Mumbai rain of August 29, 2017

Heavy rain pushed Mumbai to come to the halt on Tuesday August 29, 2017. The effect was drastic at low lying areas, where all water was accumulating. But, the severity of the rain was evident even in the safe areas. The videos shows the intensity of rain at one such place.








I happen to be present in this Institute, which can be called partly safe from water logging issue. These two videos capture the intensity of the rain and the increasing flow of water collected within the same area. The water fall  apparent in the first video are no natural waterfalls. Those are actually just the route to remove some water collected on the roof. But the rain fall intensity takes it to another level.

I heard Shivsena chief mentioning that there was 9 km thick cloud on the top of Mumbai that day and we are lucky that there was no cloud burst. He also said that had that been the case, the rainfall measurements would have easily crossed 3000 mm of rain, which otherwise was restricted to nearly 300 mm.

I am wondering, if they are realizing the need of a preparation for such situations. Present conditions can not cope up with rainfall upto 300 mm in a day. Don't they think they should get ready for those adverse situations, if not completly, atleast partly. Its not that such things won't happen. Mumbai has experienced a rainfall of nearly 1000 mm in a day. So, Mumbai is becoming prone to such conditions where there could a catastrophe. It may even experience even worse conditions, with this heavy cloud building up scenarios getting more and more stronger. I think, its high time, we learn lesson and try to build up more robust model to face such critical situations. We are not doing enough !!!

Rajgadh monsoon bike trek - Panoramic view

Apt timing for putting this picture. Its raining heavily at the moment. Every road, rail route and corners are flooded and converted into small river like tributaries. Felt a need to give a glimpse of how it is, little bit away from city area. This is a picture of a temporary river flow formed on the way to Rajgadh from Pune. Just when the rainy season had reached its peak, a plan for bike trip with an intention of capturing some awesome shots at the foot of Rajgadh fort was cooked. As it goes without saying, the trip happened with lots of breaks to capture some fantastic shots enroute. One such similar snap, showing the exuberance of monsoon was captured and today shared with you all here.
Enjoy the rain!!

Ganapti Aagman procession

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID6zSkjrE8Q

A rhythmic arrival procession for Ganapati Bappa. Day to day traffic noise is usual to ears. But, once in a while, when rather than just the banging of drums, if such rhythmic and exciting conjunction of different sounds fall on ear, then, it would make any one pick the rhythm and move in unison  with it.

I am very fond of this form of procession. It makes noise, but it feels good to my ears. It excites me and make me forget for some time that I have grown older in age. A combination of Tasha, Dhol and Ghanta altogether create an environment, that brings a zing. 

A major change that is seen in recent years is the participation of Women in the act. Gone are those days, when carrying the Dhol and beating it was a domain of strong built men only. Infact, now a days it has become kind of compulsory to have equal share of Women. 

One thing,although, I am observing is, all the women participating are playing Dhols only. Probably, it is to make a noise and tell people that we are no less than men. But, I would be keen to see them playing Tasha. Dhol requires Power and the strength to hold on. But Tasha requires fluency, consistency in the  repeating act of playing as well as the pace, to keep that coherency. I know of few girls doing that already, but it hasn't spread to that extent as the Dhol.

Wishing  for the arrival of those days soon. A very happy and energetic 10 days Ganapati Utsav for all the people.

"Ganapati Bappa Moraya"

The Sun peeping through !

A quiet moment experienced on the terrains near Sudhagadh. Lying down under the shade of this tree, after a little hectic hike up the hill. Roughly, sometime after mid day, while I tried to take a glimpse and capture the vast structure of this tree, realized that a much bigger structure from far away distance was also attempting a similar glimpse at me. His gaze was much stronger than mine, so I finally shied away. But, little did he know that, I have created a memory of him gazing at me, which I can watch, anytime, anywhere.

Mont Blanc @ Grenoble

Mont Blanc @ Grenoble

One of the most serene places I have been to. You can check the temperature variation in a matter of minutes here. You can go from feeling hot situation to " need more jackets, one is not enough" situation in just couple of minute.

