corporation.

Mar 19, 2012, 04.26AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kozhikode/Capitals-mayor-in-Kozhikode-for-waste-disposal-tips/articleshow/12322972.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

22 March, 2012, 09:39 PM IST

Can We Dispose Waste In Our Neighbour’s Property? Trivandrum City grows each day by receiving more people from all over Kerala, as every other capital city in the world does. Large quantities of man made waste is therefore accumulated in the city each day. Many years back the city authorities burned the waste generated at a place there itself. Large waste bins and cans were placed in different parts of the city where people could deposit their wastes which the city corporation staff would come and collect each day and dispose of decently. No one had any complaints. The city was clean and neat. The corporation councilors then represented a race who were dedicated to people. They then did engage themselves in some occupation to make their living and served the corporation as councillors as a service. Then this changed and a new race of politicians who do no work but take serving the society as their work and earning began to be got elected as city councillors. They considered cleaning the city as a detestable and mean work and in their general laxity the Trivandrum city lost its world famous cleanliness and neatness. The city began to smell. People began to complain and a private company came forward with a solution as if there have been no solutions to this kind of problem in the world. ‘Purchase a few acres of land in a distant village, construct a burning yard there and forget.’ No Corporation Mayor, Commissioner or Environmental Advisers was willing to raise the question of why spending huge amounts of money for long – distance transportation and creating hell in a remote peaceful and quiet village. No political parties, trade or youth organizations or nature activists questioned the authority of this city corporation to purchase land in another distant village and polluting it. Everyone was eager to share the new pie, involving many million rupees, all tax payers’ money. Thus the hell in Vilappilsala was created. Now they wish to destroy other beauty spots such as Brymore, Tenmala and Nettukaltherry. Why go to the distant Kozhikode? There is an excellent and model waste disposal plant just 32 kilometres from Trivandrum, run by the efficient local body of Attingal Municipality. Why don't imitate them?

007. Kerala demands 'classical status' for Malayalam. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala has stepped up the demand for classical status to Malayalam, the only South Indian language which has not been accorded the honour.

May 6, 2010, 05.03PM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thiruvananthapuram/Kerala-demands-classical-status-for-Malayalam/articleshow/5898516.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

23 March, 2012, 01:37 AM IST

If government accords classical language status to Malayalam, it is corruption, favouritism and violation of the norms accepted the world over for consideration of a language for the classical language status. If Malayalam is accorded classical status, then any language among the hundreds of languages currently used in India would qualify for this status. Conferring this sacred status on a language without considering the foolish destruction of its 'classical script' by the government of that land, acquiesced by both the so-called scholars and writers of that land is just a breach of ethics and confidence by the Union Government. If government and the responsible academic bodies consider classic status of a language something to be conferred only on the basis of merit and qualification, they shall not yield to the political pressure from the Kerala politicians. During the past many years, the writers who now shout for this special status to Malayalam have not created a single piece of good literature. People actually loathe their works and as a result turn their faces away from Malayalam. Because of the same political considerations mentioned above, many of their works are included as lessons in text books which the students, teachers, parents and the Malayalam-loving public could not help. Political considerations are such predominant and powerful in Kerala. So, because people inwardly hate them and their rotten works, they desperately want to take their revenge on people by creating a new authority for controlling the language. With the money which is sure to accompany this classical language status, they can buy out other inferior writers through grants, university chairs, committee memberships and chairmanships of new institutes and academic bodies. Suppose there had been no money involved in this package. Then there would have been no this kind of crowd. Hawks and other scavengers close in where there is dead meet. Had there been at least one single line of immortal literature created in Malayalam by them, this move could have been at least justified. The millions of Malayalees who write, speak and love the language do not consent to this present fury or greed over the supposed classical status to Malayalam. First let them show the ancient script to the world and convince the world that this ancient script is being used continuously without break. Everyone adept in Malayalam language knows that the more one traces the language backward into the ancient times, the more it becomes nothing but Tamil. First confess and admit this, and then request funds for legitimate encouragement of the language in a more decent way.

008. China 'warns' India with border drill. NEW DELHI\BEIJING: China is back to flexing its muscles close to the Indian border. The People's Liberation Army has conducted a major "live fire" exercise.

Pandit & Saibal DasguptaRajat Pandit & Saibal Dasgupta, TNN |

Mar 23, 2012, 03.43AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/China-warns-India-with-border-drill/articleshow/12374900.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

23 March, 2012, 11.05 AM IST

In the modern day world, a nation claiming rights on another nation is considered as aggression and encroachment. Countries with far lesser crimes were isolated and punished by the U.N. and the world community. But here when a great exporter, though leaving its native population deprived of essential commodities, does a greater crime, all the world countries remain neutral in action, but occasionally embracing Lama for fear of world. Recently China has been claiming Tibet as their own, Hong-Kong as their own and a considerable part of even India as their own. A nation where millions of their citizens remaining without rights to vote in elections and students who protest are brutally beaten up and fired to death, do not deserve the sympathy of the world. The world has gone far ahead. Emperor Bharatha ruled the lands comprising of Rathnadweepam, India, Nepaalam, Brahmadesam, Apaghanasdhanam and Syama Raajyam. Will China consent to India claiming Ceylon, Nepal, Burma, Afghanistan and Siam? India is contended with what she is having at present. That is the greatness of India. China's aggressive behaviour is isolating her among world people, whoever including America support her human rights violations. Where was China standing watching when Communism was discarded by the world and she becoming the last standing post of Pseudo-Communism? Communism was conceived as the highest language of the human heart. But wherever it came to administrative power, people were incarcerated, tortured, brutally beaten, murdered, raped, mutilated, chemically brain washed and made to vanish. For whom was it all? Why do Chinese leaders live in luxury and opulence? Lenin said that those who do no work shall not be given food. What job, according to communist principles, are the Chinese Communist Leaders doing? Where is it said in communism that leading a party and governing an administration is an employment? The Chinese communist leaders know that they have gone far with their crimes against communism and socialism, and that the world's revenge is soon to come upon them. That is why, to divert attention and to bridge the really collapsing internal economics, China turns to invading and encroaching countries with resources. What we see now in that part of Asia is the flame leaping up before totally dying out.

009. Good road show for city in Mani’s budget. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The city is set for a major makeover with sufficient funds set aside in the budget for developing as many as 11 major stretches of roads.

Mar 21, 2012, 06.32AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thiruvananthapuram/Good-road-show-for-city-in-Manis-budget/articleshow/12349736.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

25 Mar, 2012 02:16 AM

Out of this 98 crores rupee going to be allotted for the development of Trivandrum roads, 10 to 15 crores will certainly be put on the road. The present road construction ratio running in Kerala is 60 percent to the contractors, 30 percent to the officials and 10 percent on the road. For this 10 percent that is put on the road, Trivandrum roads look comparatively better. We do not know how they make this possible. No sooner these roads are built than they are dilapidated. In the past the blame was put on the bullock carts but now there are no bullock carts pulling weights in Kerala. This dilapidation of the roads are due entirely to stealing money from the allotted funds. When a state minister says that nearly 100 crores are going to be set aside for city roads, we all know that a few rich people are going to be richer by 90 crores rupees. Occasionally a public works minister will release a press note saying that road contractors are going to be held responsible for bad roads as if they were not responsible for the roads they constructed till now. The Kerala P.W.D has excellent rules but what can they do when the contractors contribute heavily to the minister's party fund? A few years ago, when we travelled through newly constructed or repaired roads, we could see the engineers standing there from the start to the finish. Now where are they? Are not they responsible for the bad roads? How many engineers were dismissed for not supervising works? P.W.D rules stipulate that details of the work being done, including the name of engineer, contractor, amount involved, time for completion, etc, should be displayed on work sites, so that people shall know things and object if and when necessary. Can the minister show one single such board placed anywhere in Kerala? When technical problems occur during works, there were once skilled engineers in government to solve them. It was a time when the most brilliant of students became engineers, a time when there were no payment seats for engineering courses. Now the engineers look up to the contractor for solutions. If the solution involves spending more money, the problem is left unsolved. So the government allows people's money, roads are built and they degenerate within a month. Every road in Trivandrum are left unfinished for years. It is sure the lions' share of this money would be given to some anti-human establishment named something like Trivandrum Road Development Fund Board, a new spendthrift. The greatest easement violations were conducted by this establishment. They make three foot wide footpaths, two foot high, denying access to hundred thousands of homes, shops, schools and hospitals in Trivandrum. What money they are given are squandered on polished railings and paving tiles. If a rowdy vehicle comes, which sure will come anytime anywhere, how will one jump and escape into the footpath? Travel through Trivandrum and look on either side. It looks like a path a mad elephant trampled.

[People who plant trees and nurse them to full growth alone can cut down trees. Only they have the justification to cut down trees. The Kerala Forest Department has severe procedures to prevent persons from cutting down trees which are grown along side public roads. These officials, in the forest side villages forcefully take away tools of village women when they enter the forests for a small bundle of firewood. Whether cut or not, tree branches will grow. So there is no permanent loss to the trees or forest because the dry wood is cut from the forest by village women for firewood. They cannot afford cooking gas anyway. Even then, without consideration, sympathy or pity, these forest officials take very severe action. When the question of cutting down trees in Trivandrum for widening of roads came, some official from this department was included in the committee for verification. Hundreds of trees were cut down by this committee having forest department officials as members. What was the function of forest officials in this committee? Does the District Estate Officer of the Kerala Forest Department know how many trees were cut down?]

010. Kudankulam N-plant reactors get green signal. CHENNAI: The two reactors lying unused at the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant since its closure in October last year following a series of protests by environmental activists are safe and functional, scientists of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) said.

B Sivakumar, Mar 23, 2012, 03.57 AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Kudankulam-N-plant-reactors-get-green-signal/articleshow/12375001.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

25 Mar, 2012 11:31 AM

All nuclear reactors are safe before they blow away. All the nuclear reactors in the world that blew apart were claimed to have been proved safe and well protected, claimed by ‘dignitaries’ and ‘experts’ in those countries’ Atomic Energy Regulatory Agencies and Disaster Prevention Establishments. Any human error, miscalculation or purposeful wrong doing in the designing, making or running can make any human installation go rowdy. Not one human creation has ever been an exception to this. We believe many mighty things erected by man on the face of the earth, inside and above it to be flawless because we do not know about the internal problems contained in them. People who daily run those things know better and they almost always are prevented from speaking. When the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and the National Disaster Management Authority claim that everything is ship shape and under control at the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant in Tamil Nadu in South India and that the plant is well protected, we will begin to think that both organizations are going to move their headquarters to inside the plant and those experts and authorities are going to live there, inside the safe plant, for the next five years. Are they bold and committed enough to do that? When bridges were built in the past, the engineer and his family stayed beneath in boats in the river, while the heaviest of vehicles moved along the bridge during inauguration. Since no one no more has to keep such respectful models in social commitment and responsibility, any one can say anything. If we are to believe that all Disaster Management People said it right and true, no disasters would have occurred in the world during the past two centuries. They continue to occur out of human error, miscalculation and wrong doing. Disaster management is, in practical terms, management of disaster once they have occurred, not one hundred percent preventing it. If it collapses, the Mullapperiyar Dam will certainly cause the wiping away of three or four districts, but if it one day blows away, the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant will burn out two entire states. For pleasing Russia, our political leaders on the national level want to open and make function the plant noiselessly, that is without protest. As they wished, the people of the two states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu are fighting against each other, instead of jointly fighting against opening this deadly power plant. That is the trick, cunning and clever treachery of national politics. It is no wonder the Koodankulam struggle went behind the curtain when Mullapperiyar struggle came into the fore. What extremely pleases the orthodox national leaders is that the lower class blacks have again begun to fight each other. Receiving foreign aid for building a deadly plant is equally heinous as receiving foreign aid to fight it. The government does this now in the fashion of a formidable war, without respecting people's rights of opinion. Is This China?

011. Kudankulam N-plant reactors get green signal. 2.

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

26 Mar, 2012 11:40 AM

There are thousands and thousands of people in India who take a very firm stand against nuclear power plants. They came to the conclusion that nuclear reactors are not safe, not after experiencing a nuclear holocaust but after reading about many nuclear holocausts. Whenever and wherever nuclear reactors have blown away, it was human lives that were lost in hundred thousands. No nuclear reactor ever built in this world has claimed that it is fool-proof. The first ever dialogue to be heard thus was from India from the builders of Koodankulam power plant. We shall simply ask, when did India become a great technical power to construct a fail-proof atomic reactor? Who are those world renowned scientists? Where is their fantastic research papers published? Let us read them. This Koodankulam reactor also was made possible only through the assistance of a foreign power, Russia, whose stock piles of atomic materials are reaching not only India but many terrorist rogue nations also. They cannot even keep their materials unstolen. And Russian scientists nowadays are not too skilled enough to be praised and believed. It was their reactor that blew apart and killed more people than even the Czar did. After the disintegration of U.S.S.R. tons of fission materials were stolen away from those states which are what has become a threat to the world now. Perhaps India might need the Russian state politically to counter balance the aggressive tendencies nowadays she feels from China but don’t condemn the U.S. Indian defense and economy depends much on them. There might be organizations that get foreign aid and misuse it or divert it for other purposes. Let the government control them. But do not condemn the civilian rights of a people who know that Indians and nowadays Russians are very bad in technology and that whatever they build may some day explode and kill them. People have the right to express their anxiety and demand dismantling the plant. Because it was built near to the two power-hungry states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala does not justify it’s commissioning. Even the government does not claim that nuclear reactors are totally harmless. They only argue that the present plant is world class in safety which no one believes anyway because it is built by the Indians and the Russians. The fact is the world does not have the space or patience for one more nuclear plant. Even Russia was dismantled into its many member states. Then why can’t a puny power plant they built in India?

