Trek to Matheran!

While staying in Mumbai, I had a fixed picnic schedule, two picnics in a calendar year. On 15th August and on 26th January, every year we had a unique picnic destination. The destinations were not as same as any others were. We often breezed through the city’s hotspot and stopping every place for a couples hours. A pattern often was like this, we started with Charni Road Chowpati, after a minuscule stop and a multicultural breakfast, we proceed to Malabar hill to Kamala Nehru Park. We used to stay there until late afternoon while had our equally interesting homemade lunch. Then we took a bus to Gateway of India, bus route too was very interesting. It was via Nariman point and then passed a few important structures before we reached GOI. We spend there a couple hours and of course, this time we had Bhel, it was too from our own kitty. Finally we came back to Victoria Terminus and then to our own destination. Therefore, when all looked for a picnic spot, for us it was no problem to find one. We liked trekking and we always tried to find a trekking destination, specially on 15th August. We were amateur trekker, every time we ventured, we found it very difficult. Every time we decided to put a full stop to it but once, we back and within twenty-four hours, we planned for the next one.

I visited Matheran twice, once with my neighbours and next with my buddies. Both the visits were memorable for different reasons. Our plan for Matheran was not as per schedule, we gone there in mid nineties, it was neither on 15th August nor on 26th January. We gone there on Dussera day, it was somewhere in mid October. I had another memorable trip before. So, when we friends decided to go to Matheran on foot, that was not the first one for me. There are three ways one can reach Matheran. Take any Karjat local from Mumbai V. T. and get down at Neral.  Once you reached Neral station, you can trek or you can enjoy a toy train ride and you can go there by a taxi too. No modern days vehicles are allowed inside Matheran town. One go by taxi, have to get down at the gate of the town and then walk. Let me tell about the place.

Matheran Matheran is a town and a Hill Station in the state of Maharashtra. It is the smallest hill station in India. It is located on the Western Ghats range at an elevation of around 800 m  above sea level. It is located around 90 km from Mumbai. It is one of the few places in the world where vehicles are not allowed, which makes the place different from others. Because of vehicles being banned in Matheran, the place is quite peaceful despite the thousands of visitors coming to visit throughout the year. Matheran is connected by toy train to the mainline rail route at Neral Junction. Neral Junction is well connected by local trains from CST along the CST-Karjat route.

There are lots of lookout points that provide spectacular views of the surrounding hills and valleys. Matheran has a reasonably dense forest cover. There are around 38 designated look-out points in Matheran, including the Panorama Point that provides a 360 degree view of the surrounding area and also the Neral town. From this point, the view of sunset and sunrise is breathtaking. The Louisa Point offers crystal clear view of the Prabal Fort. The other points are the One Tree Hill Point, Hart Point, Monkey Point, Porcupine Point, Rambagh Point, and more. There is a Lake known as Lake Charlotte, it is the main source of Matheran's drinking water.

My first visit was with my neighbours, mainly remembered for the glitches and that made the trip very interesting. We gone there and back by a toy train and stayed there for two days. Second time it was for one day and by foot. My niece was visiting me and we decided to go to Matheran. We started from Dombivili at six in the morning and got a return ticket for Neral but when we about to reach Neral we found the ticket given to us was for Nerul that was at the other side, towards New Mumbai. We have to fool the T.C and managed ourselves out. Trekking was not easy yet by eleven we reached there. It was one of my best expedition of course trekking to Valley of Flowers was incomparable. Evening we started at five but this time we were not on foot, we took a cab to come down. It took us only half hour to reach Neral station. On our way back,  we saw film star Dev Anand, who too was going down in his car. We took a train back to Dombivli and we return with same ticket. I don’t thing it can be branded as cheating, wrong tickets that given to us for Nerul, pinched our pockets more than Neral.

!!!Life without a backpack, is boring to the power infinity.!!!

