Subsidy Budget.

The union budget for the current year had allocated Rs.72968.56 crore for fertiliser subsidy out of which Rs 38200 crore was earmarked for domestic urea. 

The question arises as to how much budget has been allocated for research on finding a substitute for urea as a fertiliser for the crops in India. 

Nitrogen fixation is what is being attempted through urea application. That should be tried and achieved with an alternative product or process by a relentless team of scientists in India over a period of time. 

It is worth the trouble looking to the huge sums of money being spent as subsidy every year.

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Mankind's ultimate source of energy!

It is none other than solar energy that is going to be the ultimate and the lasting source of energy to the mankind till the destruction of Mother Earth in the indefinite future.

Well the human beings have discovered and developed different sources of energy as they  made progress in livelihood and place of work. Wood, coal, vegetable oils, petroleum products, nuclear etc. were in the line of succession to meet their basic and commercial needs over a period of time. Renewable sources of energy have now become the order of the day. 

Now the topmost source namely the solar energy is picking up speed all over the globe. Some developed countries like USA and Germany have been very successful in generation and exploitation of solar energy. 

Like others India too should waste no time in exploiting this source looking to the vast potential available to its almost all the geographical locations during major part of the year.

Luckily after a seven-year-long wait , Aditya, India's first dedicated scientific mission to study the Sun is likely to get a go-ahead from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) this week. The ambitious solar mission will study the sun's outer most layers -- the corona and the chromosphere -- to collect data about coronal mass ejection and more, which will also yield information for space weather prediction. A solid and timely action on the part of Government of India!

Any amount of research in this direction is bound to be commercially useful and viable in the long run to this country and to the planet earth.

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Vizag siblings serve up a real treat for google doodle!

P.Karthik, a class III student from Vizag in Andhra Pradesh and the son of a school driver, won the Doodle for Google-2015 national-level competition.

His elder sister Ramya of class IV student won Group II competition.

Karthik's Doodle is about a machine that shows how non-biodegradable plastic can be converted into organic manure using solar energy. 

What a contribution by the kid at this age!

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Edison, the great scientist.

Thomas Alva Edison, who was an unparalleled achiever in the scientific world so far, could have only six months of schooling in all. He worked some 18 hours a day and made some 1093 discoveries in his life. The biggest discovery was electric bulb and telegraph for the mankind. Electric bulb he could make only after about thousand efforts and attempts. Similarly after some ten years of hard work he discovered the battery to store electricity.

We salute that genius and intellectual scientist who enabled the human welfare immensely.

Had he been born in India after independence, he would have been bestowed with a memorial by converting his official residence into a memorial at government expense and awarded with Bharat Ratna!

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"80-year-old tries in vain to meet PM" written by Mehboob Jeelani

A biological father (Abdul Ahad Rah) in his 80-years of age and a resident of Srinagar has been unable to meet his two sons who were picked up by police from their Khatmandu, Nepal leather workshop in 2000 for their alleged role in the hijacking of an Indian Airlines Flight IC 814 in December 1999.

A police enquiry 2001 found the elder brother having links with a militant outfit in the early 1990s in Srinagar while the younger one was given a clean chit. But the father hasn't seen, nor heard anything about them for the last 15 years despite representing to officials from Tahsildar to Home Secretary and pleading before the human rights organisations.

The PM Narendra Modi was 90 meters away on the podium delivering a speech for the State of Jammu & Kashmir in Srinagar on November 7,2015 though the old man with the photos of his sons and a bunch of documents reached the first row of audience by breaching security  cordon with a view to attracting the attention of PM and proving the innocence of his sons. 

A PM who is accessible to more than 10 million people on Twitter / facebook accounts is not reachable by such helpless citizens in this country. It means the grievance redressal system has not been perfected yet. 

Alas! The old man will die sooner or later without seeng his sons. Who is to blame? The entire system of governance since independence? It is immaterial who becomes the PM or CM in this country.

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In India unemployment rate still high

India's unemployment rate grew from 6.8 per cent in 2001 to 9.6 per cent in 2011  based on official census data.

Among literates, unemployment rates were higher among the better qualified, highest of all among the 7.2 million people with a technical diploma or certificate other than a degree. Kerala had India's highest graduate unemployment rate at over 30 per cent as of 2011.

What is the remedy for such a development? Close down 50 per cent of technical institutes and colleges or do a manpower planning as I have been advocating for the last three decades?

Neither the Niti Ayog (erstwhile Planning Commission at Delhi), nor the state planning commissions / boards are prepared to undertake a serious home work in this regard. Even if they have done a modicum of such an effort individually, nothing concrete appears in the field facilitating the utilisation of the national resources judiciously and engaging the workforce in the avenues where they are needed most.

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Wealth therapists to help super rich

Being in the top 1% can be lonely, plus there’s the guilt. But now help is at hand

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a member of the super-rich, one of the fabled one per cent, that exclusive club that has more money than the rest of us put together: The 99% languish beneath you in perpetual soft-focused toil and struggle, and life is good, right? Wrong. In 2015, you, hypothetical moneybags, have been bestowed with a conscience, and your bank balance is starting to feel like a burden. Your condition even has its own name now: wealth fatigue syndrome. And there are an increasing number of specialist therapists on hand to help, and from whom you will receive what you likely won’t from the rest of society: a sympathetic ear. “The media’s idea of the one per cent is people go out all the time and party, and keep spending,” says Jamie Traeger-Muney, founder of the Wealth Legacy Group which aims to help the wealthy “lead a rich life”. “But my clients have more sense of conflict over their wealth. They feel lucky, yes, but they also have unique problems to deal with, and my work is to make them feel more comfortable with their status, to help them see what positive changes they can make in their lives.”

But as Jamie Traeger-Muney says, the rich are people, too. “Therapy is just a way to provide a place for them to have a talk to help them figure things out. And at the end of the day, we all deserve that, right?” 

Ailing Punjab!

It is an irony that a hardworking race like Sikhs in Punjab should be seen as wanting in their approach and thoughts!

Farmers are struggling. Religious heads are warring with each other. A decade old terrorism has not led to a permanent peace and harmony in that society. Punjab politics is no exemplary specimen for others to follow. Dynastic rule (Senior Badal has some five members of his family in the state cabinet including his son as deputy chief minister and daughter-in-law in the central cabinet) is showing its ugly head in all-pervasive manner!! Bharat Mata would have tears in her eyes because such a thing wouldn't have happened even in colonial rule of the British before 1947.

The land of warriors has of late given birth to a worthless and hapless community   unfortunately?

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SC to hear Bagrodia plea on November 30

The Supreme Court on Monday, November 2, 2015 agreed to hear on November 30 a plea made by former Union Minister (Junior Minister to Dr Manmohan Singh in the Coal ministry for a year in 2008-09) Santosh Bagrodia for parity with former Prime Minster for stay of criminal proceedings against him in a coal block allocation case. The plea was raised on his behalf by a senior advocate K.K. Venugopal.

The CBI on its part opposed such a move saying that the legal provisions challenged by both of them ( former PM and his former Junior Minister in the same ministry) were different. It is for the court to interpret and give a judgment. 

As a common man one would wish to add that impartiality should be shown to everyone equally with no discrimination. Criminality committed by anyone should be dealt with as such with no double standards and doubtful interpretation in the interest of natural justice. Similarly politicians in such high positions taking and making major decisions should not be treated lightly while his senior civil servants are being taken to task for obeying the orders of the ministers. It leads to a ridiculous situation certainly destroying the rule of law.

Let us see how the Apex Court is going to guide the executives of this country in the days to come!

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