Status of Solar Energy

I was going through an article in 'The Hindu' regarding solar energy. Its main focus was to use solar energy for street lights and also how to use it in homes to cut down on the electric bills and power problems. The main reason about power cuts is that there is an overload somewhere, that is somebody is using excessive power some place. Hence, we ourselves are slightly a reason for the power cuts. So we have to work on the problem.

It is estimated that nearly 5 lakh homes in Bangalore city consume 3 Million units of power everyday between 6 am & 9 am for water heating alone. If just 20% of the households in Bangalore switch to solar energy to heat water, about 150 MW of power will be saved during peak hours everyday. Also 75% of total expenditure of Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) goes into keeping streetlights glowing. (Courtesy to Metro Plus, the Hindu, March 20, 2006)

Water heaters are a good investment in a long run. Intially the cost will be heavy than an electric water geyser but then again we need not pay any electric bills for the water heater. The life time of a water heater is also long. So intial investment is everything. In Bangalore itself there are more than 50 companies dealing in solar water heater and will install it in 2 days period. This is just one example.

In many new types of Solar energy experimentation, a solar furnace has been created. But in this instead of Solar cells, concave mirrors are used to divert the sunlight to a single point like pointing to a top of a tower. This way large scale temperatures can be attained. One such example can be seen in France.

This is the future, where we need to use clean source of energy and sunlight is in abundance, so more practical use should be implemented. This way we can meet the demand of power generation that keeps on rising. More things like solar heaters should be implemented for human use.

Patents to bring money to colleges

Stanford university gets $88 million annual royalty for its inventions; Massachusetts Institute of Technology gets a huge royalty from optical mirror technology which alone can run the university for the next 10 years; Oxford has invested 10.7 million pounds in research. In India, despite having more than 250 universities, 800 engineering college and 1300 research and development facilities, IIT's are the only educational practising patenting thoroughtly. (courtesy to Times of India, March 17,2006)

The question here is that in every college there are many students who are capable of inventing or perform amazing research projects. There are many things that stop a student from performing something amazing. One is the college and staff do not support the student in there endeavours and in many cases I have seen sometimes the staff taking the full credit to what the student is performed and sidelining the student.

The second thing is as mentioned in the above article. Not knowing the knowledge of patents and other things. Even if one patent is done to a college in India, it will give popularity to the college and also can get funds for the department and college. The colleges in India should encourage there students and assist them. In the end, it is the name of the college that will gain popularity.

Cognizant's gift to Employees

Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTS) has crossed the $ 1 Billion turnover and for celebrations is gifting there employees. People who have joined before 30th June 2005 will be given Apple Video Ipods which has a capacity of 30GB. The company wants to gift its employees who are mainly in the 20-30 age group a techie gift.

Looks like other companies will have to do some good competion with CTS by providing better bonuses or gifts for their employees. These Ipods are usually costly but since being purchased in a whole set and imported by CTS will be very cheap for the company. With each company providing better perks and services, the competition for better jobs is on full flow.

Bangalore Shopping Malls

Shopping Malls are opening at tremedous rates as they have noticed that current working class people are spending money openly. One of the first malls to be seen in Bangalore is 'Bangalore Central', which opened in 2004. This is situated in the heart of the city on residency Road. Later in the same year another mall opened towards the south of Bangalore which proved to be a success. 'Forum' is situated next to Kormangala which is a host to many IT companies. PVR Cinemas are located in Forum with 11 screens making it India's largest Multiplex. With the success of these malls, many more Mall projects came into the picture.

Garuda Mall on Magrath Road started off at the end of 2005. INOX has 5 screens in the Garuda Mall. Soon after the opening of this mall another mall which is exclusively for Women is the EVA Mall situated on Brigade Road. Also Sigma Mall on Cunnigham road is another mall that recently opened up. With the beginning of this month, another mall exclusively for IT products like softwares, hardwares and computer peripherals opened up on brigade road known simply as IT Mall.