         

Gold Digger

In my earlier days in Jamshedpur, we were having a wonderful helping hand. She was honest and hardworking woman, a few decades gone by yet she is still intact in my memory as it was. While she used to slog whole day, her husband, he was ‘good for nothing’. He was drinking heavily and doing nothing except occasionally selling coals in baskets. I had no idea from where he managed those stuff. Those days people used to cook in handmade oven and coal used as main source of energy for cooking. His price was lower than the market price, It took many years for me to understand how it was possible. But it was always happened with our natural resources. Illegal mining always exists with the help of political patronage. It is considered to be a free for all commodities, peoples work in of those sectors like Coal India and others are minting money.

Welcome to the world of different sort of corruption in India. Iron ore was illegally exported to china through ports of southern India and payment is made through more than 4000 banks account. Damage to environment can not be calculated. Politicians in several states are accused of enriching themselves or their friends. The list will be endless, here are the states rich with different type of ores and minerals. We had enough on the air, and on the ground,  now it is time for some underground activity.

Karnataka

The illegal iron ore mining and export scam in Karnataka is estimated to be to the tune of Rs 60,000 crore. Referring to the disappearance of five lakh tonnes of iron ore seized at Belekeri port, as well as the one in Karwar suggested around 35 lakh tonnes of illegal mining and exports between November and February.

Obulapuram Mining Company owned by G. Karunakara Reddy and G. Janardhana Reddy who are ministers in the Government of Karnataka,  alleged to have been legally mined after paying a minuscule royalty to the government. This ore exported to China and due to Chinese demand for iron ore is the cause behind the rising global iron-ore prices.

Finally Janardhana Reddy arrested on 6^th  september, 2011. It is to be seen if any way the Government could recover any money that lost. You cannot belive, these Reddy brothers donated forty one crore of public money to Tirupati Temple. Getting back this money to Government coffer, don’t dream it.

Jharkhand

A former chief minister of the state of Jharkhand, who is charged with extorting huge bribes in exchange for granting mining leases. More than 7000 hundred tonnes of coal is mined illegally across mineral rich Jharkhand every year.

There are some small time illegal miners too, lack of livelihood opportunities is forcing hundreds of poor Indians take up illegal mining in Jharkhand. Dozens of villages across Deogarh and Giridih districts, people engaged in illegal mining are poor village.

It is said, that Maoist too very active in tribal districts of Jharkhand - stepping into mining sector, imposing taxes on miners and also recruiting cadres from the poor families.

Rajasthan

Rajasthan tops the list of states where illegal mining takes place. Makrana, famous for its white marbles, has been going on flouting laws in the process of extraction of the precious stone. 

Orissa

Rich with its Quartz & Graphite, also in hotspot for illeagal mining. India's former environment minister Jairam Ramesh rejected the proposal by British-based resource giant Vedanta, to build an open-cast bauxite mine in the Niyamgiri Hill range in the state of Orissa..

Other states

Illegal mining in the Geer forest area in Junagadh district and illegal mining of  The Aravalli hills Range are the few others to be mentioned.

State wise  Fact File  (From Govt. Standing committee report)

Name of the State	Number of Mines	Important Minerals
Madhya Pradesh	128	Limestone & Bauxite
Uttar Pradesh	05	Silica Sand
Andhra Pradesh	308	Limestone, Quartz, Mica, Barite & China Clay
Karnataka	65	Limestone,      China      Clay, Moulding Sand & Quartz
Maharashtra	47	Silica Sand & Iron Ore
Bihar	54	Mica
Jharkhand	176	Mica, Fire Clay, Limestone, Iron Ore & China Clay
Chhattisgarh	10	Limestone
Meghalaya	04	Limestone
Assam	12	Limestone
Manipur	02	Chromite
Sikkim	01	Copper
Orissa	68	Quartz & Graphite
Rajasthan	251	Steatite, Silica Sand, Feldspar & Asbestos
Gujarat	391	Bauxite, Chalk, Limestone, Fire Clay, Silica Sand & White Clay

!!!On Air, on earth or underground, Corruption in India has no barrier.!!!

Jumping on the Bandwagon

Moving towards the wind direction is an easy task and I will take it as an advantage if my destination is in the same direction, otherwise I will fight against the all the odd and try to move to my way. I will never change my direction to gain an advantage. Often peoples find it easy to move with a wave even they do not understand it. I am not a political person and not having any political inclination. I believe in good governance and always go for the right person, obliviously honest and a sincere one. Hard to find one but lucky that still we having some around us.

