Celebrating a New Car - Chevrolet Cruze LTZ!

My nephew, Dr. Sudheer took delivery of his new car – Chevrolet Cruze LTZ! today. After the traditional “Car – Puja” he reached home in the afternoon. The Car is a top-end Cruze model, lovely and powerful. Looking at the external and internal features, everyone’s reaction was “WOW!”. The above pictures are of our family with the new Car and the party we had in celebration!

It is a huge Car of 1991 cc, Power (PS) – 150 @ 4000 rpm, Torque (Nm) – 327 @ 2600 rpm and size – L 4597 x W 1788 x H 1477 mm. It has a sunroof. Seating and leg space is excellent. Climate control is very effective with a good feature called “Air quality system”. The steering wheel is too good, adjustable for reach and rake, with a number of handy controls on it. The dashboard is very attractive with colorful indicators and lots of electronic wizardry. The stereo system with 6-CD changer is infinitely adjustable and the sound quality is top notch. It has a number of other extraordinary features which I am unable to technically elaborate at the moment. It is a great choice of Car and color – Sand Drift Grey!

Incidentally, I fondly remember the first Car procured by my father in 1955, a “Wolseley Ten” - APH 192, which also had a Sunshine roof and additionally an opening front windscreen! Since then there are nine Cars in the family which have and some of them continue to serve us well and are associated with many fond memories. The list of our other Cars runs as follows: a Hindustan Motors, Landmaster – APY 8908, Fiat Premier Padmini Deluxe – ADL 2210, Maruti 800 cc – AP10 AA 9140, Tata Indigo LS – AP10 AH 221, Maruti Swift LXI – AP28 BE 722, Fiat Palio  SDE – AP9 BN 9756, Hyundai Tucson and now a Chevrolet Cruz LTZ Car.

Congratulations! and our best wishes to Dr. Sudheer, Dr. Lavanya and Ch. Sudhiksha on this excellent procurement.   

Abettors of suicides, have mercy on my people.

“Emperor Nero set the great fire of Rome and celebrated his act; similarly his dumbest descendant has set my land and its people on fire and is enjoying the warmth of this bonfire with her inhuman council. God bless her and her coterie with wisdom to fulfill the aspirations of my people, as promised by them and as declared on 9^th December 2009.”  

Happy Ugadi! Happy Nandana Nama Samvatsaram!

Happy Ugadi! And A Very Happy New Year! “Nandana”!

The name of this year is “Nandana”. Nandana means one who or which gives delight, a delighter. May this year bring lots of happiness to you and your family. And may all of us contribute to the happiness of those around us.   

I have written an article on Ugadi festival explaining the significance of the festival, about the 60-year cycles, the names of years, the rituals, and the special festival foods. You may read this article by clicking on the following link: "Ugadi Festival"

Jo humse takrayega wo mitti me mil jayega!

The INC, Indian National Congress and the TDP, Telugu Desam Party, have lost the recently held elections in Telangana, miserably. Despite tall promises and trying every trick to win the elections, the INC which is in power and TDP the main opposition party could not win a single seat. The ruling Congress party which was very confident of winning all the seats drew an embarrassing  and disgraceful blank and the TDP which also boasted of victory in every constituency, lost everywhere, it lost deposits in three constituencies, finished second in two and got relegated to an insignificant third in two other places.   

This shameful fate, of these two major parties is because of decades of their misrule in Telangana, constant deceit and betrayal and for not keeping up their assurances for the formation of separate Telangana State, since last few general elections. People seem to have decided that Telangana State is not possible with these parties and have en masse rejected them. These parties deserve this fate for neglecting Telangana and torturing the people of Telangana.

The above posters are made of various newspaper headlines today, regarding the ignominious defeat of these main but mean political parties and the tumultuous victory of the people of Telangana aspiring for separate State. 

Congratulations! Mulkies! For glorious victories!

 

By-elections were held in six constituencies of Telangana on 18th March 2012. You may read my article on these elections by clicking on this link: Vote sensibly, vanquish the wily wolves. All political parties involved in the elections canvassed extensively and promised to strive for the formation of separate Telangana State and as is common the rich and powerful parties tried their best to buy votes by distributing money and liquor.

Today morning the counting of votes commenced and all the results were announced by 1:00 PM. The ruling party and the main opposition party which have misruled Telangana region for decades and betrayed and deceived the people of Telangana at every juncture by promising separate statehood, have lost miserably in all the six constituencies. This news made me very happy and I posted the following status on facebook along with a befitting sketch!  

“The eternal deceivers and their blind followers have once again lost miserably and are trying to dilute our victory with dumb and dumber excuses. It is time they stop this nonsense and bring an end to their treachery and greed for power. Stop living in a fool’s paradise, come out, join us and fulfill your promises without any more excuses and delays.”

And tomorrow I will try to post an exhaustive article on the results and reactions along with some interesting newspaper clippings!    

Worldwide observation of 'World Sparrow Day', makes me very happy.

News that today is being observed as ‘World Sparrow Day’ made me very happy and prompted me to post the following status on facebook:

“It is long since the sparrows have vanished from our house and garden and we rarely get to see them nowadays, that too when we move far away from the city; at some temple, dhaba or in the villages. I really miss these birds, which lived in our garden and inside our house too!

Observation of ‘World Sparrow Day’ and worldwide efforts to conserve these tiny, lovely, happy and super active house sparrows, amidst which I grew up makes me very happy.”

