Space missions

India’s first unmanned mission to Moon Chandrayan1′s scheduled launch will be on Wednesday(October 22).Indian Space Research Organisition(ISRO)has started countdown for the launch from Monday.

Chronology of World’s space missions:

Oct.4,1957:Sputnik2 first earth orbitting satellite.

Vanguard TV3(America) The launch failed.

Jan,1959:Luna1(Russia)first lunar fly-by

Jan 4,1959:Luna1(Russia)

Luna2

1961:Vostok1 first manned(Yuri Gagarin)eartth orbitter

1962:Mariner2(America)

1964:first Mars fly-by

Mariner4

1965:Venera3 landed on Venus

1966:luna9 first unmanned spacecraft landed on the Moon

luna10

1967:venera4 first spacecraft to transmit data from Venus’s surface

1968:Apollo8(America)first manned Lunar orbiter

July 20,1969:Apollo11 first manned lunar landing(Neil Armstriong,Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon)

1970:Apollo13(unsuccessful mission)

Venera7-Venus lander

Luna17

1971:Mars2(Russia)first Mars orbiter

Mars3 first Mars lander

1972:pioneer10(America) first Jupiter fly-by

1973:pioneer11 first mission to Saturn fly-by

Mariner10

1975:Venera9 first Venus orbiter and lander

Viking1 Mars orbiter and lander

1976:Helious2(America)space craft closest to Sun

1977:Voyager2(America)flew by Jupiter,Saturn,Neptune and Uranus

1981:STS1 first space shutttle flight

1985:Sakigake (Japan) comet Halley fly-by

1989:Galileo (America) first jupiter orbiter

1990:Hubble Space Telescope observatoty in space

1995:SOHO Solar Heliospheric solar observatory

1996:NEAR(America)first near earth asteroid rendezvous mission

2001:Genesis(America) first mission to collect solar wind sample

2005:Messenger(America)Mercury orbiter

2006:New Horizons(america)Pluto-kuiper belt study

STEREO(America) solar terrestrial Relations obervator

2007:Phoenix (America)Mars polar lander

Selene(Japan) lunar orbiter

Dawn(America)Asteroids Ceres and vesta orbiter

Change’e1(China) lunar orbiter

Crisis in midair

Jet Airways reinstated all sacked employees after the much hue and cry over the retrenchment.The decesion was based on poor avaiation bussiness.Get Airways had earlier sacked 1,ooo staff.Now,Kingfisher,owned by liquor baron Vijay Mallya decided to cut the salaries of 50 trainee co-pilots.It is a part of cost-cutting plan.Jet Airways and Air India have similar plans.

The British Airways(BA) is known to be the aggrasive employer.They axed 7,ooo jobs immediate after the 7/11 slump in avaition bussiness.The airline had cut another 6,ooo jobs to reduce costs.Workers often accused BA Authority to presurrized them to work longer for less.

Massiah Mamata!

Nano gets a new home,but the temperamental supremo of the Trinamool Congress(TMC) Mamata Banarjee vows to continue her Singur agitation until and unless the Marxist government of West Bengal return the ‘forcibly acquired’ lands to unwilling farmers.Mamata a lready met the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pratibha Patil in Delhi.Frustrated by the stalemate Ratan Tata announced Nano’s departure from Bengal and Nano had  found a new home in Narendra Modi’s Gujrat.Though experts believe that acquired lands are not fit for farming after the construction but Mamatasticks to her demand the return of 400 acres.Political pundits believe that Mamata wants to drag this issue till the parliamentary election.
Mamata’s political carrier at a glance:

1970-80: General-Secretary, Mahila ( Women) Congress (I), West Bengal
1978-81: Secretary, District Congress Committee (Indira),Calcutta South.
1984: Elected to 8th Lok Sabha – General-Secretary, All India Youth Congress (I).
1985-87: Member, Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
1987-88: Member, National Council, All India Youth Congress (I)Member, Consultative Committee, Ministry of Home Affairs
Member, Consultative Committee, Ministry of Human Resource Development
1988: Member, Executive Committee, Congress Parliamentary Party
1989: Member, Executive Committee, Pradesh Congress Committee West Bengal
1990: President, Youth Congress, West Bengal
1991: Re-elected to 10th Lok Sabha (2nd term)
1991-93: Union Minister of State, Human Resource Development, Department of Youth Affairs and Sports; and Women and Child Development
1993-96: Member, Committee on Home Affairs
1995-96: Member, Consultative Committee, Ministry of Home Affairs
Member, Committee on Public Accounts
1996: Re-elected to 11th Lok Sabha (3rd term)
1996-97: Member, Committee on Home Affairs
Member, Consultative Committee, Ministry of Home Affairs
1997 Founded All India Trinamool Congress AFTER BREAKING AWAY FROM Indian National Congress and elected Chairperson, All India Trinamool Congress
1998 Re-elected to 12th Lok Sabha (4th term)
1998-99 Chairman, Committee on Railways
Member, General Purposes Committee
Member, Consultative Committee, Ministry of Home Affairs
1999 Re-elected to 13th Lok Sabha(lower house of parliament) for the fifth consecutive timeLeader, All India Trinamool Congress Parliamentary Party, Lok SabhaMember, General Purposes Committee
13 Oct. 1999: – 16 March 2001 Union Cabinet Minister, Railways
2001-2003: Member, Consultative Committee, Ministry of Industries
8 Sept. 2003: – 8 Jan. 2004 Union Cabinet Minister (without any portfolio)
9 Jan. 2004:- May 2004 Union Cabinet Minister, Coal and Mines
2004 Re-elected to 14th Lok Sabha( 6th term)

Mamata also wrote books including Anubhuti,Struggle for Existence,janmaini,Ashani Shanket,Ekantee etc.