I have not against Jan Lokpal bill and I, myself supported it in my blog ‘http://beeebeees.blogspot.com/2011/04/for-people-by-people.html’, but found the recent agitation is an irritating one. Specially things started since Ramdev and his so-called hunger strike, which was perhaps, was like ‘make hay while sun shines’. Apart from a handful people, all others hardly having anything to do with it or really understand it. At the Ramlila Maidan, many people may have gone there to have a decent meal, or on a picnic. Some of those are so dumber as they described the agitation as same as Egypt. These are the some quality of the peoples who gathered at Ramlila, they even unaware of the meaning of democracy and constitution.

I was a very big admirer of Kiran Bedi, but her remark – ‘Anna is India and India is Anna’ suggests that either I misjudge her or she lost her sanity. No individual of any stature cannot rise above the country and whoever thinks it, is the dumbest of all. Of-course, she herself may be forgotten the lathi charge on the lawyers when she was in helm.

I was very fond of Om Puri  too, seen him first  as a frustrated young police officer in ‘Ardha Satya’ and then memorize with his comic timing in ‘Jane Bhi Do Yarron’ as builder Ahuja and then there were many. It seems he is good at while reading out the written script otherwise he too lost his mental balance, he gone all the way to Ramlila Maidan to  serve people with some desi slang’s, some of those dialog can be heard in third grade movies. Is this is the face of the people who are in the middle of a mass movement? Thank god, there was no media coverage when our freedom fighter fought. To Anupam Kher, you may be comfortable with it but sorry using slang’s is not my culture.

I am not against Anna Hazzare but felt some of his ways are not correct. Often felt like that his way of presurising is some sort of blackmailing the government. There is no doubt about it that he is honest and wanted to see India free from all sort of corruption. I myself never do a job if paid extra bit and never go for under table activity that does not mean I am an honest. Giver too is a criminal as good as taker. How many of us will stand in a long queue when service available instantly if we throw away a few bucks. Temples in our country practicing same thing, the wealthy well-known peoples are going there and taking the backdoor to get a darshan while ordinary people left stranded in the serpentine queue for same purpose. Same people will go back to Twitter or Facebook and then write a great on liner. Paid or taken, it should be treated equally.

Bottom Line : Why Anna Hazzare kept the religious bodies out of Jan Lokpal bill? Those are the biggest cheater, who are exploiting the religious belief of the people and amassing exuberant wealth.

!!!If giver does not exists there will be no taker, STOP GIVING!!!

End of $ Domination?

During my one year stay in Baghdad was a most irritating one, not because it was a worst destination to stay over but because I was not having any financial independence. Iraqi dinar was not having any face value and so my salary  has to transferred to home via some other gateways, thank god I was working for a multi-national company and not for an Iraqi company. Whatever we needed to stay afloat in Iraq we took home and rest we send home either via Dubai or via Saudi Arabia. We hardly took a chance to keep extra bit for our necessities. It happened always, whenever we set out, we needed handful dollars,  therefore, we always preferred to measure the currencies from different part of the world with dollar but in future thing may be not as same as it was. End of dollar domination with the downgrading of US Government credit rating from the top level 'AAA' to the AA+ category by credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P.). Agencies also threaten to degrade the listing of the United States one step (from AAA to AA+  from Standard & Poor’s from AAA to Aa1 from Moody’s), in the next three months if the debt ceiling is raised in the short term, but a consensus is reached.

 What is credit rating?

Bond credit rating assesses the credit worthiness of a government debt issues. The credit rating is a financial indicator to potential investors of debt securities such as bonds.

Standard & Poor

In 1941, Henry Varum Poor's H.V and H.W Poor company merged with Luther Lee Blake founded the Standard Statistics Bureau and to become Standard & Poor's Corp. In 1966, the company was acquired by The McGraw-Hill Companies, and now encompasses the Financial Services division. The big three ratings agencies  are Standard & Poor, Moody's, and Fitch.

