Cyclone Nilam

With Cyclone Nilam over Bay Bengal expected to hit the coastal areas of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh by the evening on Wednesday, the authorities in two southern states are on high alert.

According to the Director, Chennai Metrological Department, Ramanna, “The cyclone is 270 kilometres away from Chennai. It is expected to make landfall by 5 pm. Cyclone Nilam is heading northwest to cross anywhere between Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu and Nellore in Andhra Pradesh during the next few hours.”

The Met official also warned that destructive winds and rains unleashed by the cyclone are likely to disrupt daily lives in Tamil Nadu and adjoining south Andhra Pradesh.

Heavy to very heavy rain is expected during the next 24 to 48 hours at many places in Tamil Nadu with widespread moderate rain over most of the places in the state. South Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka would also be affected by the cyclone as many places would receive rain with heavy spells at a few places during the next couple days.

As per the Met officials, Nagapattinam, Thiruvarur, Tanjavaur, Tiruchirappalli, Cuddalore, Pondicherry, Villupuram, Kanchipuram, Chennai, Tiruvannamalai, Vellore and Tiruvallur districts in Tamil Nadu and Nellore, Chittor, Anantapur, Cuddapa and Kurnool districts in Andhra Pradesh will be the most affected by the cyclone.

Some places in Kerala would also experience the impact of this cyclone.

Telecommunication, Electricity, Rail, Road and Flights services will be affected by the cyclone. The coastal areas would be most affected as along with very heavy rain, they also have to encounter the high tides causing floodings.

The cyclone, some 500 km away in the southwest in the Bay of Bengal is said to be fast moving in a northwest direction. After landing it would weaken as it will lose most of its energy and would then approach again in the same direction. It is expected to become a low after the next 72 hours.

The Met department said, “Rainfall is expected at most places over coastal Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Wind speed would reach around 80 kmph and prevail along and off north Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and adjoining south Andhra Pradesh coasts as Nilam nears its landfall.”

The sea condition will be rough along and off north Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and south Andhra Pradesh coasts during the next 36 hour.

Storm surge of about 1 to 1.5 metre over the astronomical tide is likely to inundate the low lying areas of Chennai, Kanchipuram and Tiruvallur districts in Tamil Nadu and Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh.

Standing crops - paddy, groundnut and maize - in coastal districts of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh are likely to be damaged, said a weather bulletin.

The Tamil Nadu government has announced holiday for schools and colleges in the coastal districts.

Five coastal districts in Andhra which are in Nilam's path are on alert. Fishermen have been advised not to venture out in sea till the storm settles. Rescue and relief teams are also on standby and shelters being prepared in case evacuation becomes necessary.

The disaster management agency of the state is supervising the precautionary arrangements being taken by the local administration to minimise the loss of human life and property in case of any eventuality.

The Chennai port on the southeast coast has stopped cargo operations after a cyclone warning.

How Bluetooth Creates a Connection

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Bluetooth

Bluetooth takes small-area networking to the next level by removing the need for user intervention and keeping transmission power extremely low to save battery power. Picture this: You're on your Bluetooth-enabled cell phone, standing outside the door to your house. You tell the person on the other end of the line to call you back in five minutes so you can get in the house and put your stuff away. As soon as you walk in the house, the map you received on your cell phone from your car's Bluetooth-enabled GPS system is automatically sent to your Bluetooth-enabled computer, because your cell phone picked up a Bluetooth signal from your PC and automatically sent the data you designated for transfer. Five minutes later, when your friend calls you back, your Bluetooth-enabled home phone rings instead of your cell phone. The person called the same number, but your home phone picked up the Bluetooth signal from your cell phone and automatically re-routed the call because it realized you were home. And each transmission signal to and from your cell phone consumes just 1 milliwatt of power, so your cell phone charge is virtually unaffected by all of this activity.

Bluetooth is essentially a networking standard that works at two levels:

    It provides agreement at the physical level -- Bluetooth is a radio-frequency standard.
    It provides agreement at the protocol level, where products have to agree on when bits are sent, how many will be sent at a time, and how the parties in a conversation can be sure that the message received is the same as the message sent.

The big draws of Bluetooth are that it is wireless, inexpensive and automatic. There are other ways to get around using wires, including infrared communication. Infrared (IR) refers to light waves of a lower frequency than human eyes can receive and interpret. Infrared is used in most television remote control systems. Infrared communications are fairly reliable and don't cost very much to build into a device, but there are a couple of drawbacks. First, infrared is a "line of sight" technology. For example, you have to point the remote control at the television or DVD player to make things happen. The second drawback is that infrared is almost always a "one to one" technology. You can send data between your desktop computer and your laptop computer, but not your laptop computer and your PDA at the same time. 

These two qualities of infrared are actually advantageous in some regards. Because infrared transmitters and receivers have to be lined up with each other, interference between devices is uncommon. The one-to-one nature of infrared communications is useful in that you can make sure a message goes only to the intended recipient, even in a room full of infrared receivers.

