Article on Science
NANO-TECHNOLOGY
Meera Swaien
Meera Swaien
INTRODUCTION
Nanoscience and nanotechnology involve studying and working with matter on an ultra small scale. It is a technology that creates small materials at the scale of molecules by manipulating single atoms. Many scientific and technological advances have been made recently that depend on the properties of materials at a very very small scale. Such technological advances are known as “nanotechnology”, the prefix ‘nano’ being derived from the Greek word ‘nanos’, which means dwarf.
Image source- http://musreg.name/?p=36
HISTORY
The term “nanotechnology” was defined by Tokyo science university professor Norio Taniguchi in a 1974 paper as follows: Nanotechnology mainly consist of the processing of separation, consolidation and deformation of materials by one atom or one molecule. In 1980s the basic idea of the definition was explored in much more depth by Dr. Eric Drexler, who promoted the technological significance of nano-scale phenomena and devices through speeches and books.
The amount of data, which can be stored per square centimeter, has doubled each year for the last decade. The reading head of a current hard disk drive uses the effect of giant magneto resistivity (GMR) to sense the recorded magnetic data.GMR sensors use metallic stripes, less than 2nm thick, whi -ch are extremely sensitive to changes in magnetic fields. These are connected electrically to the disk drive electronics.
Some of the newer products that incorporate nanotechnology include biosensors, devices that can analyze blood composition to detect disease and illness, longer life tennis balls, glasses that cleans itself, rocket propellant that burns at double the normal rate, super tough automobile and plane coatings and fuel additives that improves fuel consumption and lead to reduces emission of noxious exhaust gases.
IMPACT
Nanotechnology is currently the subject of much research and study, and as a result it is developing rapidly. It has great potential for producing improvements and innovations in many areas of life like:
- New and improved health treatments.
- Reduced use of some harmful or scarce resources.
- Cleaner ,faster and safer manufacturing
- Increased life cycle of products.
SCALE
Nanotechnology occurs at the order of nanometer (symbol: nm), that is from 0.1nm to around 100nm (which is 0.00000001 to 0.00001 cm)i.e. it is defined as one billionth of a meter ,which is a thousandth of millionth of a meter ,or 1*10^-9 m. To put it another way, a nanometer is about: as wide as a DNA molecule, how much our fingernails grow each second, 1/80,000 the diameter of an average human hair!!
NATURE
Nature is the master of operating at the nanoscale –it has always depended on nanoscale operations for the functioning of life, for example: the metabolic activities within cells that sustain life: the fertilization of an embryo in reproduction; and the interaction of cellular components foe cell movement, to name a few. The ecosystem is another natural system, which is heavily dependent on nanotechnology –nano particles are important in the formation of both rain and snow.
TECHNOLOGY
There are many familiar products and machines that we use everybody which already rely on nanotechnology: the most obvious of these the computer hard disk drives, which relies on various nanotechnologies to record and read date. These in turn will have beneficial socio-economic and environmental effects. However as with any advance, there is always the prospect of unwanted knock-on effects too. These can be avoided only if there is an informed understanding and debate within society as a whole.
Nanotechnology is broad term that can describe any science and technology where structures of the order of a nanometer play a critical role, and as a result many different areas including electronics, magnetism, biotechnology, material science, medicines and health care, environmental science and textiles. The diversity of the disciplines involved means that often grouping of similar technologies emerge and develop their own focus.
Like it or not, nanotechnology is the next BIG THING.
Article on "importance of Water"
Water should be Everybody’s Business
Aroopjyoti Tripathy,
Graduate Student,
Ecological Engineering Program,
Purdue University,USA.
Purdue University,USA.
Numerous tales have been told about rich kings who were richer than the Gods and of poor beggars who survived days without food, but never has a story been told of any man who has lived without “Water”. If the soul is the one which gives life to a body, water is a major entity that helps in sustaining this life. In simple terms, “Water is Life”. I strongly support the notion that water should be everybody’s business.
Water not only sustains life, but it also sustains our economies. Agriculture and industries both require water being operational. Outside the human needs, fresh water is required to keep the ecosystems healthy. Most importantly water makes three fourth of the earth’s surface and balances the biophysical makeup of the planet. It is because of water that life has been possible on this planet.