Where India stand

There is an Indian touch in America’s credit-rating degrading, the S & P chief is an Indian-American but what will be the impact on Indian economy.

Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee described the downgrading of the US government by a credit rating agency as a "grave situation" and said it has to be analysed. This comes a day after, in India, the BSE Sensex plunged more than 700 points before recovering partially with investors selling across the board.

Exports of garments, handicrafts, leather, gems and jewellery and IT are likely to be the most affected, the Federation of Indian Exporters (FIEO) said. Most of India's $50 billion of IT and services exports end up in the US.

The other side of the downgrade is that it may encourage more investment to flow to countries like India. India has seen a drop in long-term foreign investment from around $35 billion two years ago to $25 billion last year.

Country	Oct 2010.	Oct  2009.	Oct 2008.
1	China	906.8	938.3
2	Japan	877.4	742.9
3	U.K	477.6	105.7
19	India	41.1	35.8

China is topping the groups, currently has more than 1000 billion dollars of U.S. Treasury bonds.  If China decided to sell immediately but there would be no buyers. India ranked 19 with about 50 billion dollars.

!!!This piece is a teaser,  by 2050,  `1 equal to $76, hard to believe but may be a reality.!!!

Point Blank!!

Strange world of human nature, as every souls are armed with a unique quality, it is very difficult  task to read through everyone mind. Exceptions are there, as some are like a crystal, we can read in out but in principal it is though job than studying complex Mathematics. Often we look at a person and can judge instantly but mostly are not so easy. Guessing a person whom we known for years are an impossible task.

My exploration with unknown places and unknown faces always gone down well, lucky soul indeed. Often we may sitting with a good looking fellow with a breathtaking smile face and a friendly approach, obviously we would jump to the conclusion by adopting a positive judgment about the person, but it could be a person like Anders Behring Breivik. Everyday we are moving with scores people, we never aware of the fact that a manic may be prowling around us  

London Riots

Recent London riots made me feel as I am watching one of the classic written by Charles Dickens, specially reminds me the every frame of Oliver Twist. Recent riots in London,  pulling down the curtain from concealed criminality that are brewing in European society.

It was long due, lately when David Cameron Government declared a three-fold increase in university tuition fees, raising them from £ 3,000 to £ 9,000, thus depriving low income families of the opportunity to send their kids to universities to get higher education. Growing unemployment and other social issues are the main cause for the riot. British Government spending billions on the war on terror, spending billions on troops that stationed in aboard and ignoring job-led economic growth.

It all started with killing a black man by police. Mark Duggan was suspected of being one of the founding members of  a Gang and has been depicted by the media as both an innocent father of four, murdered by  police. A bullet recovered from an attending police officers radio, initially supposed to have been fired by Duggan, was later found to be a police issue bullet, making the event stink of a cover-up.

The truth about Duggan’s lifestyle is in fact as yet unknown to the public, with conflicting stories from his relatives claiming he had only been involved in minor crime in the past and was trying desperately to live right and stay out of jail, and anonymous locals claiming he sold crack on street corners.

OSLO Bombing and Massacre

A lone political extremist, Anders Behring Breivik, bombed the government center here killing 7 people, then headed to an island summer camp for young members of the governing Labor Party and killing at least 80 people.

Anders Behring Breivik, a 32-year-old Norwegian national, claims to be a fan of Winston Churchill, classical music and gory movies like, "300," and "Gladiator,"

He also claims to be a fan of the sappy HBO vampire drama, "True Blood," and the serial killer show, "Dexter."

List of some Deadliest Campus Shootings

On April 16, 2007, on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Seung-Hui Cho, killed 32 people and wounded 25 others before committing suicide.

August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman points a rifle from the observation deck of the University of Texas at Austin's Tower and begins shooting in a homicidal rampage that goes on for 96 minutes. Sixteen people are killed, 31 wounded.

Gang Lu, a graduate student in physics from China, reportedly upset because he was passed over for an academic honour, Nov. 1, 1991, he opens fire in two buildings on the University of Iowa campus. Five University employees killed, including four members of the physics department, two other people are wounded. The student fatally shoots himself.