012. Kudankulam N-plant reactors get green signal. 3

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

26 Mar, 2012 06:16 PM

Ocean tides are an unlimited source of energy which has been made use by man for hundreds and hundreds of years since the invention of the wheel. At one time of our history, tidal mills could be seen on many sea shores. They made use of high tide and low tide well. Incoming tide will be trapped into reservoirs through sluices, which while coming in with great force will pass through propelling water wheels creating turning power which in turn will produce useful power. The coming n tides build up against the dam until there is a difference of at least 5 ft between one side and the other and will not allowed leaving by closing the sluice valves. When the tides are low, the sluice valves are reversed, allowing the water to flow out forcefully, again passing through the turbines a second time in their return journey. When it is high tide again, the valves and the turbine blades are again reversed and the cycle repeats. The difference in the level of water between one side and the other of the dam is called the ‘head’ of water and the higher this head the more electricity will it produce. A higher column of water will be under greater pressure which when released will turn the turbines more forcefully. A tidal wave installation in Nova Scotia has the highest ‘head’ in the world, a water level difference of 59 ft. The sluices and turbine blades in this kind of power generating installations can be used in either direction, making optimum use of movements of the entrapped sea water. Water remaining in the dam will be pumped out using electricity which will more than be made up in the process. Luckily the world is gifted with unbelievable stretches of shorelines and inexhaustible source of tidal waves. Cost of building the dams is the only deterring thing which has not deterred many nations including the Canadians and the Russians. If this unlimited source of energy was trapped and used with foresight, the world would not need thermal, fossil, nuclear or solar energy. Tamil Nadu has a very long coastline. Why didn’t consider it earlier? Chief Ministers and Prime Ministers are paid great salaries for thinking ahead of ordinary people and envisioning things in advance. Or would they say the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean have not enough water and waves to service Tamil Nadu and Kerala?

013. Retirement age raised in Kerala.

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

When a person retires in Kerala, be it at any age, we will think that some young man gets the job. It is not so and the youth organizations in India also, having scores of M.P.s and M.L.As in their ranks, know this. The government simply abolishes the post, explaining that automation and computerization is going on. So, when viewed from an economic stand point, it is good for the society and people to have the retirement age raised, so that a part of state revenue will reach the society instead of going to Microsoft and Google. Even when someone is engaged in place of a retiree, he is engaged on a daily wages basis which is the present policy adopted by all state governments in India. Then again, much less amount reaches society and people as government salaries. Therefore, as many people think and as youth organization leaders like to inculcate and believe, the job of the retiring father does not reach the DYFI son. It is only logical and revolutionary to allow the father to work a few more years and support the family which the son cannot do and won’t do anyway. Credential Reports of noted youth organizations presented in their annual sessions indicate that 90 per cent of their members won’t ever get government jobs. Of the central government jobs with the toughest competition, they are unthinkable for them. So we are tempted to ask, what jobs these youth leaders do for a living, or if politics itself is their job. Lenin said, food shall not be given to those who do not work. Those who are in desperate need of a job in Kerala to support a family do find jobs with attractive remuneration. There are now no people there to pluck coconuts, till the paddy fields and attend the works long waiting for a carpenter, plumber and mason, the highest yielding jobs in Kerala which are now heartily attended by hard working youth from the other states. Let us first fix the retirement age of the Chief Minister of Kerala, then those of our M.P.s, M.L.As and Panchayat Members. After fixing the retirement age of these higher administrators, we shall turn to fixing the retirement age of the lowly scribes.

014. Petrol could cost Rs 15 less if Delhi follows Goa's lead. NEW DELHI: If state government follows Goa's example of doing away with sales tax on petrol, the fuel will become cheaper by roughly Rs 15 a litre in the four metros. The reduction will be higher in states that tax the fuel at a higher rate.

Sanjay Dutta, TNN |

Mar 28, 2012, 05.02AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Petrol-could-cost-Rs-15-less-if-Delhi-follows-Goas-lead/articleshow/12434412.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

28 March, 2012 09:13 AM

No oil companies in India have ever declared before their share holders that they are suffering a loss or are bankrupt. The share prices of Hindustan Petroleum, Bharat Petroleum and Indian Oil Corporation, after this price hike, immediately rose by 8-6 percent. From the soaring prices of their shares it is as clear as water that they are all making unbelievably huge profits. What is not as clear as water is how many Indian politicians, parliamentarians, bureaucrats and their families are share holders in these oil companies or are their beneficiaries in one way or another. After reading this the politicians, parliamentarians, bureaucrats and their families needn't be infuriated. Being any of them now doesn't necessarily mean they are corruption less and clean in soul. Being recipients of public money as salaries and allowances, they are never beyond questioning. Moreover, everyone in the world knows that a few politicians, parliament members, cabinet ministers, bureaucrats and their family members are lying now in Jail for corruption. So the theory is that a Caesar's wife should be above suspicion. If not, and is intolerant, immediately resign and be one among the public. An average Indian middle class family now spends more than 3000 rupees more on account of petrol price rise which amount straight goes to the share holders and spendthrift officials of the petroleum companies. If I am robbed of 3000 rupees per month, I will speak publicly and air my opinions. That is the principle of Indian democracy. But the thieves will certainly wish to be spoken not about. It was the long-cherished dream of oil companies that Government should withdraw itself from being the controller of the price of petrol, diesel and gas and now their wish has been granted. What the people of India want to know is how much money was involved in this scam. Without money, no politician in India is going to assent to a decision to withdraw from the supreme power and position to decide at what prices petrol and gas are to be sold in this country. When it is going to be revealed, it is certainly going to be the greatest scam in the world, after the 2G Spectrum deal. The Indians are no more interested in the selling price of petrol or gas but are eagerly waiting for the amount involved to be revealed, which sure will be. Abandoning the sales tax or the value-added sales tax or its latest versions won't relieve government of its sin in withdrawing from the responsibility for determining petrol prices. If the rubber producer, paddy producer, sugar producer and wheat producer can decide at what price their produce is to be sold in India, then why should there be a governmental pricing policy or even a government, for that matter? Why it is not done is because the rich political leaders of India or their family members have not as much invested in those sectors as they have in petroleum which yields 500 percent profits.

015. Anti-piracy cell cracks down on pirated books. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Anti-Piracy Cell of the state police has arrested four persons for violating the copyrights act. The officials of the cell made the arrest after conducting a raid on the photocopy shops at the TRIDA shopping complex near Thiruvananthapuram Medical College.

Mar 28, 2012, 02.56AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thiruvananthapuram/Anti-piracy-cell-cracks-down-on-pirated-books/articleshow/12434523.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

28 March, 2012 10:33 AM

Book publishers do have their rights to be protected against unauthorized copying but where do medical book publishers get their materials for publication from? Most medical books are compilations of scientific and technical knowledge gained and developed by mankind and human society through the ages. Rarely do medical book publishing companies commission proficient science writers to write articles for their proposed books. Mainly they steal articles from famous scientific publications and journals, giving or giving not due credit to the sources of those articles and their original writers. Let us take the example of Anatomy text books published by many famous and costly publishing companies. It was not doctors, medical men or scientists who conceived and developed anatomy as a fully developed branch of science. It was the artists of the Renaissance period in Italy in the sixteenth century like Leonardo Da Vinci who developed the study of the internal organs of mammals. He was actually searching for a spot in the human body where we can fit the wings when we would be able and equipped enough to fly as naturally as the birds through the air. He dissected more than a dozen human bodies in his dissecting table, and whether those were all dead when they were brought to his table and if they were, where he got them from are still unknown. It was his famous sketch books that formed the foundations for the science of modern anatomy. It was the contributions of so many unknown and known persons accumulated through ages that we share and make use of in a multitude of ways today as public knowledge. Knowledge is public. There is not any such thing as patented knowledge. Had there been no Aristotle and Democritus, there would now been no Bill Gates and Microsoft. And they know this. That is why they make so many of their services unpaid. The medical book publishers also should acknowledge this. If enquiries with the same intensity go into the offices, archives and stores of the medical book publishers, more heinous and organized stealing of copyrighted materials would sure be brought to daylight. This article by the Times Of India brought one sad condition to public attention anyway. The brighter among the medical students hail from poor families and they cannot afford costly medical books. Copying medical books manually and otherwise has been going on for more than 50 years and they have produced more good doctors than payment seats now produce in India. Years back they were hand copied. We are in need of good and benevolent doctors, not arrogant and pampered rich scoundrels in the medical field. After so many years, it is good to see a humanitarian comment coming from law enforcers, the one regarding the poor students getting hold of premium text books at a lower rate. It seems the intelligent and educated among them can express their hearts.

016. Officials to move road safety panel. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The officials undertaking the City Road Improvement Project (CRIP) are planning to approach the Road Safety Authority to get on with the work on stretches where the presence of trees has hindered the progress of work.

Mar 27, 2012, 04.41AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thiruvananthapuram/Officials-to-move-road-safety-panel/articleshow/12421910.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

28 March, 2012 05:53 PM

Progress of work on roads may, will be and should be hindered where the work purposefully reaches in front of a tree. Roads should go round the tree. That is respect. That is what wise men do. They will plan and design roads with intention to protect as many trees as possible on the way. It was no fault of the tree to have happened to be standing there. It was the folly of the road to have come its way. One single leaf in a good tree on the roadside of Trivandrum is worth far more than the power-hungry, authority-arrogant tiny brain architects of City Road Improvement Project, Road Fund Board and Indian Roads Congress. When cutting permission for trees has to be given, the Kerala Forest Department has to observe and keep stringent measures. Presence of one of their staff in the environmental committee is not at all an excuse for cutting down trees. 10 trees should be planted, protected and nursed to full growth before the proposed tree is permitted to be cut down, that too only in inevitable circumstances. This means that planning for development will have to be done years earlier. That is what the organizations like the City Improvement Trust, Trivandrum Development Authority, Planning Board and the like were constituted for. This chief architect of CRIP, who is the individual in Trivandrum the most responsible for illegally cutting down the most number of healthy trees on Trivandrum road sides, remember this: Plan in advance and move in advance, not in cheating law but in observing law. The people know how many trees standing in whichever places were cut down, without observing Central Government Directives. The CRIP did not plant, protect and nurse to full growth one single tree anywhere before cutting down 3000 trees in Trivandrum. Or where are those 30000 trees he should show which he planted, nursed and protected in its place? Prosecutions will come in its time. Law is equal for all, whether it is a citizen, organization or committee. Forest Department officials forcefully take away the hand axes of poor village women who enter forests for picking dry wood lying on the ground. Even if branches are cut down, forests will grow at fantastic rates. In no time they would be full trees again. There is no harm in cutting tree branches in forests. But here it is healthy fully grown trees that were cut down unnecessarily. Why can’t roads take a curve? We cannot see Schencotta from Secretariate. Roads will curve. It was the District Estate Officer of Kerala Forest Department who was duty bound to have ensured the continued existence of those trees in Pulimmodu, Secratariate, Spenser, Vellayambalam, Sasthamangalam, Kawdiar, Ambalammukku and Peroorkada. If he did not ensure their life, it was his dereliction and deviation from duty. He is the prime derelict in this clandestine operation. In unofficial estimates, not less than 1800 trees were illegally cut down in this stretch of road alone during the years since CRIP’s inception. Hundreds of video films exist in people’s hands, taken during wedding travels and festival processions during the years, picturing the old and the new road sides, by comparing which the spots where trees were cut down could be pinpointed. So, the authorities who came by night and cut those trees don’t think they have outsmarted those weak tree lovers of Trivandrum. It is Treeeeeeevandrum anyway.