Courtesy- http://vickiemarana.blogspot.com
Rainfall along with the ice and glacier caps happens to be the main sources of world’s fresh water, both blue and green. But in today’s world, global climate change has lead to anomalies in rainfall pattern and it has also lead to melting of the ice caps, posing a threat to world’s water resources; and to make things worse, the ever increasing human population and his development, has lead to increase in fresh water demand. Now if we consider water as a necessary commodity, which is required to sustain life, then these changes in the world’s climate and rapid anthropological developments has brought about disturbances in the water supply and demand balance. With the demand for water going up, the supply has been going down, which is gradually pushing the planet into terrible water stressed scenario.
With imbalances being caused and clean fresh water becoming a costly commodity, it has become so, that today “Water flows towards the Rich”. Such a trend will cause the poor to suffer economically and will ultimately starve him to his obliteration. It has become a need of the hour to make access to fresh water a birth right for all human beings.
People should understand the importance of water for themselves, for the society and for the creation as a whole. Every man should be provided access to fresh water, but more importantly each one of us should be made accountable for the water we use and the water we waste. Only if water is made everybody’s business, and all men realize how important water is for us, we stand a chance to fight together and alleviate the world of its current water crisis. After all, someone has correctly said, “Thousands have lived without Love, but none without Water”.
Article on World Peace
Factorial viewpoint of (non-)existent world peace
Ananta Kar
Ananta Kar
According to the UN, 21st September 2009 was International Peace Day. In fact, it is the same day every year. It was planned first in 1981 and was celebrated for the first time in September 1982. Remember the peace dove? Yeah, it is the dove’s day. On this day, each country on the planet-4 is expected to keep the war weapons aside and try to help peace prevail across all the 7 continents and 5 oceans. At national and international levels, this is surely a different day than an as usual one; no need to worry about missile testing, nuclear weapons, might be a special day for a soldier safeguarding the border of his country that he can sleep peacefully this one night. Actually, if a look is thrown on to statistics, it can be inferred, after its inception, the effort towards planetary peace has expedited in some parts of the globe. But moving down the level of hierarchy, when we reach at personal level, do we feel this day as a different one! We have the same routine life, no holiday. So why should we celebrate peace for that one day! Other viewpoints can be like, International peace day! Huh! What big deal in this? What will change on a single day? Any optimistic person can easily answer this one theoretically. The most common answer would come from the other side saying someday it got to start and let this one be the day. The mission of achieving world piece will get stronger and more appealing as the days progress. Moving on to the practical side of this answer, how many of us really believe in world peace, do we want to have it or it is just another word we try to repeat every time when required! Here, “we” starts from you, me, friends, our community, near and far relatives, the people we know, the people we don’t know, people across seven seas and people of every religion to the set of individuals of every continent. If we talk about the phenomena called world piece, the whole world is taken as a family and all of us are the elements of this we. Celebrating peace at international level is just a start which can never be complete without being implemented at lower levels. Many of the good things start from a lower level and move up, the process of establishing world peace if started at personal and inter-personal levels would be the easiest of all difficult approaches.
May the difference be a minute or a significant one, each person is no indifferent from another when exposed to events. The most important one can be considered as behavioral or characteristics difference. In a given situation, one person might act wisely enough to handle the occurrence of events in a smooth and peaceful way where as, a different person might invite trouble for not acting in a proper way. There is absolutely no way to eliminate these kinds of differences in each and every part of the globe. Such differences many a times lead to disputes starting from differences in views and opinions. While heading for a global peaceful environment, some things needed to be taken care of. One of them is conflict-free or peaceful interaction at lower levels. Some say, trust is the base of peaceful personal interaction. Some say, there got to be a shared language and an open channel of communication with an understandable value evaluation where both sender and receiver will be synchronized upon a matter. Some say, its religion, further dividing to inter-religion and intra-religion ones. To support the view, they throw light on history to remind again the war in Ireland between Roman Catholic and Protestants, conflicts between Shias and Sunni in Islamic arena. The process of finding such factors is a continuous one. In my view, how about the approach given by Mario Puzzo, the great writer, in one of the greatest fictions till date! Let’s reason with people. While negotiating with a person, understand his needs properly, be honest, know your limitations, act accordingly and lead to a win-win situation. This will definitely help in any kind of situation where disputes are likely to happen.