With the huge success seen by malls in bangalore, huge investments are being made to open many more. It is estimated that Bangalore's IT Industry forks out wage bill of nearly Rs 9,000 crore annually on an employee community of 3 lakh-plus (courtesy of Economic Times). The list of other malls that are underway are

• Brigade Metropolis in Whitefield
• Brigade Gateway in Rajajinagar
• Forum Mall [Shantiniketan, Whitefield]
• Sobha Minerva [Minerva Mills]
• G Corp Lido Centre [old Lido Theatre] in Ulsoor
• Galaxy Embassy [old Galaxy Theatre] on Residency Road
• Mantri House [Sarjapur Road]
• Ozone [Factory Outlet, Whitefield]
• Sigma Grand
• Tata Imperial [Old Imperial Theater] off Brigade Road
• Poorva Mall on Old Madras Road

The above list is only of the ones that are under construction. Let's see what else Bangalore holds for the 64 lakh people staying in the city. Atleast people will get to enjoy malls on weekends better as the crowds in any of the malls on the weekends are immense and sometime can really exhaust anyone.

College weather

This post is about the how weather changes around my college, VIT. During my stay for 4 years, the climate had always been pretty hot. But there were times when during the monsoons or winters when one could see amazing things. In the early hours of the day, one can find some awesome scenery which could blow your mind away. I would have not been suprised if I were in a hill station but when I saw the clouds passing through the hills near our college, it was an amazing sight.

During the monsoon months, the showers are sometimes heavy and it is difficult for us to leave the hostels. This sometimes used to be the best reason for not attending classes but the timing is supposed to be correct like raining at the time when we have to leave for class. But that mostly never happened making us attend classes. Worst is when it rained during our classes, we could never get to bunk or get free classes as there was nothing to do. But when it rained during the day time then the nights used to be pleasant so we had good walks around the hostel campus and also enjoyed sleeping comfortable during the nights.

During the summer months, the sun would really make the days tough and drive us into the showers couple of times a day. The temperature could easily go to 40C +. That would really make us tired if we returned to hostel and had to go again to college. During a semester break, who will like to stay in the college and spend there time getting baked, so almost everyone use to go home for vacation.

These pictures which are displayed were taken in the early hours in November. After staying in college during the hot months I never had expected to see this.

Progress on Metro Rail

It's amazing to see the boards put up for the Metro Rail. Traffic was already have a field day when you see boards of Metro on the road. These holes that they have dug up is for soil testing. Anyways hope this project goes on schedule otherwise it could end up like the Bangalore International airport project getting extended without anyones knowledge when its completion is going to be taking place.

Also amazing is the Logo that has been selected after so much competetion. I am still trying to anazlyse that from which angle does the logo tell you that it is Bangalore Metro. It is colourful, could be the Holi effect on it. On the logo the words are "Namma Metro". WOW!!! Now I know what actually the Bangalore Metro should do, they should also rename their name as Bengalooru Metro. If they continue this trend, then I can say that they have been doing a lot of work as they have been busy changing names. First they change the Bangalore Mass Rail Transit Ltd (BMRTL) to Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL). So the trend of renaming can go until they really go into working.

The project is a Rs 6200 crore and if not finished on time then the pricetag is going to rise. Why do they need to talk so much, they have a real live example of Delhi Metro and can use the assistance of those people who have gained a lot of experience during the construction of the Delhi Metro. There experiences can really speed up the process of the construction of this Metro. This city desperately needs some sort of rescue from the choking that is building up. The BMTC (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation) can do as much as they can but still the roads and infrastructure is what the Bangalore authorities have to work on.

Mornings of Peace in BLR

In a city like Bangalore, the mornings are really beautiful. I enjoy it in one way as I have to attend a 7 am class and therefore leave around 6:30 am to catch a bus. There is no traffic jam at this hour and the bus journeys are smooth with regarding to the number of people not the road. The road conditions are as they were but recently have seen an increased amount of road maintainence going on. The bangalore authorities have been quiet busy by putting another layer of tar on the roads. That also on all the inner roads of many areas. Anyways, the roads are peaceful at this hour until after 7 am when the rush begins. The same 30 minute trip when made during the rest of the day can be 50 minutes to an hour and half.

The rest of the day in Bangalore until the night time is as congested as it can be. Also like the recent newspaper article which states that BESCOM is helpless if there is loss of power in areas from 6-9 am and 6-9 pm as they are busy trying to replace transformers which are damaged due to overloads. BESCOM is finding it tough to handle the large power requirements but ofcourse they do love going on diconnection drives in different areas when bills are not paid.