University of Arizona Nursing College student and Gulf War veteran Robert Flores, walks into an instructor's office on Oct. 28, 2002 and fatally shoots her and then. a few minutes later, armed with five guns, he enters one of his nursing classrooms and kills two more of his instructors before fatally shooting himself.

Douglas W. Pennington, in Sept. 2, 2006, he kills himself and his two sons, Logan P. Pennington and Benjamin M. Pennington during a visit to the campus of Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Va.

Peter Odighizuwa, a Graduate student , when dismissed from Virginia's Appalachian School of Law, on January 16, 2002, he returns to the campus and kills the dean, a professor and a student before being tackled by students. The attack also wounds three female students.

Frederick Martin Davidson a graduate engineering student at San Diego State, August 15, 1996, he was defending his thesis before a faculty committee when he pulls out a handgun and kills three professors.

Bottom Line :

The innocent and precious life succumb by the numerous terror attacks and the planted bomb by the mindless terrorist and it seems all prevention measures are falling flat.

!!!Today, an innocent life like a rabbit, experimented equally by the power and the devil to show their superiority.!!!

Massacred by the (power)^2

Every contemporary accessories and gadgets are there to fulfill one’s need. As technology thrive forward and everyday it has given us a new invention but a few of them brings a lot of dangers along with the comfort package.

A simple example, a cell phone that is indispensable for each and every citizen of the world but this useful gadget too having some demerits in it. Today my topic in wider thing than a cell phone, it is about Nuclear Energy.

When Manmohan Singh’s Government own the debate for Indo US Nuclear Agreement in the Parliament emphatically, I was one of those happy person but at the same time the nuclear power plant stands on the border between humanity's greatest hopes and its deepest fears for the future. On one hand, atomic energy offers a clean energy alternative that frees us from the shackles of fossil fuel dependence. On the other, it summons images of disaster.

What it is all about

The process of generation nuclear power starts with the mining and processing of uranium and other radioactive elements. These elements are used to feed the reactor of a nuclear power plant, generating a reaction known as fission which creates intense heat, turning water in the plant into steam. The steam powers steam turbines, which generate electricity and feed the electricity into the electrical grid.

When nuclear power is used to power something like a submarine the reactor runs the engines, with the steam directly powering the engines. In both cases, the reactor requires careful supervision, because runaway nuclear reactions must be stopped as quickly as possible to prevent serious problems. Many nuclear power plants have extensive automated systems which help to identify potential trouble spots, and these systems can also re-route power, turn off parts of the plant, and perform other tasks which make the plant safer and cleaner. The water in the reactor also serves as a coolant for the radioactive material, preventing it from overheating and melting down.

Safety is both a pro and con, depending on which way you see it. The results of a compromised reactor core can be disastrous, but the precautions that prevent this from happening prevent it well. Nuclear power is one the safest methods of producing energy.

Disasters and severely effected areas

CHERNOBYL, Ukraine

It's estimated that up to 100,000 people died in the worst nuclear disaster ever and radiation levels are still 700 times greater than normal. The Chernobyl nuclear accident is widely regarded as the worst accident in the history of nuclear power. It is the only nuclear accident that has been classified a "major accident" by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Kyshtym, Russia

The Soviet Union was also home to the second-most disastrous nuclear accident, at the Mayak Nuclear Power Plant near the city of Kyshtym. IAEA classified the event as a Level 6 Disaster, which is a "serious accident."

Windscale Fire, Great Britain

Windscale fire occurred in 1957. It is estimated that 200 people in Britain developed cancer because of  Windscale, half of them fatal.

Three Mile Island, United States

The United States' most disastrous nuclear accident took place at the Three Mile Island Plant near Harrisburg, Penn., the state's capitol. It all began with a simple plumbing break down. 

Tokaimura, Japan

TOKAI POWER PLANT: In 1997, uranium from about 2,000 barrels escaped in a shaft at the plant.

THAR DESERT, RAJASTHAN, India: Used for five atomic tests as recently as 1998

FUKUSHIMA UPDATE: "It will take three, five, ten years, or eventually several decades to take care of the accident." Fukushima has been upgraded to a level 7 disaster.