017. 'We should formulate our own political thought'

Mar 25, 2012, 07.25AM IST http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thiruvananthapuram/We-should-formulate-our-own-political-thought/articleshow/12399571.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

29 March, 2012 09:56 AM

Bill Gates and Microsoft opened the gates of internet freedom and intellectual freedom to the world’s poor people. Mentioning him and his contributions in the inaugural lecture was only appropriate. What we have to know is whether these ‘political scientists, academicians, scholars and students who are post-graduates in political science, public administration, international relations and area studies’ have responded properly to the new challenges this internet freedom and intellectual freedom now face in India. The Union Government of India is getting ready to impose more rigid control over all Social Media Networks. It is not because any of those activities, comments, observations or articles in them pollutes the pure, nature fresh minds in India or because they pose any serious or actual threat to the nation’s security and reputability. The politicians in India now no more care about anything the like. What they fear is the speed with which the news of their abominable corruption, bribery and favouritism reaches the world people. That is their only concern as they, since born with corrupted minds unlike the ordinary educated inter-netting public, can never withdraw themselves from committing these crimes again. They also know that the world people are actually inner-netting through inter-netting in social media. What the corrupted leaders feared is actually happening. It is now Inter-netting Public versus Corrupted National Leaders. If they are corruption-free, why should they be aggressive and fear high-speed transmission of information through broad band? Why can’t they simply remain pure, like their people? Everyone wants a share of the immense profits and side kicks from broad band licensing, but at the same time wants to put more rigid control over its possible use against them. Everyone in this world knows that. At the present rate and speed of revelation, when we look back after ten years, not one political leader presently on the national scene of India would not still be there as a leader, politician, administrator or a minister. The world has not forgotten the folding and subsequent shameful retreat of Yahoo from China after it’s revealing the identity of a Chinese dissident, yielding to Chinese government’s compulsive persuasion. Because we are not standing on the moon and observing things from the next century, we are not having a bird’s eye view of what is happening in the world presently, and what drastic and irreversible changes are being brought by world people. Kerala has always been a state where people are very bold in their opinions. But nothing was heard from the political scientists and academicians of the state when the freedom of speech and social communication of the people of India face dire threats from a few wicked authorities, especially from the communication ministry. If they truly represent the past, present or future generations of India, it is time they respond convincingly.

018. Corporation gets Rs 5.7 cr for waste management.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Industries and IT Minister handed over the state government's allocation of Rs 5.7 crore to the Thiruvananthapuram corporation for the source-level solid waste management and disposal. Mayor received the fund from the minister on Thursday.

Mar 31, 2012, 05.43AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thiruvananthapuram/Corporation-gets-Rs-5-7-cr-for-waste-management/articleshow/12476537.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

31 March, 2012 02:14 PM IST

It was government's good will to allot this much amount to the Trivandrum City Corporation for improving their sewage treatment facilities and helping disposing waste in its sources. The city corporation shall not utilize this amount for fighting the people of Vilappilsala Village. No local authority has the authority to purchase land in another local body, construct waste disposal plants there and pollute their atmosphere, land and water. It is not decent behaviour whether it is from a citizen or from an organization. We cannot simply dispose our waste in our neighbour's property. The Trivandrum city corporation went too far when they initiated legal litigation against the people of Vilappilsala. Moreover, nowadays they are fighting like mad against the state administration for purely political reasons. But the government does not seem to keep any animosity towards this hostile corporation. People of Kerala and the residents of Trivandrum have the right to know in advance what this amount allotted by the government from tax payers' money is going to be utilized by the corporation for. In the present circumstances, words aired by this corporation can no more be believed. They are spending their revenue foolishly and wastefully. The mayor and a team visited Kozhikode for learning how waste is disposed there. They most probably will tour France, Italy and Spain and what not to learn the same thing. But like any sensible persons do, they did not visit the Attingal Municipality to study and imitate the very efficient, complaint-less waste disposal plants there. Attingal is only 32 kilometers away. So their intention is clear: squander money wastefully or redirect it for political achievements. What money allotted by the government now could have easily been generated by the city corporation by enforcing strict observance of dog-licensing alone. There are at least two dogs in each home and not even a thousand dog licenses have been issued in the corporation. Helmets, seat belts, everything is now compulsory. Why did the corporation failed in collecting this unbelievably huge revenue? What else are their health inspectors doing? Evicting innocent road side merchants?

019. Kerala State Electricity Board on power diet for survival.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Power regulations are back. From Monday, the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB), which was given a go-ahead by the Cabinet on Wednesday, will introduce 30-minute load shedding twice a day between 5am & 9am and 6.30pm and 10.30pm.

Mar 29, 2012, 03.08AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kochi/Kerala-State-Electricity-Board-on-power-diet-for-survival/articleshow/12448466.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

31 March, 2012 06:25 PM IST

Kerala produces enough electricity to light her homes, run her industries and render other basic services but not enough to light the millions and millions of display boards, dazzling shop displays and opulent building and street illuminations. What electricity Kerala produces in its many hydro-electric projects is just enough to meet the basic essentials. This means, the normal domestic, social and industrial life can be continued without depending on electricity purchased from outside. If someone says that Kerala has a shortage of electricity, anyone who has seen the plentiness of rivers and water bodies in Kerala and the number of dams that have been built across them through the years will wonder how this shortage can happen and who is to be held responsible for this foolish situation. The fact is, neither the government nor the Kerala State Electricity Board which does the production and distribution of electricity throughout the state, have done anything sensible to ensure conservation of electricity, without which Kerala will plunge into total darkness and stillness of industries for the next 20 years. After allowing the foolish spending electricity for unnecessary illuminations by the state establishments, private citizens and other organizations, and after ensuring that power is short and people are shouting, electricity is bought and brought from as far regions as Himachal Pradesh and from private sector, paying exorbitant price as a result of which electricity charges in the state soars. The ordinary citizens have no role in bringing about this havoc because the electricity needed for their houses, shops and industries is already produced from their rivers. And they consume much less electricity. They light only one or two lights in their homes and cannot afford air-conditioning. The burden of the higher cost of electricity purchased from the outside should have been shouldered by those who squander electricity by lighting a hundred lights in their homes and operating multi air-conditioners day and night and those who allowed it without imposing restrictions. You walk along the main city streets of Trivandrum, Trichur, Cochin and Calicut at night and you can see who spend electricity opulently. It is they to whom the cost of imported electricity should have been charged solely. An ordinary shop needs five or six bulbs to run it but not thousands as we see on these thoroughfare sides. An electricity-short Kerala cannot afford it. If they want that much electricity for their special needs, they can import it at their cost but shall not eat into Kerala’s reserves. Just watch the State Ministers’ buildings and the mansions of top level bureaucrats, elected people’s representatives and senior politicians in Trivandrum at night and you will see who squanders electricity as they please at people’s expense. The powers they burn are not paid for by them but by the government and the burden finally falls on the shoulders of the poor people.

020. Syria says year-old revolt over, but army still shooting. BEIRUT: Syria says the year-old revolt to topple President Bashar al-Assad is over, but the army again shelled opposition areas on Saturday and rebels said they would not cease fire until tanks, artillery and heavy weapons are withdrawn.

Reuters Mar 31, 2012, 09.59PM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Syria-says-year-old-revolt-over-but-army-still-shooting/articleshow/12484758.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

1 April, 2012 01:49 AM IST

One will wonder what weapons have to do with civilization but the history of civilization is in other words the history of weapons. We all know that had there been no idea of democracy in this world, then this world would have been a less civilized planet. But democracy was made possible and viable only through the ordinary rifle then called musket. Since the time of Democritus and since the passing away of the old age clan democracy, it was when the American War Of Independence became a success that we began to take into account democracy seriously. A government of the people, by the people and for the people certainly was new to the world. At that time the chief weapon of the British government was the ordinary rifle which could me made and assembled by anyone, which was light to be carried easily and which could easily be hidden anywhere. The Americans began to manufacture them in a large scale which did not need much infrastructure. When the number of muskets in the hand of the ordinary people began to equal their number in the hands of the colonial empire, the revolution became viable and possible. Had there been no ideal of socialism, then again this world have been a drearier place. Socialism was a contribution of the French Revolution when the slogan ‘cultivative land for the cultivator’ was first raised. It was the discovery of gun powder that made French Revolution possible. With its discovery, the bastillions of the feudal lords became vulnerable and could be broke. The democratic ideal of a government of the people raised in the American War of Independence and the socialist ideal of cultivative land for the cultivator raised in the French Revolution directly contributed to the world’s civilization. That is why H.G.Wells called knives, pistols, rifles, muskets, machine guns and hand grenades ‘democratic weapons’ which helped people ascend to the throne. With the American War of Independence and the French Revolution, the world’s governments learned a lesson. They began to make weapons which needed the back support of large industrial infrastructure, which could not be made by people, which are not light to carry and which can never be easily hidden. Thus they began to make tanks, battleships and battle planes, rockets and atom bombs, thereby making people’s revolutions impossible. H.G.Wells rightly called them ‘despotic weapons’ as they seldom helped people’s causes. Since people can hardly make these weapons, these despotic governments can stay in power. This is exactly what we saw in Russia and what we see in China and Syria. People can only steal or capture these weapons from the government. This imbalance in ammunitions the world seems to forget when it views the struggles of organized citizens in each trouble-torn country. It is because of this imbalance in the possession of weapons that people consider their governments truly despotic and fight fiercely and cruelly. A despotic government deserves no sympathy and gets none also. That is why they fall one by one, stumbling before the might of their citizens. Syria certainly will fall, China in the very near future will crumble into its many provinces and many countries would be liberated from the clutch of countries where their citizens cannot even vote in an election.

021. Syria declares it has defeated revolt. DAMASCUS: Syria's regime declared Saturday it has defeated those seeking to bring it down while reiterating support for a UN-Arab peace plan, as its troops reportedly shelled rebels in the city of Homs.

AFP | Mar 31, 2012, 05.27PM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Syria-declares-it-has-defeated-revolt/articleshow/12481972.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

1 April, 2012 02:06 AM IST

The history of civilization is in other words the history of weapons. Democracy was made possible and viable only through the ordinary rifle then called musket. It was when the American War of Independence became a success that we began to take into account democracy seriously. A government of the people, by the people and for the people certainly was new to the world. At that time the chief weapon of the British government was the ordinary rifle which could me made and assembled by anyone, was light to be carried and could easily be hidden anywhere. The Americans began to manufacture them in a large scale which did not need much infrastructure. When the number of muskets in the hand of the ordinary people equalled that in the hands of the empire's soldiers, the revolution became viable and possible. Had there been no ideals of socialism or democracy, this world would have been a drearier place. Socialism was a contribution of the French Revolution when the slogan ‘cultivative land for the cultivator’ was first raised. It was the discovery of gun powder that made French Revolution possible. With its discovery, the bastillions of the feudal lords became vulnerable and could be broke. The democratic ideal of a government of the people raised in the American War of Independence and the socialist ideal of cultivative land for the cultivator raised in the French Revolution directly contributed to the world’s civilization. That is why H.G.Wells called knives, pistols, rifles, muskets, machine guns and hand grenades ‘democratic weapons’ which helped people ascend to the throne. With the American War of Independence and the French Revolution, the world’s governments learned a lesson. They began to make weapons which needed the back support of large industrial infrastructure, which could not be made by people, which are not light to carry and which can never be easily hidden. Thus they began to make tanks, battleships and battle planes, rockets and atom bombs, thereby making people’s revolutions impossible. H.G.Wells rightly called them ‘despotic weapons’ as they seldom helped people’s causes. Since people can hardly make these weapons, these despotic governments can stay in power. This is exactly what we saw in Russia and what we see in China and Syria. People can only steal or capture these weapons from the government. This imbalance in ammunitions the world seems to forget when it views the struggles of organized citizens in each trouble-torn country. It is because of this imbalance in the possession of weapons that people consider their governments truly despotic and fight fiercely and cruelly. A despotic government deserves no sympathy and gets none also. That is why they fall one by one, stumbling before the might of their citizens. Syria certainly will fall, China in the very near future will crumble into its many provinces and many countries would be liberated from the clutch of countries where their citizens cannot even vote in an election.

022. Kerala University to honour founder director of observatory. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala University will hold a commemorative meeting to honour the memory of John Caldecott, founder director of the Trivandrum Observatory established in 1837 by the then Travancore king Swathi Thirunal.

TNN | Apr 1, 2012, 11.17AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thiruvananthapuram/Kerala-University-to-honour-founder-director-of-observatory/articleshow/12490042.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

1 April, 2012 02:55 PM IST

The Trivandrum Observatory started by the Travancore king Swathi Thirunal in 1837 is one of the earliest observatories in India. As Swathi Thirunal himself was a gifted poet, musician and art lover, he encouraged the talented. So this Observatory which is situated at a lovely prime spot in Trivandrum city flourished. The lenses needed for this Observatory were grinded here itself and this installation provided excellent sky observation and space learning facilities for the young and old and the learned and the beginner in Trivandrum for decades. When Kings ruled Travancore, they cared well for this observatory. They were well aware of what they were doing. As years passed and as the number of unruly youths in Trivandrum increased, lesser and lesser number of young men came to this observatory for learning. Lonely sky watching does not provide them with the thrills of day light flirting. Gradually this fine observatory came to be frequented only by the old admirers of this establishment and no new generations developed there to continue their tradition or skills. Another unfortunate incident also occurred. When one of the previous Travancore Maharajas passed away, the administration of this installation fell into the hands of some kind of people’s committee constituted with unlearned and uncouth individuals. The Observatory no more was extended with the fine and tender care of the kings who loved and admired these kinds of things. When the Planetarium at the P.M.G. Junction came into being, the Royal Observatory was pushed into the rear. It needs loyalty and dedication to restore the proudness and excellence of this Observatory. The University of Kerala is doing one of the great things it can do by honouring the memory of the founder directory of this observatory, John Caldecott, and remembering the invaluable services of our dedicated and committed previous administrators.

023. Cruelty to canines unacceptable! Animal lovers in Chennai aren't happy and for good reason too. The recent incident of more than twenty dogs being mass slaughtered in the premises of a prominent residential township on the East Coast Road has led to sharp reactions from many in the city.