Change is the only constant thing and at any point, things are changing radically with the conversion process of present to past and future to present. Individuals believe they are in the midst of a significant change, planning and preparing for emergency escape routes at the right time. Subject is not on fringe survivalists. It is about the types of people in a corporate world. Those people, who are good entrepreneurs, those who have good jobs in government and private or public sectors, those who are essential parts of successful companies and those people with some source of earning with families and mortgages are, in a world, distinctly unpeaceful in current time. They are baffled, hesitant, lacking in confidence, concerned, fearful. They run on their routine lives but, do look up towards the sky in speculation of what is next there for me. There is always a never ending negatively inclined curiosity. These factors can be said to be one of the biggest robbers of the wealth called mental peace at personal level. Personal peace leads to inter-personal peace. To achieve the goal “world peace” the beginning has to be strong and a serious thought is to be given by each individual for building a healthy and peaceful social environment.
Picture Courtesy- http://positivekismet.blogspot.com
Moving on to the international arena, there have been several peace pacts in the world history over the last century. Alongside, the differences in peace theories have been obstacles since the very beginning. Democratic peace theory has been controversial and in accordance to its proponents, there is existence of strong enough empirical evidences proving democracies haven’t and won’t ever or rarely indulge in war with each other. Despite of every variation, all the theories that are referred to as democratic peace theory (DPT), often, used to refer only to the original conjecture, disregarding later developments in the theory. Such theories are often referred as liberal peace or perpetual peace or the Kantian peace theory in honor of Immanuel Kant, who proposed an earlier and useful version of the theory. Several researchers have worked on experimentation of the behaviour of this theory and they too have inferred the fact of lowest probability of any war between well-established liberal democracies. Doesn't matter if it is trivial or controversial, all that ends good, most of the times produces good results. If the democratic peace theory helps a progress towards the ultimate goal in right direction, there is no harm in looking forward along its line of existence and trying to increase its scope. On the contrary, some propose that the capitalist peace theory is a better solution to the problem. The security dilemma implies that insecurity is an everlasting facet in international affairs. As each country on the earth is fearful and concerned for its own security, insecurity is predicated on the expectation that there are some countries that are revisionist powers. Even the pessimistic conceptions of world affairs seem to be more sanguine as the assumption that insecurity is ubiquitous and immutable if taken on a relaxed note. The act of promoting open international markets and continuously monitoring the direction in which it advances will help spreading capitalism and will help encourage peace as well as prosperity. They say it has its bad side too but quite less! Many enemies of economic liberty also stridently denounce war, often in near pacifist terms and yet they oppose the very economic policies most likely to encourage peace. The peace theorists have a task in their queue, that is to identify when and how nations can be liberated from the security dilemma they are in. Here they try to argue and prove that the resolution of insecurity can be achieved by creating powerful pacifists and capitalism comes into picture right here. This theory says countries that possess military strength ensure that they are mutually exclusive with outside influence or domination. But, in my view, it is not a very effective solution as under certain circumstances, they lack incentives to act aggressively abroad when there is a real need to do so. Another peace theory is the communist peace theory. There are certain other theories like communist peace theory and globalization, but these are not proven to be very effective and would be difficult to implement.
In my view, it is next to impossible to achieve worldwide peace. But if a serious effort has to be given, then first and easiest approach would be self-organized peace at personal level, trying to improve the state of mental peace in an individual. If we compare the model to the structure of internet, as internet is a network of networks, a network of peace has to be structured in subsequent steps. Every conflict doesn't start with an explosion of a nuclear bomb. If tried, almost all of the conflicts can be avoided at the first step. Such a global conflict-free environment will help the mankind avoiding a possible extinction. Let peace prevail.
Article on Share Market
Value Investing
Prasanna Sabat
Don’t gamble, buy ownership. Don’t make money, create wealth. Remove fear and greed from the mind. Buy when everybody is selling and vice versa. People buy a share at 100 Rs but when everybody is selling and its price crashed to 60 Rs they fear to buy again, but when everybody is buying and it goes to 120 Rs they make a queue to buy again. Buy with conviction for the company on its business value not on the rumors or others prospective on it. Patience is the key. When you have bought share of the company you should understand its business, the ideal scenario can be like you should be able to understand (substantiate with your knowledge) on its every business decision published in public domain. Otherwise you might have caught a big fish but would have sold it much before its adulthood. A small example you must have received through many forward mails that, what is the current value of your investment if you have invested ten thousand rupees in Infosys IPO when it was launched in early nineties. It would be more than one crore that is the power of compound interest. But we mostly have lack of patience to realize that true potential.