I am not against it but after repeated disasters, government never learned the lesson. Yet there are some loophole in the necessary safety norms for prevention. Only sufferer are the peoples who are living in the surrounding areas of the said plants.

!!!Often demons of the comfort is bigger than the comfort itself.!!!

Superior or Inferior!

It is ridiculous to share space with the peoples who can discriminate others based on self-created superiority. Often it is financial superiority but more often, it is because of races and castes. An age-old cancerous problem in our so-called modern society. Every noble citizen of the world believes that it is a crime but never tried to solve the problem constructively. In Europe, USA and South Africa the division was based on the colour of screen. White breed always thought themselves superior to others only because they had the money and power.

In India, it is caste, how it came and on what basis I don’t want to spend a second for the fact. It is human nature to find something for which they can feel superior. It may be the other way to hide one’s inferior complexity. Even we Indians suffered in the hand of age-old casteism but racism was an unknown factor to us. In recent past, few states have shown that we are too not far behind in this criterion. Discrimination towards North Indians in Maharashtra and Assam is some of the important incidents to be mentioned. The recent past incidents are manufactured by some political parties and their leaders. The most disgusting breeds are the politicians, who wanted to gain popularity among local people to get a few extra votes, are dividing the nation base on races.

A few facts that make the world are not such a beautiful place to live on.

If we looked back to the history, Jews are the worst sufferer.

In 1290, King Edward I of England forces all Jews to leave England. The action enhances the king’s own coffers and reflects growing anti-Semitism in England. Then 1492 King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella expel all Jews and Moors, the Spanish Muslims from Spain. Hitler and Nazi Germany systematically attempt to eliminate the presence of Jews in Europe.

Discrimination against Red Indian.

Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks and Seminoles to leave the Southeast and move to Indian Territory in Oklahoma under the Indian Removal Act of 1830 under then USA president Andrew Jackson.

Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

Founded in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee, as a terrorist organization by veterans of the Confederate Army. They named it after the Greek word 'kuklos", which means circle. The members of the KKK started terrorizing black and some white leaders of social and political reform. Displaying fierce racial hatred, the Klansmen will harass, torture, and murder hundreds of newly enfranchised blacks who attempt to exercise the rights guaranteed to them by the federal government.

Apartheid in South Africa

The word apartheid means “separateness” in the Afrikaans language and it described the rigid racial division between the governing white minority population and the nonwhite majority population. The National Party introduced apartheid as part of their campaign in the 1948 elections, and with the National Party victory, apartheid became the governing political policy for South Africa until the early 1990s. Although there is no longer a legal basis for apartheid, the social, economic, and political inequalities between white and black South Africans continue to exist.

Casteism in India

Caste, rigid social system in which a social hierarchy is maintained generation after generation and allows little mobility out of the position to which a person is born. The term is often applied to the hierarchical hereditary divisions established among the Hindus on the Indian subcontinent.

Casteism in India - which we can easily define as the restriction of people's status in life to their caste of birth. It has also weakened Hindu society and made it vulnerable to conversion and other forms of fragmentation. Casteism says that if you are born of a brahmana family, then you are a brahmana, no matter whether you truly exhibit the genuine characteristics of a brahmana or not. Moreover, if you are also born in a Kshatriya family, or a Vaisya or Shudra family, then that is what you must be.

While we yet to get over from casteism, we are facing a new challenge that is racism. A few recent incidents are as follows

Racism in India.

Bihari migrant workers have been subject to a growing degree of xenophobia, racial discrimination, prejudice and violence.  Biharis are often looked down upon and their accent ridiculed.  In 2000 and 2003, anti-Bihari violence led to the deaths of up to 200 people and created 10,000 internal refugees. Main culprits are Assam and Maharashtra.

On 19 October 2008, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and Shiv Sena activists attacked North Indian candidates appearing for the all-India Railway Recruitment Board entrance exam for the Western region in Mumbai.

Shiv Sena and MNS always made critical remarks, themed around language politics and regionalism, about migrants from the North Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, accusing them of spoiling Maharashtrian culture and not mingling with them.

!!!Those are talking about spoiling the culture they themselves yet to learn a few lesson of humanity!!!