Negligence

Another victim of negligence like that of the unfortunate three-year-old Suraj from Jaipur’s Nimad village who fell 125 ft.down near Bhopal in Dec.2006.After 4-days the body of two-year-old Sonu was pulled out from the borewell . The incident occured at around 10 AM in Tohra village near Shamsabad town, 26 km from Agra, when Sonu fell while playing near his house.

3-years ago(July 24,2006),after two-day rescue mission that captured the imagination of millions of Indians, ended late yesterday when soldiers in the northern state of Haryana rescued a child who had been wedged 18 metres down a bore well for more than 50 hours.

The boy, known as Prince, emerged unhurt from the borehole greeted by thousand of onlookers and politicians who had gathered to pray for his safe delivery. They were joined by millions of television viewers watching live broadcasts from the site in the village of Aldeharh.

On March 26,2008 Vandana,a two and a half year old girl of Tehra village in Agra was finally rescued from the borewell hole after a 26 hour long ordeal. The little girl fell into a 180-feet deep borewell at her village.The Army, which joined the rescue operation early this morning, had succeeded in digging a parallel pit, from which it was able to enter and rescued the girl.

Due to callousness of authorities these type of incident happen again and again.

But there is a good news for those who suffer these type of ordeal.Mechanical engineering students of Bhopal’s University of Barkatullah have come up with a cost-effective device for rescuing children from borewells and narrow ditches.
Mayank Jain, Gaurav Bhargava, Ashish Muchrikar and Ashutosh Shrivastava, all in their early twenties used a heavy doll to test their ”Indepth Rescuer” whose objective is to save kids from writhing in pain in dark depths.Prince and Vandana were among those fortunate ones rescued by digging a parallel hole and perpendicular tunnel. but three-year-old Suraj from Jaipur’s Nimad village died due to a delay in rescue after he fell into a borewell.
In a rescue operation, the students explained, initially the cylinders are dropped carefully with the help of holding cables in the bore pipe. When the device reaches the child it starts sliding over the child’s body to cover child in the inner cylinder. In the second step. air will be supplied to the rubber air-jacket attached inside the inner cylinder from the compressor on the ground through a pipe. The jacket will start expanding radially inward direction mostly at the bottom and start gripping the child.Air-jacket will not grip the victim’s chest and head. While continuing oxygen supply, contact will be made with the child through microphone and camera monitoring.In the third step, people standing at ground level will start pulling up the inner cylinder slowly while the outer cylinder will be stationary. When the inner cylinder is pulled up, four iron bars bolted and hinged inside the outer cylinder will become free and form a cross section and base to the child.

From top: Prince was rescued from the bore well Pix courtsey:BBC , Vandana who was trapped inside the bore well Pix courtsey:Zee News

Nano small car in pandal

The Bengalies’ favourite festival Durga Puja,starts from today(sasthi),the six day after the new moon.The drum beats are an integral part of any Durga worship.The Dhaki(drummer) held the dhak(drum) on his shoulder and is beaten with two sticks.The 10 handed Goddess Durga made up of clay is on top of a lion.Her hands carry different weapons in them except two which holds the spear which has been struck into the chest of Mahishasura(demon).The four children are accompanyingDurga-Laxmi,the goddess of wealth,Saraswati,the Goddess of knowledge,kartik,the god of warship and Ganesha,the elephant faced god representing everything that is good. The themes at Santosh Mitra Square Park Puja pandal in Kolkata and Pravashpali Ekta Sangha of Ichhapur in North 24 Parganas focus on industrialisation.
The pro- industry theme of Santosh Mitra Square park near Sealdah railway station will be major attraction among pandal hoppers.The exhibits at Santosh Mitra Square Puja Pandal presents an uncertain future of workers as several industrial units and factories in the Marxist ruled state being close down. In the exhibit area,the main gates of two imaginary factories shown with huge locks and large iron gates hanging on the gate and another factory presumably the TATA’s small car project with a replica of Nano car which the organiser’s called Nata Mano.Where the Ichhapur puja,30 km away from Kolkata emphasizes the need for farming .

Major achivements ofManmohan Singh govt

The passage of the Indo-Us civill nuclear agreement by the US Congress is a major achievements for the UPA government.Other major achievements of UPA government-the right to information law,it goes to some lenghts to empower citizens to know official facts and figures barring those termed as secret on grounds of national security.The RTI law has helped local communities expose the misuse and corruption of funds from important government development projects.

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme(NREGS) is another achievement of the UPA government.Under the scheme,at least one member of every rural household living below the poverty line is eligable to a minimum 100 days of work at a minimum daily wages(RS.60).

The major drawbacks of UPA government including its failure to curb inflation.Prices of essential food items are up by 20% or more, a fact which has made the ruling Congress unpopular with the aam Admi(ordinary people) in whose name it had sought the vote.

The government’s failure to curb the terrorist attacks also a major drawback for the coalition government.The recent serial blasts in Delhi,also point fingers to its failure to tame the terrorists.

Tribute to Bapu

This statue(below) was in Chowranghi -park street intersection.

This statue was unvailed by then Chief Minister of West Bengal Bidhan Chandra Roy on Nov.30,1958.This is the work of eminent sculpture Debi Prasad Roychowdhury.

The height of the statue is 11ft. 8 inches.

The base on which the statue is standing is 13ft.

During the construction of the underground railway project(Metro) in calcutta the statue was removed temporaly to Mayo road and Dafrin Road crossing. Later the statue of former Prime Minister Jawharlal Nehru was unvailed in this place(9Dec.1989).

Here,once stood the famous statue of British major general Utram.