Italian White Cement ?

I don't know if the ad in the above video grab was intentional. My take is that it definitely was intended as this Ad on "Italian White Cement" was popping up every time Sonia was focused upon during here address to the Congress plenary meeting a few days ago. Interesting indeed :)

2010 has been disappointing for me as an Indian

I don’t know if I should be happy that so many scams came through to public attention or I should feel bad and sick that they did occur and many more lay besieged from public scrutiny. What an awful year for us indeed, finally even the media gurus ended up being in the rut. I am terribly disappointed with 2010 as a citizen of this great land, I am happy it is ending and I hope 2011 will usher some action on this.

For me personally, I think the following were the biggest lows as a citizen of this nation (not necessarily in any order as each one hurts more than the other)

1. Unrest and breakdown of law and order in Hyderabad due to T-agitation
2. Terrorist bomb blasts in Pune and Varanasi
3. 2G Scam and Radia tapes simply made me cringe with absolute disbelief.
4. Kashmir Valley shutdown along with stone throwing by rowdy elements and inaction by Central government
5. Karnataka state government turmoil and double vote of confidence due to H D Kumaraswamy from JD(s) and the Governor himself.
6. Cheap tactics and fake fasting drama by Congress government in AP by letting off and withdrawing cases against rioting rowdy students involved in arson and stone throwing from Osmania University.
7. BSY from Karnataka and his gamble with land scams and inaction by high command in BJP.
8. Gujjar agitation and bringing the entire north to standstill, esp Rajasthan even when the issue is completely sub-judice. People want to move backward rather than move ahead.
9. Commonwealth Games 2010 and Suresh Kalmadi’s dastardly acts
10. Maoists attack on the CRPF personnel killing 80+ jawans on a single day and train bombing followed by PC’s lameduck answer and complete inaction.
11. Rahul Gandhi speaking to an US diplomat and giving color to terrorism and indicating that Hindu Terrorism as the biggest threat to India
12. Digvijay Singhs and Cong’s rant on Karkare, Nazism and RSS, etc – the cheapest bootlicker in Congress today
13. The complete shutdown of the Parliament during the Winter Session 

Studying life in our universe just 85815936000000000000000 kms wide !

I am not a biologists or even a student of biology after my schooling days. But, Biological sciences and specifically natural history has always intrigued me and will continue to do so until I cease to exist. What amazes me is the sheer complexity in which things exist. Even after we have made significant strides in biochemistry and found ways to map DNA and store them, the answer to life is simply too difficult to answer by today’s progress. Of course given the highly religious and orthodox upbringing, I have definitely attributed all of this to the almighty – the omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. I am personally convinced that all this is not definitely possible without somebody being infinitely wise and organized to achieve this improbability. Spiritually I am satisfied that all of this is possible and we live in a real world and that each sentient and insentient is different from each other and all of them have been created (or existed primordially) with a purpose.

Being a student of science, there is another countenance, which convinces me that all (I mean all) is after all chemistry and physics, including life. If we were to take a temporal and spatial stand on this matter, it would become rather easy. I am convinced that at a given instance of time and space, every entity that exists (alive or dead) can be simply rolled into a chemical equation in a state of pure equilibrium. So for me life is a constant changing chemical equation, it is heartless and completely driven by basic forces, trying to drive towards equilibrium. So as each and every molecule tries to come to term with the first principles of Physics and Chemistry to attain equilibrium, life continues to exist. To further push this and ask as to why should we ever go towards the state of equilibrium at all puts me in a fix and I feel like taking shelter under spirituality, the “why” cannot infinitely go deep in answering everything with heartless science.
What enhances my curiosity further is that, is this most optimal way to reach equilibrium? For example, plant life uses photosynthesis to sustain and “live”. Photosynthesis uses carbon dioxide and sunlight to generate sugars and other complex carbohydrates (again a process of attaining equilibrium) thus sustaining plant life. Almost all forms of life directly or indirectly depend on this process. But of course, there are other species (probably extremely ancient when God was trying out life in his labs). There are organisms that obtain energy and “live” on other chemical processes like Chemotroph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemoautotrophs) that exclusively live in deep and extremely hostile deep sea vents. They derive energy from Oxidation of Iron and Manganese and other metals. Similarly recent reports (as of yesterday – 1^st Dec) claim that NASA may have found bacteria completely living on Arsenic! [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/02/nasa_alien_press/] – though the revelations have not been completely made by NASA, we need to watch and see their expected discovery.

If ever NASA or other organizations across the globe are able establish that life can exist without the current process of elemental combination's (for example Arsenic instead of Phosphorus) it clearly indicates and convinces me that there maybe billions of other life forms spew through the universe! So Aliens do exist and when I say god is omnipresent – he must “definitely” be omnipresent! I can only hope that god is a little more partial to some small dinky planet thrown somewhere in Milkyway which is an ignorable spec in the 93 billion light years (approximately 85815936000000000000000 kms) wide universe!!

- Aditya Rao