Rohit PanikkerRohit Panikker Mar 31, 2012, 12.00 AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/relationships/pets/Cruelty-to-canines-unacceptable/articleshow/10957647.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum) replies to Vivek

1 April, 2012 06:48 PM IST

It is the absolute truth that Vivek [Mumbai] wrote here. Dogs can be grown in houses with a few acres of land, compound walls and where there are no other houses too close by. Here what we see is, a house constructed in 3 or 4 cents of land, every square feet mosaiced or tiled and the dog imprisoned in a cage 2 by 3 feet with tin roofing. In the very early morning, the Mr. or Missis will go for a morning walk accompanied by the dog, the real reason for which is to allow the dog defecate in the public road or street. In the evening this same routine will be repeated. Why don't they allow their 'pets' to use their toilets and keep the streets clean? If someone comes to the house, the dog will bark till the person leaves, making talking impossible, making the neighbors curse the dog and its owner, the most ignominious way to treat a guest. The dog does not like anyone coming to that house, and the owner too. The dog's mind is an extension of its master's. The dog wants to be alone always with its lover. The innumerability of dogs has become a social risk. Without a dog, there is no dengue or chikungunya because they are the animal reservoir hosts for this virus. Three articles which elaborate the subject are now available in the internet. 1. Houses where husbands are dogs and dogs are husbands. 2. After gays and lesbians, dog-lovers are the next to claim recognition as a community. 3. Who said it is god's own country? Kerala is now dogs' own country. Read them and argue there, if one needs to argue.

024. Is there a 'pet effect' on our health? The general claim that living with a pet makes for a happier, healthier or longer life may not be true, according to a new research.

ANI | Mar 28, 2012, 12.00AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/relationships/pets/Is-there-a-pet-effect-on-our-health/articleshow/9468327.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

1 April, 2012 10:38 PM IST

There is no pet effect in human life except Chikungunya, Dengue, Nipah Virus, Lyme disease, Chagas disease, Q fever, Brucellosis, Diphyllobothriasis, Ehrlichiosis, Pasteurellosis, Rickettsiae, Rhinosporidiosis, Ringworm Salmonellosis, Strongyloidiasis, Yersiniosis, Leptospirosis, Leishmaniasis, Lymphocytic choriomeningitis, Echinococcosis, Coenuruses cerebralis. Coccidioido mycosis and Giardiasis-theirs is a long list. A few live keeping dogs in their compounds, houses, beds and the world gets the above diseases. When the world is shook with these diseases and the human society is in the grip of these diseases, pet lovers in the world go hiding and when the waves of these diseases recede, they again ascend their roof tops and proclaim pet love. Children and people with respiratory ailments are more prone to diseases from pets because in both cases, the immunity and resistance is low. No researcher in the world, the world health authorities or the health departments of the world's nations will confess that in houses where pets are kept for long, respiratory diseases are common. Where do they think the hair droppings of all these pets in the world go? Pets more serve the purpose of sexual partners than pets. In so many houses, it is interesting to note, the dog starts barking when the master of the house returns home after work in the evening. It will stop barking when he goes again to work in the morning the next day. That wretched human being, we know pines and grieve in his heart but can do nothing for fear of divorce. Do not think that this is just an author’s imagination. It actually happened in a Trivandrum house, witnessed and settled in the Family Court. It was from Ulloor or somewhere that this case was reported. Here it was the man who could not live without his female dog. Even if his wife of long years left him let her go; he won’t let his dog go. The tired wife finally sought divorce and secured it. Why live in a house-bed thickly saturated with dog hair and excretions? In many houses the dog wants nobody else in the house except his missus. Let us go through what a very famous doctor exclaimed. Whether anyone believes it or not, there was a very famous doctor in Trivandrum, a social activist, who yelled at newspaper reporters: “I am the most prominent gynecologist in Trivandrum and have brought to daylight more children than all other doctors in this district combined have. The Madames of Trivandrum need me to deliver their babies safe, but when I repeatedly say that stray dogs in the streets should essentially be killed, there is no one to listen to me. What I wonder is how this many dog scratch marks appear on their lower abdomens.” It was a horror to read about this news in newspapers in those orthodox times, but he was telling the truth, uttered alone by a philosopher social activist and doctor, committed to human welfare and sanity.

025. Cruelty to canines unacceptable! Animal lovers in Chennai aren't happy and for good reason too. The recent incident of more than twenty dogs being mass slaughtered in the premises of a prominent residential township on the East Coast Road has led to sharp reactions from many in the city.

Rohit Panikker. Mar 31, 2012, 12.00 AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/relationships/pets/Cruelty-to-canines-unacceptable/articleshow/10957647.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum) replies to beena

2 April, 2012 12:12 AM IST

Everyone knows that the British are great admirers of dogs. Most of them extend their love to their dogs which they deny to their children. Dogs are let to lie with them in their rooms, often in their beds. Their toddlers are left to lie and sleep in the home crèche alone even before they are one year old. This is what affected their present day social structure, children leaving their parents in the old age homes. In India it rarely happens, and in China, Tibet, Japan, Indonesia and Ceylon too. That is the price the British dog lovers who substitute dogs for children pay in their old age. One can say and argue that their children grow up more independently than the children in the Asian countries mentioned and more early too, but within that time the ardence between the parents and their children are lost inredeemably, which relation is the very cementing bond of human relations in man's society. It is not unemotional haughty brutes that we need to build our society but ardent affectionate young men who respect and take care of their elders. An average British man now finds himself marooned in an island of hostility in his old age because he had no love left to be shared with his sons and daughters after pouring what he had on his dog. Note that the orthodox Hindu Brahmins of India never allow dogs anywhere near their home, temple or compound. They consider dogs entering those places a profane act and a breach of their sanctity and cleanliness. Where does all the drop-out hair of a house-dog go except to the digestive and respiratory systems of the occupants of the house? There are hundreds of ugly diseases spread by pet animals including dogs, including dengue, chikungunya and rabies. The spreading of these diseases among humans could have been totally avoided, had human society broken ties with dogs. Along with the tea drinking habit, dog love was spread everywhere by the British during the period of colonization. Do not anyone imitate the British in the matter of dog love.

026. Never allow pets in your bed! You may lavish attention on your pets, seeing that they are well fed and cared for. But don't let them share your bed, because they could infect you.

IANS | Mar 29, 2012, 12.00AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/relationships/pets/Never-allow-pets-in-your-bed/articleshow/10168759.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

2 April, 2012 12:20 PM IST

Bedding with dogs will kill more people in this world than were killed by rats during the dreaded periods in the history of England and Rome. Diseases originating from dogs are sweeping the globe, claiming human lives in thousands. Most people do not like their relationship with their dogs being questioned. The diseases spread from dogs to women, from women to children, from children to all in their school and from schools to the entire human society have reached a stage of being a threat to the world. The horrible diseases caused from bedding with dogs and how dogs serve as animal reservoir hosts to various Zoonosis viruses responsible for Dengue, Congo, Q fevers is hidden knowledge, kept unsurfaced by amorous dog lovers. When cycles of these fevers recently shook the world, everybody talked about killing mosquitoes. None talked about dogs in whose body these viruses resided and multiplied before reaching again the body of mosquitoes. Governments, Health Departments, Doctors and Scientists took after the carrier and burned millions of dollars instead of telling the world who the breeding host of these Zoonosis viruses was. It was rats that destroyed England and Rome centuries ago by way of plague and devoured millions of humans and animals. Now it is the turn of dogs. That dogs afford us security is a wrong conviction. It is because there are other houses nearby and around our houses that our houses are not being broken into and our daughters and valuables are not being taken away by thieves, marauders and rogues, as were happening in the barbarian times. It is not due to the presence of this puny little beast in our premises that our houses are not being robbed regularly. A dog can effectively be prevented from interfering in a robbery by just throwing to it a piece of sticky halva candy, as the famous Indian traveller-writer S.K.Pottekkattu noted in one of his novels. We enjoy the unique security offered by society but when the question of the importance of our dog comes, we value the wayward freedom of our dog more important than the peace and tranquillity of our society. Bedding with dogs is a universal risk factor. Besides Chikungunya and Dengue, there are hundreds of other diseases spread by pet animals including dogs. Nipah Virus, Lyme disease, Chagas disease, Q fever, Brucellosis, Diphyllobothriasis, Ehrlichiosis, Pasteurellosis, Rickettsiae, Rhinosporidiosis, Ringworm Salmonellosis, Strongyloidiasis, Yersiniosis, Leptospirosis, Leishmaniasis, Lymphocytic choriomeningitis, Echinococcosis, Coenuruses cerebralis. Coccidioido mycosis and Giardiasis-it is a long list. It is better for mankind to break ties with dogs, pet or no pet. The present level of interaction between man and dogs, making laws for them, mating with them and spreading diseases got from them reminds of one of the level of social life in the ancient Rome immediately before its fall. The only difference is, there it was not dogs but the horses.

027. Dog is no longer man's best friend! With the advent of tablet PCs and digital newspapers, you don't even need your faithful dog to fetch your morning paper for you anymore.

Melissa D’costaMelissa D’costa | Mar 30, 2012, 12.00AM IST http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/relationships/pets/Dog-is-no-longer-mans-best-friend/articleshow/9553545.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

2 April, 2012 12:30 PM IST

Dogs have never been a friend of man. Dogs were attracted to man far earlier in the dawn of civilization. They were persuaded by the easiness to get meat, especially by the tastiness of cooked meat and other eatables, to join human society. Man always liked to be the owner of something and always craved to be obeyed without question. If he asks his children to come here, they will go the other way. If he asks his dog to come here, it will not only come here but wag its tail also. Therefore man adored dogs. Dog wanted a safe place to rest and a domain to roam free. So this ancient relationship of man and beast continued through ages and developed into something remotely resembling loyalty-like something. In cave paintings, tomb paintings, sepulchral vaults, frescos, poems, novels and celluloid rolls, man immortalized and celebrated this relationship. Oliver Goldsmith wrote ‘Ode on the Death of a Mad Dog.’ Wordsworth wrote ‘Fidelity.’ Jack London told the tale of ‘The White Fang’ and ‘The Call of the Wild’. Wilson Rawls wrote ‘Where the Red Fern Grows’. We also have seen a dog’s inseparable attachment to Bill Sikes in Charles Dickens’ novel. In all these masterpieces, it was the loyalty and dedication and usefulness of dogs to human society and to man in particular that was being praised. It is thought, man finds a good friend in dog and dog finds a good master in man. So it has been considered through generations and centuries that the dog-man association is something inevitable to human society, something to be cherished, and something safe. Slavishness is another word for doggishness and is considered one of the dull and negative virtues by mankind. Of all the animals associated with man, dogs are the most deprived of regality and personality. If we feed a cat, it will think ‘I might be a God; otherwise this man would not have fed me.’ If we feed a dog, it will think ‘This man might be a God; otherwise he would not have fed me’. Dogs endlessly try to please man. But a cat, when it thinks it has had enough of caressing and kissing, jumps out of our hands and escapes. Cats still retain the cat in them whereas dogs have lost the dogs in them. Therefore, theoretically speaking, it is never possible for a logical relationship to develop between a man and a dog out of self respect and out of mutual respect. The loyalty which appears to be there on the surface is entirely due to free boarding and lodging available to dogs. If some one has a doubt, feed not his dog for a few days and see what happens. Know this, even though man considers dog as a friend, the status of dogs in the animal community is that of a traitor. What will they call an animal which smells out other animals and shows to the man animal their presence through barking in the many hunting expeditions of man? They were attracted to man by the taste and smell of cooked meat and easy meat.

028. All-in-one playfield coming to city schools. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It is playtime for the kids. They can start with tennis, slowly move to basket ball and then to kabaddi and many others, and all on the same field called multi-sport synthetic playfield.

Aswin J Kumar, TNN | Apr 6, 2012, 03.45AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thiruvananthapuram/All-in-one-playfield-coming-to-city-schools/articleshow/12552750.cms#write

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

8 April, 2012 04:13 AM IST

Let us examine how stadiums in Trivandrum were destroyed brick by brick by government experts at government expense. Palayam was a very important and famous junction in Trivandrum with a canopied bus shelter, shops, cathedral, mosque, temple, banks, hotels and a stadium. People waiting for buses would sit on the concrete railings surrounding the stadium, watch volley ball and foot ball going on at each corners, admire, enjoy and assess players, judge teams, and when their buses come jump out, jump in their buses and go their ways, to destinations as distant as Kozhikode, Malappuram and Kannoor. It was very good and freshening to sit on these railings in the evenings and during the nights, watching the games, drinking tea from the nearby plank tea shops, smoking, talking politics literature and cinema and enjoying fresh night wind coming from Shangummughom. Not all sitting on those stadium railings were awaiting their buses but were residents of the city, young and old and toddlers, come there or taken there to enjoy the night life of Trivandrum. Women could safely wait for buses and walk the road at any time of night because there was unbroken vigil by the people of Kerala. There was no mugging, pick pocketing or gold chain snatching. As we will see, these vices were introduced later due to the intervention of intolerant authorities. This place reminded one of the disciplined city life of Kozhikode, people walking roads at all times of the night and shops functioning day and night. In those days this stadium was occasionally allocated for circuses, dramas, musical programmes and public meetings. When commercial programmes with ticketed admissions were conducted, temporary walls of considerable height would be raised. People will look for holes in the temporary wall to see if anything could be seen. When this kind of temporary walling had been going on for a long time, a few people of authority began to think about permanently walling in the stadium. In our society there are many people who dislike public enjoyment of sports, arts, music, drama and other fine arts who are born with hatred in their hearts but with authority in their lineage. We will wish these people were never born. So, as they are the people of authority, they walled in this stadium. The decline of Palayam was sudden. People no more could sit anywhere, plank tea shops were closed by police, smoking banned, the bus stop canopy dismantled and even the buses began to not stopping there. The shops closed, the junction fell into darkness and insecurity and became a haunt of pick pockets, muggers and gold chain snatchers. People thought: If there was a king, the person responsible for this would have been hanged! But our new authorities are worse than these cut-throats. When the government spends millions of rupees for reviving sports and the sports won’t revive, remember the person who took the decision to wall in the Palayam Stadium. People will remember and retaliate in many ways.

