LESSONS FROM NANDIGRAM........

Lessons from Nandigram
A gang-up of mainstream and extremist political elements on a matter that was considered troublesome but not explosive; political slowness in responding to the issues at stake and to the risks; and administrative mishandling of a volatile situation combined to produce an avoidable tragedy in Nandigram in West Bengal's East Midnapore district. Fourteen persons were killed and scores of people injured as the police — encountering brickbats, country bombs, and pipe guns — opened fire on protesters who had apparently declared five gram panchayats in the troubled area out of bounds for the administration. The anti-Left Front alliance spearheaded by the Trinamool Congress, in which naxalites, the Jamiat ulema-e-Hind, and other extremist elements have made common cause, was protesting the proposal to create a Special Economic Zone in the area, although Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has repeatedly declared there would be no forced land acquisition in Nandigram. The militant protesters, who over the last three months dug up roads and bridges, cut off communication facilities, and drove hundreds of Left Front supporters out of the area, were clearly spoiling for a confrontation with the State administration. What needs explaining is why the State government allowed the situation to reach this pass. As in a bad movie plot, the police, called in to end the lawlessness, were provoked into firing at the agitators. The CBI inquiry ordered by the Calcutta High Court should reveal what actually happened.
Land acquisition may not have been the real cause of the ugly situation that developed in Nandigram. But what the tragedy highlights is a set of contentious issues that can flare up whenever the acquisition of farmland for industry and infrastructure, with the state exercising its eminent domain, comes on the agenda. The Left Front Government in West Bengal promised that it would not acquire any farmland without the consent of the land owners but this message does not appear to have percolated down. A greater commitment to transparency might also have helped. As an editorial page article published in The Hindu on February 1, 2007 pointed out, the acquisition of farmland for industry tends to come up against "a coalition of anti-development crusaders, groups concerned over the dislocation of farm families, those worried about the impact on agricultural, particularly food, production, protectors of farmers' interests, assorted do-gooders, and plain political opportunists." What came together — unsuccessfully at Singur but explosively at Nandigram — was an extreme variant of such a coalition. What makes land acquisition a prescription for trouble is, first, the element of compulsion that comes with the exercise of eminent domain by the state, and, secondly, the flawed system of paying compensation for farmland. Clearly government policies relating to land acquisition for special economic zones and other industrial and infrastructural projects need an urgent overhaul not only in West Bengal but across the country. Nobody takes seriously the call of the Trinamool Congress for the dismissal of the Left Front Government. More disconcertingly, a usually sagacious Governor, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, stepped out of line in publicly airing his philosophical and tactical differences with the State government while expressing high-minded anguish over the Nandigram deaths. Under the Indian Constitution, it is surely not the job of a Governor to offer public judgments on how an elected government should have handled a tricky situation. What Chief Minister Bhattacharjee needs to do is not to get provoked by the opposition — he must take a cool, objective, and just stand on all matters arising out of Nandigram and learn lessons from a mishandled crisis.
now it seems that the govt. got awaken and The Lok Sabha will take up for discussion on the Nandigram issue on wednesday with the end of the stalemate over the matter and the government hoped that a resolution of the row could be reached in Rajya Sabha as well.