Now how to find the intrinsic value?
That’s why such areas like ‘Company Valuation’, ’Security Analysis’, ’Financial Management’ exists and thousands of people are doing research on those. But that is learnable by anyone. You don’t need ten such (Infosys IPO) opportunities in your life time.
How to control greed and fear before taking such decisions: explore ‘Behavioral Finance’, one of the most fascinating subjects in finance I have ever come across which has profound use in our day to day life.
****
Prasanna Sabat
Value investing is an investment strategy for investing in stocks or equity. This philosophy can teach you few more points which can be used in your daily life. The scope of the discipline is very large. This is a huge area to write an introduction concisely. The objective of this article is to churn few drops from the ocean and a casual read for a novice investor.
This is a concept or strategy followed by some of the legendary investors who have made their fortune from the stock market. I am trying to explain the same from the knowledge by reading those investment philosophies from their books or other sources. This is something like training your mind and temperament in that direction. There is no shortcut or formula. If you are looking for some tips on some equity or fund or sector, pick for your portfolio; chuck it and move on.
Suppose you want to buy a cow what will you do? Look out for all the places or people selling a cow, right! When you are buying the cow you must have a price in mind depending on your criteria. Even if you know that a particular variety of cow (C1) giving x liters of milk per day costs you a thousand rupees you will definitely try to do some bargain. You will look out for someone who is buying in distress (like he has urgent need of money and selling in lower price). You will check the health of the cow, how much you have to feed and how was her past milk output etc etc.
After finally buying the cow you must have thought how you are going to deal with her. Like just milk her for the season and dispose or take good care of her and also milking her for next generation. But whatever it may be you can give me ten good points on why you bought her. You will never buy a cow just because everybody is buying. You will never make a queue to buy the cow without checking the price tag or without checking its worthiness. You will never pay double the price of the cow thinking you will again sell or milk her to its triple price. Just compare this with your experience with buying a stock in your last few transactions. Can you write ten points on why you owned that share? Do you know the right price of that share or have you bought it less than that or more than that…! Now you must have got some idea on what is value investing. It’s simple but not easy. This is the concept followed by people hundred years before and still this holds good even today.
Don’t gamble, buy ownership. Don’t make money, create wealth. Remove fear and greed from the mind. Buy when everybody is selling and vice versa. People buy a share at 100 Rs but when everybody is selling and its price crashed to 60 Rs they fear to buy again, but when everybody is buying and it goes to 120 Rs they make a queue to buy again. Buy with conviction for the company on its business value not on the rumors or others prospective on it. Patience is the key. When you have bought share of the company you should understand its business, the ideal scenario can be like you should be able to understand (substantiate with your knowledge) on its every business decision published in public domain. Otherwise you might have caught a big fish but would have sold it much before its adulthood. A small example you must have received through many forward mails that, what is the current value of your investment if you have invested ten thousand rupees in Infosys IPO when it was launched in early nineties. It would be more than one crore that is the power of compound interest. But we mostly have lack of patience to realize that true potential. Next thing is risk. Value investing is low risk high gain phenomenon. Yes low risk high gain that is why it’s against the conventional wisdom but it’s true. Just think over it; if you can understand. A true value (intrinsic value in value investing terminology) of a share is Rs 100. If one person X is buying this at Rs 40 and another Y at Rs 60; who has more risk? Of course Y has more risk; who will gain more? Of course X.
Again risk is a relative term according to most of the investors but here risk is an absolute term. This is little tricky to understand. Your risk is losing all your money (for X its Rs 40 and for Y Rs 60) and gain is reaching your intrinsic value (for X its Rs 60 and Y Rs 40).
That’s why such areas like ‘Company Valuation’, ’Security Analysis’, ’Financial Management’ exists and thousands of people are doing research on those. But that is learnable by anyone. You don’t need ten such (Infosys IPO) opportunities in your life time.