Essel World- Top Spin ride

This is a video I took last year, when we visited Esselworld. Esselworld rides are designed such that level of excitement would only go up and up. Durin our visit, we started out adventure with Octopus ride. Just next to that is the roller coaster. That was awesome. Then came a simpler saucercup kind of ride, which we tackled easily. Gaining confidence, we ran and sat in the bullet train.  I am not sure of others, but I had not no idea what this rides does to you. And when you try to do things without any idea about it, it has a potential to even kill you. Well, that's what almost happened to  me. It starts simple, horizontal to the ground and then suddenly, it turns vertical. It takes the breathe out of you. Don't believe ! Check this ride here:
https://drkaustubhjoshi.blogspot.in/2016/06/bullet-train-ride-of-essel-world.html

Once out of this ride, I had lost confidence and I realized, I have grown old to probably enjoy this ride. So, when my nephews ran to the next ride, I decided to first watch the ride and see if I have the temperament to go through it. The next ride was Topspin. And here is what I saw:




Do you really think, I would have tried this ride?
Forget enjoying the ride, I even did not dared to even go anywhere near to it. Well if you think, you are awesome enough to enjoy it, go for it.

Is your PAN card active?

A recent report mentioned that over 11.44 lakh PAN cards have been deactivated over the time for multiple reasons. These may include reasons of multiple issuing of PAN card to the same person, or the ones issued to non-existing person. System of generating PAN cards might have become a bit robust over the time, but I guess, few years back, it wasn't. Just like in recent times, there have been stories about issuing Aadhar cards, where it could be issued to even monkeys or trees, probably issuing PAN card had no control.
But, seems things are a bit different now. Infact, every person who is involved in some kind of monetary transactions has to have a PAN Card. Even my 80 years old father has one, although, he himself spends only Rs.5 every day to buy flowers for Puja, from the stall close to our home. Now, that attempts are being taken to crosscheck the validity of these cards, every one need to be aware of the way to check, whether their card is still valid or the government has deactivated it. Ofcourse, there is higher probability of it being valid and active, but there is no harm in confirming it. And that too when it easy.
All we have to do is to visit this page of income tax department:
http://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/

Once on the page, your have to click on the option of "Know you PAN" .
A window will window asking for some of your details. I believe there is no harm in providing these informations here, on an official government website. In here, there is one query about status. This could be little confusing, as it tries to distinguish you as an individual or Hindu un-divided family, a trust, firm, company. But in general case, one should choose option "individual" to check your own personal PAN card status. You have to provide a mobile number. Once you enter these details, an OTP will be generated and sent to your mobile number. Enter this OTP and it will provide you with details of your PAN card as well as its present status.
The process is pretty simple. It just helps you to confirm details of PAN card, which has now become a core of all the monetary transactions.
A news appeared a couple of days back to inform people of this process, which I am pretty sure many of us must have missed. Even I checked it accidentally, a couple of days later. That's why this post.

A cloudy day at the Palace of Versailles, France

Palace of Versailles, which otherwise look so cheerful and colorful also has few gloomy days. One of those days captured here. A panoramic view of the garden on the right side of the palace.

Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya resigns: Shocking !! Why?

 I wonder, how many people know Arvind Panagariya ! I accept, even I did not really know, till couple of days back. In fact, while preparing for this post, when I tried searching for him on Google, I mistakenly entered name Ashok  Panagariya for searching a couple of times instead of Arvind, and landed up on a page of a neurologist!!
He was  the Vice-Chairman of Niti Aayog, another name, I doubt, most of the people around are not aware. Niti Aayog is a new thing in business, that has taken over the task of Planning Commission of India, back then headed by the famous Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Oh ! you must be knowing him well for at least two reasons, One for the famous Rs. 32 based Poverty line definition  and second for the renovation of toilet with just Rs. 35 Lakhs