Wind Power::A Growing Renewable Energy Resource

History:Wind power has been harnessed by mankind for thousands of years. Wind filled the sails of explorers and fueled trade throughout the world. The Dutch used wind to claim land from the ocean, and early European settlers in the American West used wind to pump water for farms. During the first half of the 20th century wind was used to provide electricity for many rural areas before the expansion of the electrical grid offered a cheaper and more reliable form of power.
Today:Following the energy crunches of the ‘70s, a renewed interest in wind began to develop. Spurred on by government incentives (now largely extinct), wind farms began to sprout. California leads the world for installed capacity - 44%. During 1994 California produced 3.2 billion kWh from wind power.
this energy costs $0.075/kWh, though in some areas, due to greater wind power, the price is $0.05/kWh.
By rejecting nuclear power, Denmark has made the greatest commitment to wind power of any nation. Second only to California, Denmark has 540 MW of installed capacity and produced 1.1 billion kWh during 1994. Six of the top ten wind turbine manufactureres (including #1) are Danish companies.
A wide range of generating capacities allow wind turbines to fill a wide range of applications and sites. Individual producers, generating electricity for their own home needs may use a turbine as small as 10kW (this would power one hundred 100 Watt light bulbs at peak power). Larger utility based wind farms may use turbines from 50kW all the way up to 2 MW (1 MW = 1000 kW). The typical sizes for modern utility applications are between 200 and 300 kW.
Wind power can be tapped in a variety of places.
Intermittency:One particular problem with wind energy is the intermittent nature of the resource. The wind does not always blow. This is perhaps the leading criticism of wind power today. For the home generator, batteries can be used to store the power, however this increases costs and reduces the environmental benefits. A solution is to use the electric grid as a “storage” mechanism. During times when the turbine is producing excess capacity, the electric company purchases your power. During times when you need more power than you can produce, you can “buy back” the power you sold.
As for the large utilities, wind power is not a large enough energy source at the current time for intermittency to be a problem. Given that the electric grid connects large areas of land together (1/2 a continent), it may be found that the lack of wind in one area at a particular time may be made up by wind from another area and vice versa. In other words, an overall balance in the system may be maintained.
Another way of dealing with the intermittent nature of wind power (and other renewable technologies) is to use the exectricity for electrolysis. Running a current through water results in the seperation of the hydrogen and oxygen. Using the hydrogen for fuel recombines the hydrogen and oxygen, forming water.

AN ASTONISHING DISCOVERY

A group of scientists from various universities have discovered that oxygen appeared first in Earth’s atmosphere about 50 to 100 million years earlier than was previously believed. Drilling deep into the earth’s crust they extracted a kilometre-long core of sedimentary rock.

They analyzed the amounts of the trace metals molybdenum, rhenium and uranium in the sediment. The amounts of these metals in oceans and sediments depend on the amount of oxygen in the environment.
Analyzing the layers of sedimentary rock in the sample the researchers report finding evidence that a small but significant amount of oxygen — a whiff — was present in the oceans and possibly Earth’s atmosphere 2.5 billion years ago.
The data also suggest that oxygen was nearly undetectable just before that time. For the first half of Earth’s 4.56-billion-year history, the environment held almost no oxygen, other than bound to hydrogen in water (H{-2}O) or to silicon and other elements in rocks.
Then, some time between 2.3 and 2.4 billion years ago, oxygen rose sharply in the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. Scientists call this the Great Oxidation Event.
The scientists analyzed the drill core for geochemical and biological tracers representing the time just before the rise of atmospheric oxygen.

BEST REGARDS
ZAID KAMAAL

123 deal...........

hi fiends i'm here again with a new problem....
so controversial nuke deal.....
i'm unable to understand why communists always oppose growth in any field?...
why they can't sustain development in any form?..
they will always oppose every good thing example are really in abundance...
here CHINA is preparing to step up its nuclear power capacity by 23 million kw by 2020..remember only chinese economy will be competing us in future...but communists hve nothing to do with economy...they fools are advocates of barter system and believe that money is the root of all the evils...
you people will be laughing but friends its true..they implented barter system in ussr in past.
so its really our hard luck friends here our economy is growing rapidly and hence our energy consumption and requirement but we dont hve any access to economical and efficient enrgy resource like nuke energy...
our nuke reactors are also dying due to lack of nuclear fuel.... but communists only know to oppose every change.... these communists must watch the reforms in chinese communism...chinese communists adopted a mild form of communism..they left many concepts which opposes growth and development and results are clearly significant..
allah..please help our nation from these narrow minded peoples...
regards..
ZAID KAMAAL

hi

hi friends........
i'm back again after very long time......so howz u been buddy...
friends today i came to know that president of pakistan imposed the state of emergency in country......
ahead of a crucial Supreme Court decision on whether to overturn his recent election win....
i always wonder why pakistani brothers keep tolerating such type of lunautic leaders...they must be thrown out of the country....
i think our indian politics is a lot more fairer and our countrymen are more aware towards their rights...i think one of the main reasons is that pakistani politics is more affected and influnced by kashmir and religion rather than development and upliftment of living standard....but if anybody does similar in india,he is criticised by both the public and press...we do hve a few setbacks but its really true that we are a great nation......
jai hind

hi