How to control greed and fear before taking such decisions: explore ‘Behavioral Finance’, one of the most fascinating subjects in finance I have ever come across which has profound use in our day to day life.
****
Festivals of Odisha
Dhanu Jatra
Sudhansu Sekhara
That time he can summon any person to his Darbar by exercising his kingly power. Dhanu Yatra is part of rich cultural heritage in Orissa. It’s not only the festival with a noble consequence of social harmony, friendship and brotherhood, but also it has great iconic importance of celebrating the victory of righteousness over evil.
Sudhansu Sekhara
Dhanu Jatra, is considered as world's biggest open air play. It is held in Baragarh town of Sambalpur (Now is a district) of Western Orissa. The grandest festival falls on Pausha Purnima (Full moon day in the month of Pausha) in winter season and lasts for seven to eleven days. In the festival, the whole Baragarh town turns into a massive open-air theatre. The main crux behind this festival is to celebrate the victory of Lord Krishna over Kans, the demon. The festival decorates Baragarh town as the epic town of Mathura (Birth Place of Lord Krishna); where the local river Jira turns into river Yamuna and the village Amapalli turns into Gopa pur native of Srikrishna.
The holy festival started in the year 1949 although opinions vary in this regard. Few people opine that it started in eightieth century. Whatever the commencing period of the festival in Baragarha may be, the cultural spirit has abided the mind and soul of the people of Sambalpur and Baragarha to celebrate the festival with gusto till date. In the very festival, as the whole town turns into a grand theater, the people also turn into actor and actresses of the mythological play. Few dress themselves as the main characters like Krishna, Radha Yashoda, Nanda, Balaram, Kansha etc and others dress themselves as people of Gopa and Mathura.
Picture Courtesy- http://www.navratnanews.com
In the festival, Kans takes the pivotal role and the whole village comes over the streets of bargarh to enjoy and participate. Kans moves around the town with his (sena) military strength and everyday he reaches out to specific location to sort out certain issues as the part of duty of a king which is called Nagar Parikrama. As he moves around the city, all levels of people (starting from lay man to the persons with high positions like Collector, DM, SP etc) attend his meeting (known as Kans Darbar).
Picture Courtesy- http://www.navratnanews.com
Esteemed Artist Sri Sudhansu Sekhara Satapathy
Guruji Sri Sudhansu Sekhara Satapathy
Honourable Artist Sri Sudhansu Sekhara Satapathy is an illustrious Spiritual artist who believes that meditation is an integral part of painting. He was born in 1955 in the state of Odisha in India. He was introduced to yoga at the age of eight by his maternal grandfather who was also instrumental in teaching him the basics of Ayurveda, astrology and various Hindu worship rituals such as Yagna. He completed his formal education in arts and four years of training in Khalikot Arts College in Berhempur. During early period of his painting career he came across his Spiritual Guide called as “Babaji” His Holiness Trailanga Swami. He was the direct disciple of “Babaji”. Esteemed Artist’s whole striving has been to connect his spiritual life with his creations. He says “The visualisation in deep meditation is what I depict in my art.” He had created many marvelous art works on the Bhagvat Geeta, Raaga-Raginis(Indian forms of music), Sri Aurobondo’s Epic “Savitri”. During his detailed work on Savitri, when he finished 72 paintings on abstract mysticism, he simultaneously concentrated on ancient Indian literature- Vedas and Vedantas. He started studying the vedas in original and after several years of intense concentration he started working on Vedic Mantras. He believes that the Vedic Mantras have a form that can be reproduced by a man who has both the technique to draw, the depth of knowledge to understand the Mantras and the right training to retain the image formed in deep meditation. By then the Honoured Artist had more than 20 years experience in meditation and yoga, had finished numerous paintings and had gone through several books on Indian philosophy, often discussing with other great masters. In 1989 he worked on Rig Veda. The Rig Veda is considered one of the four sacred books of Hinduism and held with high regard by the learned. While working on Vedic verses he started exploring methods of Vedic teaching and education. The Talent Research and Vedic Education Center founded by him in 1989 situated at Bhubaneswar has been growing as the hub of Vedic way of teaching. In this institute according to the Vedic system a student learns under a master or Guru various aspects of knowledge like yoga, art, painting, medicine and identification of medicinal plants and karmakanda (upliftment through action and worship).