Reminiscing old times, I really miss these birds. Any given time of the day; from dawn to dusk, these birds were available and easily visible at our house. Their chirping could be heard intermittently. However much we tried to stop them, they found ways to enter our house and make nests on the ventilators and top canopies of ceiling fans. They moved about freely in the house picking up something or the other to eat, especially from leftovers on plates at the dining table and at the kitchen sink. It appeared as if they loved our house as much as we. They maintained distance from us but never seemed afraid of us until we were shoving them away. We and our children grew up seeing these birds every day. Mothers used to feed babies and small children by diverting their attention to the activities of these birds, which came very close to them for some food. There was a musical way of calling these birds in Telugu for the sake of children – “Dhayi dhayi Pitta” or “Pittamma ravay”. The birds living in the house sometimes caused nuisance with their droppings, their eggs falling out of the nests and sometimes the chicks falling out of the nests and then the birds accidentally getting killed by the ceiling fans. And outdoors in the garden their numbers were huge. On clothes lines and tree branches we could see rows of sparrows at any time. These lovely house sparrows have gradually vanished from our house and the city. Now we can only see them when we move out of the city to far off places.

I am happy that the world is sincerely concerned about the survival of these once common and popular birds, and I hope they would certainly find ways to save these birds and prevent their extinction.      

  

Vote sensibly, vanquish the wily wolves.

By-elections to six Assembly constituencies in Telangana will be held on 18th March that is day after tomorrow. The six constituencies are Mahabubnagar, Nagarkurnool, Station Ghanpur, Kollapur, Adilabad and Kamareddy. The vacancy for Mahabubnagar seat was caused due to the death of Sri. M. Rajeshwar Reddy (Independent MLA). The by-poll in Nagarkurnool is due to the resignation of Nagam Janardhan Reddy from TDP over the separate Telangana State issue. In Station Ghanpur and Kollapur, Congress MLAs T. Rajaiah and Jupalli Krishna Rao quit the ruling party for sake of separate Telangana and joined the TRS. Similarly, TDP MLAs Jogu Ramanna and Gampa Govardhan quit the TDP and joined TRS as they realized and strongly believed that TDP is a Seemandhra Party bent upon betraying and deceiving the people of Telangana.

The Election Commission of India announced By-election schedule for these six constituencies on 16th February 2012. Since then; political parties which have misruled and betrayed Telangana over decades and have deceived in the past elections, have once again started bluffing to the people that; they and their parties support separate Telangana State whole heartedly. The electioneering would officially come to an end in the next few hours but the goons of these anti-Telangana parties would surely continue their tactics of luring some vulnerable electorate with liquor and money to favor them. Majority people of Telangana know that these parties are deceiving them. I wish every one of them would come out with their family and friends to VOTE and defeat these betrayers.

News about solar flares is scary.

Since past one week there is much news about solar flares. A flare is defined as a sudden, rapid, and intense variation in brightness. A solar flare occurs when magnetic energy that has built up in the solar atmosphere is suddenly released. The amount of energy released is the equivalent of millions of 100-megaton hydrogen bombs exploding at the same time! It is reported that even yesterday two new solar flares erupted, blasting streams of plasma and charged particles into space. The picture at the top of this article shows an active region on Sun, seen as the bright spot to the right. This spot, designated as AR 1429 has in the past couple of days produced three X-class flares and numerous M-class flares. Space weather scientists use five categories to rank solar flares – A, B, C, M and X, based on their strength and severity. A-class flares are the weakest types of sun storms, while X-class flares are the most powerful eruptions.

The precise and total affects of much stronger solar flares is not clearly known, however there is theoretical and practical proof of it affecting all forms of electronic communication with a severe threat to all space satellites and telecommunications. Long term affects are not precisely known but scientists suspect highly disturbed weather patterns and an increase in risk of earthquakes or volcanic eruptions at vulnerable locations. Some scientists also predict intense medical and emotional consequences.

A solar tsunami; a giant explosion of energy from the Sun is predicted in 2013 or in the months following it, which could paralyze earth. All this information and predictions are very scary.

In this context, I hope, wish and pray that ‘The mighty Sun’ which has been supporting the very existence of our planet and life on it; for billions of years would continue to do so forever and ever with no hindrance.

Wish You A Very Happy & Wonderful HOLI!

Wish You A Very Happy & Wonderful HOLI!.....

May it be much Happier, Brighter, Colorful

And Symphonic than this Video!...

My sons are anxious to be together, after 18 months.

My eldest son, Srikanth, has left Hyderabad for London today evening.  My youngest son, Srinath, is already in UK since three and half years at Birmingham. Few hours from now; tomorrow morning, my sons would be meeting in London after a long gap. Srinath visited us eighteen months ago and we are not sure when he would be coming back or visiting us next. At a time like this my eldest son, Srikanth’s official trip of one month to London has come up. We are all happy that the brothers can meet and the children are very anxious to be together. Until Srinath went to UK, both the children have been together, going to the same school and completing their college education, staying with us. Since Srikanth’s trip to London was informed by his office; there has been excitement and a lot of communication with Srinath about Srikanth’s tour, and plans have been made to make his visit comfortable and memorable. We have also used this opportunity to send Srinath a number of homely foods. As Srinath is familiar with London and Birmingham, they have planned a lot of sightseeing during weekends. We wish them a wonderful time in UK and a safe and happy journey back home.

At the bottom of this article are photographs of the farewell party to Srikanth and of his departure from Hyderabad.