029. All-in-one playfield coming to city schools. 2

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

8 April, 2012 04:52 PM IST

Three furlongs away from Palayam is the famous Wellington Water Works which supplies water to the entire city, with the swimming pool there. It was this swimming pool which made many swimmers in Trivandrum. It is public, and the swimmers need only observing the general rules of cleanliness. Mr. Jimmy George was a famous volley ball player and smasher of Kerala and when it was decided to construct an appropriate memorial for him, it was suggested that it would be good to construct a good indoor stadium in his name in Trivandrum. The Wellington Water Works of the old and decent Public Health Engineering Department of Kerala posthumously renamed as the notorious Kerala Water and Waste Water Authority, willingly handed over a few acres of land from their campus. Thus we see the board there: ‘Jimmy George Indoor Stadium owned by the Sports and Youth Affairs Department of Kerala’. This site was leased to the Sports Department. A very good indoor stadium with many modern facilities was constructed there where shuttle badminton, gymnastics and Thai-Kondo were taught and practiced admirably for a few years. Hundreds of young boys and girls living not only in the Trivandrum city but from outside city limits, even from Nedumangadu, found their career in this stadium. It was a time when sports authorities in Kerala were comparatively corruptionless. Then a few corrupt officers noted this place and there began a series of unending betterment and renovation programmes, all unnecessary there. Crores of rupees were spent and pocketed in the name of sports. Floors, walls, ceilings, pillars and even name boards which needed no renovations were noted in estimates and tenders and quotations as to be renovated, new bills of claim presented, passed and encashed. More crores passed through corrupt hands after all which the stadium became insecure and unsafe for players. Now it is closed for two long years. It is explained that it is once again going to be renovated for National Games. Is this sports or naked and authoritative corruption? So Trivandrum lost one more stadium. Simply put, it was piece by piece destruction of the Jimmy George Indoor Stadium donated in a way by the Wellington Water Works. Now we have two more good stadiums in Trivandrum to dismantle, the Colonel Goda Varma Raja Indoor Stadium and the Central Stadium, which we intend to finish soon.

030. All-in-one playfield coming to city schools. 3

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

8 April, 2012 05:07 PM IST

Colonel Goda Varma Raja was a great sponsor and patron of sports, one belonging to the royal family of Travancore. To commemorate him, another indoor stadium, the G.V.Raja Indoor Stadium was started in a very good and convenient building previously owned by the Maharajas of Travancore. It was very good and stimulating to practice here, the building being situated very close to the breezy beach of Shangummughom. There were a few indoor shuttle courts and an outside roller skating rink which caused the emergence of many proficient players. This piece of invaluable real estate came to the attention of some greedy influential prospector who could not shed away his desire to purchase this land and build one of the greatest hotels and entertainment centre in Kerala, surpassing even the recent one built in Quilon, and the Indian Coffee House housed in one part of this stadium building was immediately ordered to be closed. The stadium soon followed and was shut down. The curse of Kerala is, the politicians who are the decision makers also, are almost all born in very poor families where there never was good food or money. Therefore, when they see a rich man with a huge wad of currency notes in his suitcase, they crave on their knees, bend rules and order everything that he dictates. This kind of slavishness never existed among politicians when there were real sports in India. Sports are something that takes away the vices of men and imbibes men with virtues. That is why rigid, corrupt administrators hate sports and pulls the curtain down whenever and wherever they can. So that was the death knoll for the ‘Colonel G.V.Raja Indoor Stadium of Shangummughom, owned and operated by the Kerala Sports Council.’ If someone anxious goes to the Kerala Sports Council, Department of Sports and Youth Affairs or even the Sports Minister and asks why this stadium is remaining closed, there will come the standard immediate reply from the Indian Administrative Service: “It is going to be renovated for the National Games.” A lame reply, which even his lowest subordinate can give. Without continuous training and practice, what National Games? With stadiums remaining closed for years and ministers and government secretaries receiving salary for keeping them closed, what scope for Kerala in national games?

031. All-in-one playfield coming to city schools. 4

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

9 April, 2012 02:13 AM IST

There is one more famous stadium in Trivandrum soon to be destroyed, but not too easy to be done with. It is the Central Stadium owned by the government, situated just behind the Secretariate, the seat of administration. Because it is situated just there, and because the watchful eyes of so many government officers glance there when they come out to the back and stand there for a while to breathe fresh breeze, only very slowly can it be destroyed and packed up. Anyway, the sports authorities of this state are trying their very best. For this, they allocate the stadium for frequent public meetings and other functions when stages and divider barricades would be built, podiums erected and march pasts done. When the practicing children come to the stadium the next day, the barricades and the stages would still be there, or if dismantled, the countless pole holes on the ground would still be there unfilled, so that the runners, jumpers and pole vaulters shall sprint their legs. The stadium turf would be trampled upon and the practicing ground littered with plastic cups and left-over food and what unspeakable things not. What else can we do to support and encourage sports? We already have fully succeeded in making the ground turf-free. They are weeds anyway. These children practicing in these grounds almost all come from poor families, hoping sports will uplift them one day. Does the world know how much they are paid as food allowance each day when the School Games comes? 30 rupees, enough for just one tea and one glass of lime juice: not enough for a meal. That is the sin of Kerala. Does anyone know how much an authority will pocket when the games ends? Let your imagination take off on wings. That is the way the crores and crores of rupees Kerala spend on sports go. When all these things happened in Trivandrum, the capital city of Kerala, under the very nose and eyes of the people whom we pay high salaries for looking after these things for us, where was the Sports Minister of Kerala? We will wonder whether he was on long leave for five or ten years serving abroad. One day in March 2012, he wakes up, declares that corruption in sports will be dealt with, and goes backs to his sleep. Why did he wake up? His dreams were filled with nightmares and beloved Jimmy George and respected Goda Varma Raja began to haunt him.

032. Incinerators just don't measure up. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The approval given to mobile incinerators in the city are in violation of the guidelines of central pollution control board (CPCB). The technical committee appointed to evaluate the mobile incinerators has given consent to set up incinerators with a stack height of 11 metres.

TNN | Apr 10, 2012, 11.12PM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thiruvananthapuram/Incinerators-just-dont-measure-up/articleshow/12614807.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

12 April, 2012 02:55 AM IST

When we hear about technical committees constituted for purchasing things for government departments, municipalities or corporations, we needn’t wonder about the technical visions and discussions that would have gone into the making of their decisions. Almost all such technical committees are made up of members of government who reached technical positions just through toe licking and favouritism, not through any type of technical proficiency. So, practically, no thinking goes into the making of their decisions. From the purchase of heavy duty trucks to the purchase of simple x-ray machines, that is what is going on in government. Because they are not fairly recruited, most of them would not have any commitment to the community or any respect for regulations. Moreover, most of them would be departmental canvassing agents for the supplying firms. That is why the names, posts and technical qualifications of these so called technical committee members are never disclosed when the deals are closed, how much costly the deal. It is evident that the Trivandrum City Corporation is thrust upon with a fleet of illegally designed and manufactured Waste Incinerating Machines and a few more lakhs of public money have been squandered by them. This is the cost people pay for electing the ignoramus who does not have even basic scientific knowledge to see things in advance and the backbone to say ‘no’ when necessary. After seeing the show of turning against the people of the nearby Vilappilsala Village, suing them in the law-court, running away from the responsibility of the city’s waste disposal, touring the world for studying waste disposal and now purchasing a few incinerators unconforming to norms and violating all rules, the people of Trivandrum can say only one thing to their Corporation authorities: Just resign and do some decent job to make a living.

033. UDF ministry expanded, IUML gets 5th berth. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Congress-led UDF ministry led by Oommen Chandy in Kerala was expanded today with the induction of Manjalamkuzhi Ali of the Indian Union Muslim League and Anoop Jacob (KC-J), raising its strength to 21.

PTI | Apr 12, 2012, 11.36AM IST

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

12 April 2012 05:31 PM IST

A small state in India with just 140 members in their legislative assembly but with 21 members in their cabinet! If we travel in a fast car from the south to the north of Kerala, before it is seven hours, Kerala is over. When we travel in a fast train Andhra Pradesh will take about a day to cross. So, to run a small state like Kerala, why should there be an unnecessary 21 members in the cabinet of their ministry of their government? What an inexcusable waste of state resources! For several years the state ministers of Kerala have been boasting about fully computerizing the departments under their administrations, resulting in reduction in staff. If the finance ministers of the state are to be believed, not less than 500 crores have already been spent on computerizing top government offices in the capital city alone during the years. If what the so-called technical experts in the state bureaucracy say can be believed, one single chief minister can run the affairs of the entire state with a limited staff. Looked anyway, the state today, ought to have been run by 5 ministers. 15 ministers are in excess, just there to eat into public treasury. When computerization progresses in government, considerable number of staff are shed away, terminated from service or redeployed elsewhere. By the same logic, why are not the number of ministers in the cabinet reduced proportionately? More ministers means more state expenditure on account of their and their staff’s salaries, allowances, tour and medical expenses, escort, housing and pension, all for doing no job except inaugurating multi-crore private establishments all over Kerala everyday, at people’s expenses. They may say that it is part of the public relations of government. But for maintaining public relations, there is a paid full department in the government. Every movement, word, gestures and decisions of the ministers, including their clandestine relationships and involvements with inappropriate people, are reported the instant verbatim by the news papers and television channels. Also they can public relate directly from their offices through their computers. What do they travel during office hours for, instead of staying in their offices from 10 to 5? If we examine the travels made by these ministers during the past five years, we shall see that 99.99 percent of them were totally unnecessary, i.e. for the people of Kerala. They spent billions of state revenue for their popularity as if it is their privilege they should enjoy for the tiresome job of governing us. Kerala State is waiting for a fair chief minister who swears in with the right five ministers.

034. China cracks down on 'rumours', removes 210,000 online posts. BEIJING: China has closed 42 websites and deleted more than 210,000 posts since mid-March in a crackdown on online "rumours", state media said on Thursday. AFP | Apr 12, 2012, 03.51PM IST http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/China-cracks-down-on-rumours-removes-210000-online-posts/articleshow/12636707.cms#write

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

14 April, 2012 12:42 AM IST

Many people think China is prospering but it is a momentary rise because it is unaccompanied by a resultant cultural rise. No great literature, art, music or philosophy is emerging from China. Economic prosperity unaccompanied by cultural upliftment is hollow, unstable and absurd. It is like developing the muscles of a single hand through rigid, non-stop exercising while those in the legs, abdomen, shoulders, back and neck remains as of yore. It is kind of unproportionate, unnatural, unstable state of psyche, close to sickness. Great philosophers in India, China and Greece condemned such development. Many modern day philosophers also have taught the dangers of unspiritual prosperity, which was what brought the mighty Roman Empire down. It is the mind, free thought and unhindered will that brings about, nourishes and retains a healthy civilization. So, what economic development we now are shown from China is ballooned up, a mirage which will vanish and expose the harsh realities, just like the underlying poverty of the Big Brother in Russia was exposed once the state’s suppressive propaganda collapsed. It is a real fact that majority of the Chinese population oppose their government’s almost all actions publicly or in their minds. Where there is a vent, their anger steams out. The world also knows that it is because of the brutal policing by the Chinese Communist Party that the government there is not toppled by people. By no standards is it now a peaceful and quiet nation. Indeed China was a mighty, trustworthy, civilized great nation, before Chairman Mao came into power. The cruelties and murders of the millennium old dynasties were nothing when compared to the mean, treacherous slaughters of the Communist Regime. Then they began to export not communism but cruelty to other peaceful nations. India, Nepal, Tibet, Burma, Hong Kong, Philippines- all these nations and their people well know that China is a mad rogue nation now, becoming very similar to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran, perhaps more despotic. What the world hoped would prevent the aggression of China were the two great democracies in the world- America and India. But heavy Chinese investment in their nation made the Americas passive. Prospects of arrival of huge capitals as Yen made India silent. Embracing Dalai Lama and shaking hand with the Premiere on the back is the foreign policy of these two nations. It was the American Freedom Struggle that inspired Europe to freedom. It was the Indian Struggle for Independence that liberated Africa. What is a few soiled Yen noted when compared to the glorious moments in human history? But the world people now have learned about the pact between these great democracies and the last existing autocracy. That is why people now turn to the online internet highway as a last measure and that is exactly why China deletes people’s websites. The world well knows, it is people versus government there, unsupported by the world.