Coming out of the shadow of such planning commission, and forming a new institution Niti Aayog, which has done pretty significant work with privitization  of a few sick government units and extending the same to Air India, bench marking reforms in medical and higher education and probably a few more tasks to talk about.
Although, Niti Aayog is still in its infancy, it seem to have done  some promising work in a short time. And all this could only because of this person, Arvind Panagariya at the helm of the Aayog. Looking at the way of his working and his sincerity, it is not that difficult to believe that he is an academician, working at Columbia University, who took this opportunity as a challange and successfully carried it for almost 3years. And now, as per news, because of the limitations of nature of his job, he needs to return to his old job, i.e. to academics. It seems intriguing to see that a person is ready to give up a prestigious position and wants to return to common position of an academician. But that is the fun, people don't realize. A person who loves to create new dishes in his kitchen, won't be happy, if asked to cater service to 1000 people. There may be lot of money in it, may it be a big challenge, but it still can not restrict him from returning to his old love, of creating something new, rather than applying already facts.
A few news items initially started coming out, where his resignation was shown as a sign of the rift between him and the government. But recently, he personally spoke about it and cleared air behind his resignation.

I guess, there may be issues between him and the government. But identifying his resignation as the response of those issues could be far fetched. I would rather believe his personal interview and rely on the words of an academician.

Artificial Intelligence: has uprising started too early?

Artificial Intelligence: two words which may sound, to a few as a solution to all kind of problems, and to few others, a reason for human extinction.

Yes, we apparently are arriving at the juncture, where this debate is going to take the whole world  in a whirlwind. What churns out of this, will probably decide the fate of the human kind.

For those, who are unware, watch this video uploaded on youtube by Coldfusion, explaining, what exactly is artificial intelligence?

There have been many movies by now making use of this concept of artificial intelligence, which begins with having it as a boon to human life, but almost all of them ending up proving it to be a curse. After watching  a movie "Rise of the planet of the apes", I wrote a post where I compared those intelligent monkeys to be another threat other than artificial intelligence, for the human race. 

Back then, movies were the only reason we felt AI's to be threat. But it seems, with time, the imaginations are turning into reality.  While many big-wigs including Elon Musk, Stefan Hawking, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak have already hinted about the threat of AI taking over humans, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, hasn't been thinking in the same  lines as those.There have incidences of heavy arguments between Mark and Elon over the issue. And just when Elon made a comment that, Mark has no understanding of AI, very soon, news have now emerged that the two bots running on AI had to be shut down, because they stopped using the English language fed to them, and instead developed their own code language to interact with each other. As a part of training, apart from training in conversation through english language, these bots were also developed with negotiation skills. After initial conversations going properly in English language, over the time, they started developing their own language. In this, apparently attempt was made (by the bots) to put emphasis on something, making it appear very important, and then as a part of negotiation, loose this "apparently" important thing, to gain things of their interest.

 A part of their conversation is given in the news reported here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-artificial-intelligence-ai-chatbot-new-language-research-openai-google-a7869706.html

The language to us may look English, but it has been modified by the bots as per their requirement.

The severity of this experiment was to this extent, that Facebook apparently shut down the two bots to stop the conversation between them:

http://www.firstpost.com/india/facebook-researchers-shut-down-ai-bots-that-started-speaking-in-a-language-unintelligible-to-humans-3876197.html

I would call this a wake up call for all of us to understand where the world is going, and do we really need such things to emerge in near future. We can not run away from this. Few years, Facebook was used by only computer friendly people. But now, it is present in everyone's hand and making sure, you kill your time on it. Did you ask for it? No. But it still reached your doorsteps. Similarly, AI if emerged, will unknowingly enter your home. The concept of cloning, when emerged was proposed to have many prospects, but human cloning was back then barred, realizing possible threats, which come with it. AI too, would show, many prospective benefits, but there probably are more threats hidden behind those benefits. It may initially make us feel like master to begin, but unknowingly may end up make us its slave entirely and for eternity.