035. A time for hard lessons in China. Until last month, all seemed to be in order for a smooth succession of the top leadership in China.

Nayan Chanda | Apr 14, 2012, 12.00AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/A-time-for-hard-lessons-in-China/articleshow/12653662.cms#write

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

14 April, 2012 12:45 AM IST

Many people think China is prospering but it is a momentary rise because it is unaccompanied by a resultant cultural rise. No great literature, art, music or philosophy is emerging from China. Economic prosperity unaccompanied by cultural upliftment is hollow, unstable and absurd. It is like developing the muscles of a single hand through rigid, non-stop exercising while those in the legs, abdomen, shoulders, back and neck remains as of yore. It is kind of unproportionate, unnatural, unstable state of psyche, close to sickness. Great philosophers in India, China and Greece condemned such development. Many modern day philosophers also have taught the dangers of unspiritual prosperity, which was what brought the mighty Roman Empire down. It is the mind, free thought and unhindered will that brings about, nourishes and retains a healthy civilization. So, what economic development we now are shown from China is ballooned up, a mirage which will vanish and expose the harsh realities, just like the underlying poverty of the Big Brother in Russia was exposed once the state’s suppressive propaganda collapsed. It is a real fact that majority of the Chinese population oppose their government’s almost all actions publicly or in their minds. Where there is a vent, their anger steams out. The world also knows that it is because of the brutal policing by the Chinese Communist Party that the government there is not toppled by people. By no standards is it now a peaceful and quiet nation. Indeed China was a mighty, trustworthy, civilized great nation, before Chairman Mao came into power. The cruelties and murders of the millennium old dynasties were nothing when compared to the mean, treacherous slaughters of the Communist Regime. Then they began to export not communism but cruelty to other peaceful nations. India, Nepal, Tibet, Burma, Hong Kong, Philippines- all these nations and their people well know that China is a mad rogue nation now, becoming very similar to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran, perhaps more despotic. Gauging from the present rising of people’s protests, where is democracy, communism and socialism in China? Is the world willing to tolerate and allow yet another timid aggressive nation among them? What the world hoped would prevent the aggression of China were the two great democracies in the world- America and India. But heavy Chinese investment in their nation made the Americas passive. Prospects of arrival of huge capitals as Yuan made India silent. Embracing Dalai Lama and shaking hand with the Premiere on the back is the foreign policy of these two nations. It was the American Freedom Struggle that inspired Europe to freedom. It was the Indian Struggle for Independence that liberated Africa. What is a few soiled Yuan notes when compared to the glorious moments in human history? But the world people now have learned about the pact between these great democracies and the last existing autocracy. That is why people now turn to the online internet highway as a last measure and that is exactly why China deletes people’s websites. The world well knows, it is people versus government there, unsupported by the world.

P.S.Remesh Chandran. replies to longlake

14 April, 2012 11:51 AM IST

Do not ever speak the foul language of alien and foreign odeaologies, but the language of the great Chinese Masters. Where did this language originate from? This is exactly what communism did to the great ancient culture and civilization of China. You the speaker of this debased language, bow, and say apology for your language, like the true Chinese. If you do so here, you will be taught how the ancient Chinese, Indians, Vietnamese and the Japanese taught their youngsters obedience and respect.

036.

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

14 April, 2012 11:55 AM IST

Yes, they are the inevitable birth pains of a new political structure. From the already accumulated evidence of the Chinese government’s and the party oligarchy’s vehemence towards the intelligent traditional people there, this new political structure which is to soon evolve in China won't necessarily first be democratic. It is first more likely and possibly to be the most despotic and cruel military administration the world has ever seen. After that there would be intermittent administrations by the military and by unstable democratic governments. This means, China will go the Pakistan way, not the Indian way. The world never thought and believed the dynasties in China could be toppled by a few revolutionaries but it happened. It would happen again because that is the natural course of things. Everything in history is but repetition. Many people of around the world think that the communist administration in China is invincible. So were a great number of people living in the Eastern Block. China then stood like a star amid a galaxy of communist countries. She now stands alone like a hot rock on a marooned sulphorous planet. It is crumbling in her bowels which are the minds of her great masters, peasants, merchants, clerics, academics, artists and scholars. Because we are standing too close, not sufficiently remote, we fail to see the conspicuous withering. The chief distinguishing mark of the oriental countries of India, Nepal, Tibet, Burma, China, Siam and Japan from the west was, and is, the respect and obedience their younger people show towards their older people. It has been so even before the time of Confucius and Buddha. This great tradition has been the foundation of Chinese and Indic cultures. Communist revolution and the institution of a party government was a replacement of these great ideals and submission to an alien and hostile ideology and rule. It was from this clay that the great revolutionaries were moulded. It is to be from this clay that the bold people who are the destined to not only overthrow but execute as well the anti-human despots in the communist administration are to originate. Communism could not wash away the genes of respect to elders latent in people’s bodies. Do not the world ever under estimate the patience of this oriental mind. Why the bold people of China are not uprising in massive revolts irrespective of their military and police [there is more people there which no military or police can harness or kill if truly uprisen] is because there are still octogenarians in their polit bureau. It is not a secret but every party cadre well versed in tactics and strategies knows this. The instant the old octogenarians in the party polit bureau die or are taken away and silently removed by their younger counterparts in the party, the communist party and its regime would be reduced to smithereens by the people of China. The oriental people there can only fight with people of their same age.

037.

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum) replies to M SATYANARAYANA

14 April, 2012 02:28 PM IST

Parties have a brief life span of just one or one and a half centuries. But the long tradition of Chinese life goes back to the period of the origin of human civilization. We all in the world respect China for its ancient civilization and culture which the communists had no role in forming. They only made a break in its continuity. History of the Silk Route shows that there was comparatively less poverty than there is now there. It is good to read Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China and another good compilation, China Through The Centuries, to get a reliable picture of what ancient abode the communists destroyed to erect their puny hovel. It is true, Indian culprits in the administration who looted their nation are never punished perfectly as Mr. Sathyanarayana points out, and in the present political circumstances, they never will be. And also as he points out, nothing will happen in China as long as communists rule there. That is why communists won’t rule there for long. For many decades, China and Russia exported communism as if it was their duty. They exported only unquestioned splendor as Honaker’s life proved to the world. How many countries are there now where communism did not fold, for the single crime of denying freedom of speech? Humans are the only beings who can speak and they will continue to do it. Even the god could not prevent it. Do not please worship a giant seeing his muscles, but adore him if he has shown signs of possessing a heart. Remember, communism was conceived as the highest language of human heart. It is not patented to Chinese communist leaders. People will continue to wish and long for socialism and communism. That is why the suppressive government in China should go. Chinese communism was not a rise from opium culture, but a fall from the famous tradition of ornate craftsmanship and peasantry. If an ideology cannot stand and disprove its critics, let it hang itself, not others. And incidentally, Remesh Chandran is not even remotely financial but a poor Indian farmer, trained by Indian teachers who taught well about Oriental traditions.

038. China cracks down on 'rumours', removes 210,000 online posts.

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum) replies to cults

15 April, 2012 01:44 AM IST

2000 years back, when the famous carpenter of Jerusalem, fleeing from the traitors and aggressors and wormy authorities of his land to secure his life and philosophy till his mission is completed, found safety, security, hospitality, solace and moral fighting training in the far northern native kingdoms of India. That is how the missing years in the life of Christ is explained. When he was born in a cattle shed, again due to haughty abuse of authority, three magician priests from the east, that is from India, read the stars and found their way through thousands of miles to the west to bless the newborn babe. In those times star watching had developed as a full practical science only among the Indians and the Babylonians. The spices they brought to the child also denote the land where they came from. In ancient Greece, when the great teacher Socrates succumbed to death in an evening in a prison cell in Athens, Plato wept and decided he would take revenge upon the authorities for the death of his master. When advised by friends to flee from Greece before authorities found and executed him too, he fled, travelled the route Alexander later took and reached India. His missing years were spent in India, learning the philosophies and fighting talents, which he when returned, displayed brilliantly and became the master of kings. We see in history, after the execution of Socrates for criticizing state, after just three generations in the time of Aristotle, Socratic philosophies became the ruling principles of the state when King Phillip of Macedonia appointed Aristotle as Alexander’s master. Do the China supporters know India became home to how many thousands of Jews who lost homes during the mad military maneuvers of the two world wars? Do the aggressive Chinese authorities know how many millions of Nepalis, Burmese, Tibetans, Kashmiris, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis India received and protected during international power turmoils? How many did the Chinese protect? Did they ever open their borders to any? The Hindus, Christians and Muslims of India, with traditional Indian hospitality, receive anyone who has lost a home. The honorable Dalai Lama was not the last. He has been living in India with his people for half a century, happily accepting India as their second home. He was not a citizen of China, but he lost his home in Tibet, the most un-Chinese act in the past century from the un-Chinese rulers of China. He will return to his free nation. The people of India will see to it. India can shelter, protect and train every lone bird which has lost its sky and nest. It is a generations- old tradition of India. Every returning bird will capture the world, and India will smile inwardly and go on as before.

039. Software glitches delay corporation schemes. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The city corporation might find it hard to realize its schemes with its accounting software going out of order. The corporation hasn't recorded a single balance sheet regarding the income and expenditure for the last one year and the ruling council blames it on sankhya, the accounting software developed by Information and Kerala mission (IKM).

TNN | Apr 14, 2012, 02.20AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thiruvananthapuram/Software-glitches-delay-corporation-schemes/articleshow/12657208.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

15 April, 2012 09:58 PM IST

Public irked by erroneous Aadhaar (UID) cards. KOCHI: Even as Akshaya plans to resume enrolment under the Aadhaar project for unique identity numbers (UID), residents remain apprehensive about the efficiency of the system. Pointing out glaring mistakes in the already issued UID cards, individuals and organizations in the city have demanded a facility to rectify them.

Greeshma Gopal GiriGreeshma Gopal Giri, TNN | Apr 14, 2012, 01.55AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kochi/Public-irked-by-erroneous-Aadhaar-UID-cards/articleshow/12657020.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

15 April, 2012 10:04 PM IST

There are countries in this world where electricity never fails, voltage never fluctuates and even if electricity fails it would be for two or three seconds. Even if voltage fluctuates there, it would be by a maximum of two or three volts. Some great political figure head who went to those countries for treatment of some unspeakable disease saw the computerization there, wondered, and on return insisted that everything government should go online. No ruler was sensible enough to point out to him that in such electricity-short states like Kerala it would lead to administrative paralysis and eventually make people’s life hell. Now when people go to some government office for a birth certificate they are told that the system is down and that they don’t know when the certificates could be issued. The good and reliable old manual system was deemlessly dismantled and the staff deployed elsewhere or dismissed; therefore the certificates cannot be handwritten and issued as before. The government had a very efficient treasury system which the private banks and the nationalized banks envied. Because treasuries do not have share owners but banks do, government’s money payment was de-linked from treasuries and shifted to banks, ordered by greedy politicians who themselves or whose dependents had shares or interests in those banks. One political party while in administration demanded that when this scheme is implemented, one particular bank shall write-off their loan of 100 Crore rupees they availed for starting a television channel. Banks would get millions of new accounts anyway without paying commissions and huge amounts will remain with them as unwithdrawn balances. Then why shan’t they pay and please political parties for taking the decision for payment of salaries through banks? But then what are treasuries for? Then treasuries and banks began to get computerized and payments to people began to be made through A.T.M. Counters. Now payment of salaries also is going online. There is no electricity and therefore no ATMs working. Voltage fluctuations also still the ATMs. One day when you go to draw money from the ATM or the bank it will be informed that ‘your money went down the drain due to a computer glitch; it sometimes happens when voltage drips, we cannot do anything’. We will think that bureaucrats and politicians in the administration were not brain-sharp enough to see these things in advance. They did see everything in advance but simply could not resist the temptation for securing commissions from the purchase of thousands and thousands of computers for every government office, and the future income from maintaining, servicing and replacing these systems. One needn’t think there was any intension of improving the efficacy of the administration in the state behind this decision. The news of bribery and corruption printed everyday in newspapers in India reveals the real motivation. They will sell even their mothers if the right commission is got.

040. 150 Afghan schoolgirls poisoned in anti-education attack. KUNDUZ ( Afghanistan): About 150 Afghan schoolgirls were poisoned on Tuesday after drinking contaminated water at a high school in the country's north, officials said, blaming it on conservative radicals opposed to female education.

Reuters | Apr 17, 2012, 07.39PM IST.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/150-Afghan-schoolgirls-poisoned-in-anti-education-attack/articleshow/12705738.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

17 April, 2012 10:45 PM IST

They do not want their women folk get educated and eventually question the chauvinistic revolutionaries and mosque-bound mullahs and finally endanger their fanatically religious schemes for international terrorism. India too was once in the dark ages. Widows were forcefully thrown into the funeral pyres of late husbands, and if they escaped, their lives were turned into hell by the caste Hindus. It was William Bentinck who abolished this ‘Sathi’ under the compulsion of national leaders like Rajaram Mohan Roy. Roy, Gandhi and Nehru advocated for the education of women, and in due course, the women in India began to be enlightened and liberated. Today women hold prominent positions in the leadership of political parties and governmental administration in India. When India was divided into two, Pakistan shared the blessings of having educated womenfolk. If the people of Afghanistan cannot prevent their fanatics and revolutionaries from committing such heinous crimes as poisoning the wells in girls’ schools to prevent them educating themselves for a future, the U.S and other foreign troops shall not pull out of Afghanistan, however hard a few rogue nations compel. It is the world’s will, and they have the world’s support. We all know that educated Muslims live contentedly and decently with a single wife and there are fewer divorces among them. It is the uneducated Muslims who are not satisfied with even a dozen wives. The Ayatollahs of Afghanistan want to lead an uncontrolled lusty life. They know that with their poor or no education, they will not get women to marry them in the future. That is why they adopted the extreme measure of poisoning girls in their schools, a double terror. They badly want to keep their society uneducated and their womenfolk kept in darkness without the light and refinement of education. If someone in this world tells that he won’t send his children to school but will grow them as pick pockets and cut throats, capture and hang him, before he sires one more child to destruct the world with. Quran is something to read and learn, not to be violated. We should admit that the state of women folk in Pakistan is far better when compared to that of their sisters in Afghanistan. These wretched men want to have their women to view them as Kings, and know that once educated, these women will begin to view them as degenerated lusty worms. Once this happens, the bold womenfolk of Afghanistan, if they are half as bold in their genes as these men, will take things including politics into their hands and the Afghanistan society will revert to matriarchy as it indeed was in the past. What hinders the Afghan women now is their mountainous terrain which prevents their easy escaping. If the world wishes and the U.N. and UNESCO interfere, the next decade will see the total liberation of Afghan women and the total vanishing of those bulls who think the most important organ in the human body is placed not uppermost, but in the middle.

P.S.Remesh Chandran. replies to Mamata Banerjee

18 April, 2012 01:14 AM IST

Dear Madame, This is my kind of social service. It is my world and my people and it is situations in their lives that are reported here. In these comments, it is the world speaking here. It is expected that by contributing our opinions on news, we are shaping actually public opinion. When we speak here, think about the expenses Bennet Coleman incurs to maintain these pages and run these pages smoothly and effectively, so that the world's will shall be expressed here. The world has nowhere else another platform to speak with other human beings. When the world's newspapers were threatened with the advent of first radio, then Television and then Internet, most of those newspapers including Times Of India went online. Hourly updating of news and the emergence of pages like these are just two side benefits of this change. But whoever takes part in this great parliament of world citizens has to observe two self-imposed rules: speak relevantly and speak facts. Really I do not have enough time. And I am not a teacher in a school or a college. Besides my regular employment of 30 years, I also taught English Poetry for 29 years instituting rural English Study Circles receiving no remuneration or financial assistance. I am an educated farmer who also edits the modest Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, which is online, non commercial. My father was a renowned English Teacher, trained by the British Council, incidentally.

P.S.Remesh Chandran. replies to Amit Kumar

18 April, 2012 01:21 AM IST

Dear Brother, see the above. When I write in Times Of India, I limit it to 3000 characters, which they magnanimously allow. When I write in The Economist, it is 5000 which is their usual. When I write essays for reputed publishers, it is 9000 or 10000 words strong. My articles in my own websites such as Time Upon My Window Sill are most often lengthier. Sorry. Did you find anything irrelevant in the above short note?

041. Class X girl foils rape bid, set afire. CHANDIGARH : A class X boy allegedly set his girl classmate ablaze after she foiled former's advances made to her at her residence in Murtazapur village of Kurkshetra district on Tuesday afternoon. With more then 55% burns, the victim girl was rushed to Kurusketra's private hospital.

Manveer SainiManveer Saini, TNN | Apr 17, 2012, 09.15PM IST.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/Class-X-girl-foils-rape-bid-set-afire/articleshow/12706901.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

17 April, 2012 11:38 PM

When we go after the boy, we can most often find a pampered rich boy, born in a family where the father and mother live with no inhibitions or fear of society, most probably, an only son. He would have enough pocket money to throw around, boast with classmates that he would one day get this particular girl, or even kill her, and if caught, he would be released on bond, and eventually set free by an Indian court after a long trial dragging through years. Thus gaining a reputation, and creating a fear among the local population about him repeating this drama if he is denied anything again in his life, he can in his time become an MLA or an MP or even a cabinet minister in India. His future is secure anyway. The person who commented that 150 MPs are criminals is going to be summoned by Parliament for trial and punishment. Then why are a few MPs serving jail terms? How many rapists and child killers were hanged in India? The rich town memsahibs of India cannot bear the news of some human being hanged for however heinous a crime. If this boy is hanged, they will riot in the Indian streets, write articles on the sacredness of human life and approach law courts for a stay on public interests. National dailies will publish their articles with great photos, them sitting with loathsome dogs on their laps or on their breasts. They were the people who tricked Indian politicians into making severe and strict laws in the parliament for ensuring the longevity of their darling dogs so that they can continue with their carnal pleasures inside their air-conditioned mansions. Little girls being raped and killed in their poor huts by adolescent rich pampered boys coming in motor cycles and cars, well equipped with 65000 rupee mobile phone intelligence relays and costlier legal connections, or the poor Indian people on the roads dying out in thousands due to dengue and chikungunya spread by mosquitoes, dogs and monkeys, are nothing to these fat parasites. Administration paralyzes in their presence. They are the new kind of law- breakers in India, breaking all the ancient laws which prevailed for millenniums in the country and ensured such crimes as mentioned won’t happen. A crime has its punishment which is now impossible in India. Everyone knows this. Even then there is no shortage of laws. Each year since India gained Independence, our peoples’ representatives meet in sessions in legislative assemblies and pass laws, at least a hundred each term. Think how many laws might have been passed by the half dozen Indian states within 65 years!

042. SC upholds HC order on Vilappilsala waste plant. NEW DELHI/THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld an order of the Kerala high court directing the Kerala government to give protection for the smooth functioning of the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation's garbage treatment plant at Vilappilsala.

TNN | Apr 18, 2012, 05.36AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kochi/SC-upholds-HC-order-on-Vilappilsala-waste-plant/articleshow/12711626.cms#write

Can We Dispose Waste In Our Neighbor’s Property? Trivandrum City grows each day by receiving more people from all over Kerala, as every other capital city in the world does. Large quantities of man made waste is therefore accumulated in the city each day. Many years back the city authorities burned the waste generated at a place there itself. Large waste bins and cans were placed in different parts of the city where people could deposit their wastes which the city corporation staff would come and collect each day and dispose of decently. No one had any complaints. The city was clean and neat. The corporation councilors then represented a race that was dedicated to people. They then did engage themselves in some occupation to make their living and served the corporation as councillors as a service. Then this changed and a new race of politicians who do no work but take serving the society as their work and earning began to be got elected as city councillors. They considered cleaning the city as a detestable and mean work and in their general laxity the Trivandrum city lost its world famous cleanliness and neatness. The city began to smell. People began to complain and a private company came forward with a solution as if there have been no solutions to this kind of problem in the world. ‘Purchase a few acres of land in a distant village, construct a burning yard there and forget.’ No Corporation Mayor, Commissioner or Environmental Adviser was willing to raise the question of why spending huge amounts of money for long – distance transportation and creating hell in a remote peaceful and quiet village. No political parties, trade or youth organizations or nature activists questioned the authority of this city corporation to purchase land in another distant village and pollute it. Everyone was eager to share the new pie, involving many million rupees, all tax payers’ money. Thus the hell in Vilappilsala was created. Now they wish to destroy other beauty spots such as Brymore, Tenmala and Nettukaltherry. The corporation mayor of Trivandrum accompanied by other councillors toured Kozhikode to study how waste is being disposed there. Why go to the distant Kozhikode? There is an excellent and model waste disposal plant just 32 kilometres from Trivandrum, run by the efficient local body of Attingal Municipality. Why don't imitate them? It was government's good will to allot a huge amount of 5.7 crores to Trivandrum Corporation for waste management and disposing waste in its sources. The city corporation shall not utilize this amount for fighting the people of Vilappilsala Village. The Trivandrum city corporation went too far when they initiated legal litigation against the people of Vilappilsala. Moreover, nowadays they are fighting like mad against the state administration for purely political reasons. Government does not seem to keep any animosity towards this hostile corporation. People have the right to know how this amount is going too be spent.

043. Corporation plans to treat waste on government office premises. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the state government giving clear signs of bowing to the pressure of Vilappilsala panchayat, despite a Supreme Court order in favour of the former, the corporation is planning to forward a proposal to allocate land from government office premises for burying the waste.

Aswin J KumarAswin J Kumar, TNN | Apr 21, 2012, 06.12AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thiruvananthapuram/Corporation-plans-to-treat-waste-on-government-office-premises/articleshow/12773428.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

22 April, 2012 02:08 AM IST

The Corporation of Trivandrum deciding to dispose waste in government office compounds clears all doubts about the sanity of many of its members. The corporation does have enough places of their own to dispose their waste. These places are scattered throughout the city, in prime spots, with good real estate value. “If these places are set apart for disposal of our waste, what shall we say, when such and such persons who contributed heavily to our funds come with some proposal to construct something there?” This is what hinders all councilors from raising the subject of utilizing their own places for burial or burning of these wastes. Money and future political gains come first; people’s hygiene and safety come only the second, for them. The government offices in Trivandrum city have space, which are a blessing to the people from our old administrators, which are not places for the city corporation to trample. They did plan the city well, and paid salaries to technical personnel for doing their jobs well. How much amount does the Trivandrum City Corporation pay as salaries to technical personnel who do nothing to solve technical problems brilliantly? The recent wicked ideas coming from the city corporation have no justification or people’s mandate. Court orders are not people’s mandate but one of the many explanations of a law. We all know that there is only one law in a matter, but courts from the Municipal to the Supreme gives verdicts differently, in every country. That is why appeals go to the Supreme Court level. Whatever the law says, in the matter of their persecuting the people of Vilappilsala and threatening the people of Ponmudi, Brymore, Idinjar and Nettukaltherry, and now Kottakkakom and Poojapura, the Trivandrum Corporation has no people’s mandate. The entire state of Kerala, especially the people of Vilappilsala, and their government are right, and against them. Who are they fighting with, people? If they are shivering with duty consciousness, why doesn’t this corporation inspect homes for dog licenses and make some money? Why don’t remove the dogs responsible for spreading dengue and chikungunya?

044. Forest department to restrict off-season trek to Agastyakoodam. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala Forest Department is planning to restrict the entry of off-season tourists to Agastyakoodam to not more than 50 people at one go and that too, only for two or three days a week.

Sangeetha NairSangeetha Nair, TNN | May 3, 2012, 06.29AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thiruvananthapuram/Forest-department-to-restrict-off-season-trek-to-Agastyakoodam/articleshow/12974911.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

09 May, 2012 01:12 AM IST

Firstly, it is not Agasthyakoodam but ‘Agasthyar Koodam’, the ‘r’ usually used to denote respect for a name in the South Indian dialects. The Kerala Forest Department has no right to restrict entry of visitors to Agasthyakoodam, the Pilgrims’ Peak in the Southern Sahyadri Ranges. They shall not restrict access to people, whether it is season or off-season. They are bound to provide visitors resting, eating and staying facilities for which they can consider revising the rates of fees for admission. One should visit this place regularly and learn to respect the peacefulness, cleanliness and loftiness of our nature. We know that many visitors from these trips return awed and inspired by nature’s care and majesty. It is people’s presence in sacred places like these that guarantees the preservation and continuance of delicately balanced ecological structures. It is people’s interference that has successfully prevented many nature’s preserves from being over-exploited by timber and mining industries. The Forest Department cannot be taken into confidence in this matter. A few years back, we flagged off an adventure trip by a Quilon-based Nature and Adventure Club which took the route from Shankhily- Vencollah to Ponmudi and the entire route was video graphed. A few years after, when another such trip was undertaken, the new videos showed that many huge trees seen standing on the wayside in the first video graph were not to be seen there in the second. They were bulldozed and removed in Lorries which could not have been undertaken without the help of Forest Department Officials. Had people not travelled in this route and filmed whatever was there on the way two times, nothing would have come out. The same situation applies to Agasthyar Koodam also. The Department restricts photographing the area, for fear of over exposure to the rare and rich plant life there. Why does the Department prohibit photography? What have them to hide from people and from the world? It is the vigil of ordinary people that prevents major looting of tree wood and medicinal plants in rare Biodiversity Hotspots. The dormitory in question in Agasthyar Koodam has been left in ruins for so many years by the Forest Department. Its condition is antihuman. Regarding the accumulation of discarded plastic in this route, it should be noted that practically no plastic waste is generated during the proper pilgrimage season when hundreds of visitors travel the route. It is because, as against in the past, the Department now provides food including idli, dosai, poori, chappathi and porridge at three places, i.e. at Bonakkadu, Athirumala and one place in between, so that pilgrims won’t need to transport food and plastic to carry them in. Therefore now there is no question of cooking food on the way with firewood, resulting in forest fires. The Department also provides night shelters two times on the way to and fro, thereby eliminating the need for making fires during night to escape from cold.

045

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

09 May, 2012 01:27 AM IST

The food given to Agasthyar Koodam pilgrims by Forests Department is made available through the various Eco Development Committees formed including the local Aborigines living in the nearby settlements. Everywhere in Kerala the services of these EDCs is admirable, for they generate employment for the locals who successfully prevent local pilfering and poaching. Employing local girls as this kind of forest watchers is actually the only praisable thing the Forest Department of Kerala did recently. It is the trekkers who generate waste and destroy the forest, not the pilgrims. The pilgrims, who go each year, have learned to behave themselves, and many of them usually collect plastic waste which they bring back to authorities. The right policy to be adopted by the Forests Department is to allow visitors only during the pilgrimage season and do with allowing trekking in large groups. Agasthyar was a great saint of many divine faculties and it is believed that Sri Rama, the incarnation of Lord Vishnu, on his return journey from Lanka after defeating Ravana went to Agasthyr’s abode in this peak and begged to accept him as a student. As such, in Hindu ascetic practise, Agasthyar’s peak is forbidden to womenfolk and every person in Kerala and Tamil Nadu observes this practice. So, if the reports that many Hindu Madames going to the place after illegally obtaining permission from topmost Forest Officials is true, those persons should immediately be sent away from their chairs, even if it the Forests Minister of Kerala or the Forests Secretary. It is an unpardonable violation of ethics. The Wild Life Warden of Trivandrum complains about large scale movement within his forest area. It cannot be helped. It is a renowned Hindu Pilgrimage Peak. Can we restrict people going to Sabarimala, Malayattoor or Mecca? We can only manage people to cause the least damage. Agasthyar Koodam area is not unpopulated. Nor can we move people out like we did in the Kerala- Karnataka border reserves. This place has numerous settlements of aborigines. They live even up to Kunnattherri, the very heart of this silent land. The greatest thrill and reverence to Agasthyar Muni is climbing this peak from the Eastern side from the Tamil Nadu part which is very risky. So the desiring devotees wear a saffron dhoti and climb the peak from the eastern side, posing as a Hindu saint. The local aborigines, or Adivasis in the local dialect, alone dare doing this. How can and why should one prevent them from doing this act which is part of their religion? Can we dare say that people who go to sacred Hajj shall not stone the Ka Aba? What rights have us to interfere in age-old customs of religious people? We can only tolerate and prepare ourselves for meeting it. Forest Department or No Forest Department, Bio Diversity Zone or No Bio Diversity Zone, no one can prevent Agasthyar Koodam becoming a great pilgrimage centre in South India in the future.

046. WHO issues malaria alert to those travelling to India. NEW DELHI: Travelling to India this summer? Better be prepared against malaria. The World Health Organization (WHO) has alerted international travelers against the active threat of malaria in India.

Kounteya SinhaKounteya Sinha, TNN | May 11, 2012, 07.16AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/WHO-issues-malaria-alert-to-those-travelling-to-India/articleshow/13090007.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

11 May, 2012 10:35 AM IST

Indian authorities claimed last year that Malaria has gone but those who know these authorities warned that it will come back. Considering the instances of a number of diseases sweeping India such as dengue and chikungunya and the resulting death of thousands of victims due to lack of treatment facilities available to poor people after the privatization of the health sector in the country, there is every possibility of Malaria again coming to India. The health authorities in the nation has no future-reaching vision as to the possibility of this killer disease again coming to India, as is evidenced by their act of winding up the National Malaria Eradication Programme[NMEP]. Each time a disease strikes, what we see is the sudden assembling of futile task forces, the hasty distribution of insecticides and the belated deployment of health inspectors to the affected areas who otherwise are pleased to work inside their cool office buildings. The disease takes the toll of a few hundred human lives, the mosquitoes continue to rule as usual and a considerable portion of national revenue is consumed by fools by way of transportation, petrol, hotel rooms, T.A. and D.A. and incentives. It is like a national carnival there, a time for festivity. Ask any disease-affected and incapacitated person, he will tell it is exactly the truth. When Arboviral infections including chikungunya claimed hundred thousands of human lives the world over, these so called experts behaved like they were hearing about Zoonosis diseases for the first time. Everyone knows that all Zoonosis viruses need an animal reservoir host to multiply which were dogs in this case. Nothing in nature suddenly changed to affect the outbreak of these diseases except the number of dogs increasing due to anti human laws. Because it was the dogs, the authorities carefully avoided mentioning the presence of an animal reservoir host. Even W.H.O. carefully remained silent about the role of dogs in originating outbreaks of Arboviral infections. Everyone blamed mosquitoes and no one accused dogs for obvious reasons. The Indian health authorities are playing with the lives of citizens. Experts have excellently laid out measures for preventing yet another outbreak of Malaria but if it happens we can see in advance that nothing as envisaged by the experts is going to happen. A very large empire is eagerly awaiting the outbreak of this disease because it is the private hospitals, doctors and medicine manufacturing companies that are involved on the profiting side. It is we people who are going to suffer and it is they who are going to profit. And do not forget that after passing laws banning the killing of stray dogs in the streets, the government-owned Anti Rabies Vaccine Manufacturing Facility was ordered to stop production. It was a sign of not madness in the health sector in India but of the horrible greed of Indian politic to please and squeeze private manufacturers by creating and spreading diseases.

047. India steps into Philippines-China spat over South China Sea. NEW DELHI: As the Philippines braces for anti-China protests on Friday, India has stepped into the hottest South China Sea dispute to counsel restraint.

TNN May 11, 2012, 05.26AM IST

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-05-11/india/31668747_1_chinese-fishing-vessels-south-china-sea-china-s-territory

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

11 May, 2012 11:18 AM IST

In the modern day world, a nation claiming rights on another nation is considered aggression and encroachment. Countries with far lesser crimes were isolated and punished by the U.N. and the world community. But here when a great exporter, though leaving its native population deprived of essential commodities, does a greater crime, all the world countries remain neutral in action. Recently China has been claiming Tibet as their own, Hong-Kong as their own and a considerable part of even India as their own. A nation where millions of citizens remain without rights to vote and students who protest are brutally beaten up and fired to death, does not deserve the sympathy of the world. The world has gone far ahead. Emperor Bharatha ruled the lands comprising of Rathnadweepam, India, Nepaalam, Brahmadesam, Apaghanasdhanam and Syama Raajyam. Will China consent to India claiming Ceylon, Nepal, Burma, Afghanistan and Siam? China's aggressive behaviour is isolating her among world people, whoever including America support her human rights violations. Where was China standing watching when Communism was discarded by the world and she became the last standing post of Pseudo-Communism? Communism was conceived as the highest language of the human heart. But wherever it came to administrative power, people were incarcerated, tortured, brutally beaten, murdered, raped, mutilated, chemically brain washed and made to vanish. For whom was it all? Why do Chinese leaders live in luxury and opulence? Lenin said, those who do no work shall not be given food. What job, according to communist principles, are the Chinese Communist Leaders doing? Where is it said in communism that leading a party and governing an administration is an employment? The Chinese communist leaders know that they have gone far with their crimes against communism and socialism, and that the world's revenge is soon to come upon them. That is why, to divert attention and to bridge their really collapsing internal economics, China turns to invading and encroaching countries with resources. Indeed China was a mighty, trustworthy, civilized great nation, before Chairman Mao came into power. The cruelties and murders of the millennium old dynasties were nothing when compared to the mean, treacherous slaughters of the Communist Regime. Then they began to export not communism but cruelty to other peaceful nations. India, Nepal, Tibet, Burma, Hong Kong, Philippines- all these nations and their people well know that China is a mad rogue nation now, becoming very similar to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran, perhaps more despotic. What the world hoped would prevent the aggression of China were the two great democracies in the world- America and India. But heavy Chinese investment in their nation made the Americas passive. Prospects of arrival of huge capitals as Yuan made India silent.

048.

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

11 May, 2012 11:34 AM IST

Many people think China is prospering but it is a momentary rise because it is unaccompanied by a resultant cultural rise. No great literature, art, music or philosophy is emerging from China. Economic prosperity unaccompanied by cultural upliftment is hollow, unstable and absurd. It is like developing the muscles of a single hand through rigid, non-stop exercising while those in the legs, abdomen, shoulders, back and neck remains as of yore. It is kind of unproportionate, unnatural, unstable state of psyche, close to sickness. Great philosophers in India, China and Greece condemned such development. Many modern day philosophers also have taught the dangers of unspiritual prosperity, which was what brought the mighty Roman Empire down. It is the mind, free thought and unhindered will that brings about, nourishes and retains a healthy civilization. So, what economic development we now are shown from China is ballooned up, a mirage which will vanish and expose the harsh realities, just like the underlying poverty of the Big Brother in Russia was exposed once the state’s suppressive propaganda collapsed. It is a real fact that majority of the Chinese population oppose their government’s almost all actions publicly or in their minds. Where there is a vent, their anger steams out. The world also knows that it is because of the brutal policing by the Chinese Communist Party that the government there is not toppled by people. By no standards is it now a peaceful and quiet nation. Embracing Dalai Lama and shaking hand with the Premiere on the back is the foreign policy of these two nations. What the world hoped would prevent the aggression of China were the two great democracies in the world- America and India. It was the American Freedom Struggle that inspired Europe to freedom. It was the Indian Struggle for Independence that liberated Africa. What are a few soiled Yuan notes when compared to the glorious moments in human history? But the world people now have learned about the pact between these great democracies and the last existing autocracy. That is why people now turn to the online internet highway as a last measure and that is exactly why China deletes people’s websites. The world well knows, it is people versus government there, unsupported by the world.

049. Japan town set to restart Nuclear reactors. TOKYO: The assembly in a western Japanese town that hosts a nuclear plant agreed on Monday it was necessary to restart two off-line reactors, its chairman said, the first such nod since all the country's stations were halted after Fukushima crisis.

Reuters | May 15, 2012, 05.48AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/Japan-town-set-to-restart-Nuclear-reactors/articleshow/13143699.cms

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

15 May 2012 02:25 AM IST

When in 1970 Japan had only two nuclear power plants, in 2012 it has 50 such power plants, meeting Japan’s 30% power requirements. Closing of their last power plant in May 5th 2012 was an occasion of celebration for its people. Even though the people living in towns housing these plants are somewhat reluctant to see these plants going out of action for fear of losing jobs and subsidies, 99% of the Japanese seem to rejoice in the closing of these nuclear power plants. Statistics show that if the people there can conserve 30% power, there would be no need for these power plants in Japan, or anywhere in this world for that matter. The Japanese government and their parliamentarians like to think and like to picture that the people there are divided on this issue. The Japanese authorities simply do not want to close this source of easy energy and they do not wish to heat their heads over the problem of how and from where energy can be tapped, once this source of nuclear energy dries up due to people’s opposition. The people of Japan have every right to oppose nuclear reactors. For 65 years these people are going through the pain of diseases caused from atomic radiation. At one time, even fishes in the rivers there had developed three heads. Japanese women still fear if children would be born with no head at all. A few young power-hungry politicians in their towns administrations and in their central government can demand restarting the closed nuclear power plants in Japan because their fathers and mothers were living abroad safely in 1945.

050.

P.S.Remesh Chandran. (Trivandrum)

15 May, 2012 02:43 AM IST.

Countries which have nuclear reactors experience heavy difficulties in disposing of their nuclear waste. News of ships roaming the oceans flying the flags of the countries or obscure flags for that matter is not news to the world. No sensible port in this world will allow them to berth even for refueling or for replenishing stores. They are like the ghost ship in the ‘Rime Of The Ancient Mariner’, every harbour forbidden to their berthing. We will wonder who would enlist willingly for working in these ships. Perhaps they might be being manned by the death-row prisoners of those countries, forcefully recruited clandestinely. Why can’t these countries which are skilled enough to design, install and run a nuclear power plant unable to process and dispose their waste in their own countries? They themselves know well the ghosts of these deadly materials used and dead will come back to their people. Spent fuel is the main waste of a nuclear reactor which is a cocktail of plutonium, strontium and caesium, all deadly. Exposure to them for 15 minutes at a distance of 30 feet will leave a person dead. Countries like USA store them in the original form of spent nuclear rods in 1 meter concrete-covered, double-walled stainless-steel tanks, immersed in deep water reservoirs, and cooled continuously at very low temperatures for 50 years, which is temporary storing. Someday, when science becomes able and equipped enough to find a permanent solution to store them safely for a thousand years, they will remove these deadly canisters from temporary storing to a more permanent kind of storing. In Britain they keep it in the molten form inside concrete-covered steel tanks, water-cooled without stop. In France they mix it with silica and boron and heat to 1500 degrees of centigrade, almost making it glass which is them stored in concrete-surrounded steel containers, cooled down continuously and stored temporarily, always fearing when they would corrode away and leak. A 2000 megawatt nuclear reactor will produce 30 such canisters each year and one can imagine what a vast and enormous kind of deadly arsenal the nuclear countries of the world is storing away for the coming generations of a thousand years. 50 years’ satisfaction and pleasure for an abundance of electrical energy for the presently living generation, and a 1000 years’ agony and calamity for the coming unborn generations. Are we blind brutes to utilize a power source without being able to dispose of its byproducts safely and permanently?

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[Updated as on 28 May 2012]