Bluetooth is intended to get around the problems that come with infrared systems. The older Bluetooth 1.0 standard has a maximum transfer speed of 1 megabit per second (Mbps), while Bluetooth 2.0 can manage up to 3 Mbps. Bluetooth 2.0 is backward-compatible with 1.0 devices.

String to Integer in Java

Recently got interest in Java and started learning it. I started using NetBeans to learn Java with the GUI design. But I suddenly struck with the conversion of Text box values to integer for calculation purposes.

Finally found these two simple codes to convert a string value to an integer value.

Integer.parseInt("String");

Integer.valueOf("String");
 

Initialize an integer :

int x;

Assign the string to the integer:

Lets say string value will be textFeildj1.text() (Text box value)

x = Integer.parseInt(jTextField1.getText());
or 

x = Integer.valueOf(jTextField1.getText());

Dravidian Kinship System

Kin Groups and Descent: 

The Dravidian kinship system with its preference for cross-cousin marriage has been the subject of wide anthropological theorizing. The household is linked by a network of kin alliances established through Marriage within the caste. Fictitious exogamous clans ( gotras ) are found in only a few Brahmanized castes. Lineage depth Beyond three generations is not important in most families. Most Indian Tamils are patrilineal and patrilocal, though the Dravidian system equally accommodates matrilineal descent as among some Sri Lanka Tamils, including Muslims, and some castes in Kerala. But patriliny is less strong than in north India, and matrilateral links remain important. A woman is expected to go to her natal home for childbirth, Especially for the first child, and may remain there for a few months for nurturance and to gain confidence and training in infant care.

Kinship Terminology: 

For a male, all females are classified as sister (or parallel cousin, unmarriageable) or as female cross cousin (marriageable). The preferred marriage for a male is generally to his mother's brother's daughter, while in some groups his father's sister's daughter and his own elder's sister's daughter are also quite acceptable, as are more distant cognates classifiable as female cross cousins. Kin terms are few compared with north Indian languages; for example, māman is wife's father/father-in-law, mother's brother (who may be the same person), and father of any female cross cousin or anyone so classified. For a man, makan is own son, brother's son, and son's male parallel cousin. Terms distinguish between elder and younger siblings, or those so classified, and between some elder and younger siblings of the Parents, or those so classified. Some classical scholars tried to force explanations in terms of the north Indian system and Indo-Aryan languages, in which the bride's family is wife giver and hypergamy is built-in, but this misses the essence of the Dravidian system. About half of Tamil marriages now are Between such kin, but the categories are so strongly maintained in the language that the kinship pattern is imposed on all interpersonal relations. This has been structurally analyzed by anthropologists. Louis Dumont sees it as essentially a matter of affinities established by marriage, in which women are Exchanged among families that define the kin network; this has political and economic implications. Others see it as essentially a system of marriage rules that is an ideal or a mental representation. Still others have tried to explain it in terms of heritable body substances and biological ideas. The system has also been analyzed in terms of Freudian psychology: a man will want a marriage union enabling him to continue the warmth and protection of his mother, namely, through his mother's brother together with his daughter. For Tamils, as Thomas Trautman and others show, the whole conceptual structure is as much in the language as in the actual behavior. A recent approach proposed by Margaret Trawick is that the pattern itself is something like an art form that is perpetuated as any form of expressive culture; moreover, it creates longings that can never be fulfilled, and so it becomes a web of unrelieved tensions and an architecture of conflicting desires that are fundamental in the interpersonal relationships of Tamils.

LPG price hiked

LPG price hike

Cooking gas (LPG) price was on Saturday hiked by Rs. 11.42 per cylinder following government decision to raise commission paid to the dealers.

Subsidised LPG in Delhi will now cost Rs 410.42 per cylinder, up from Rs 399. In Kolkata the new price is Rs 412.42, in Mumbai Rs 434.42 and in Chennai Rs 397.92.

Petrol and diesel prices too may go up marginally as the Oil Ministry considers raising dealers commission by at least 23 paisa and 10 paisa a litre respectively.

The Ministry on Saturday issued orders raising commission paid to LPG dealers from Rs 25.83 per 14.2-kg cylinder to Rs. 37.25, government officials said.

The 44 per cent or Rs. 11.42 per cylinder increase in the commission on the subsidised cooking fuel is being passed on to consumers, they said.

For the consumer, subsidised LPG in Delhi will now cost Rs. 410.42 per cylinder, up from Rs. 399.

The hike comes within weeks of the government deciding to restrict supply of subsidised cooking gas to 6 cylinders of 14.2-kg size per household in a year. The remaining supplies would have to be sourced at market rates.

Officials said the commission paid on market price or non-subsidised LPG too has been raised by Rs. 12.17 to Rs 38 per cylinder. Accordingly, a non-subsidised LPG cylinder price will go up from Rs. 883.5 to Rs. 921.5.

A similar exercise is on to raise commission paid to petrol pump dealers on sale of petrol and diesel. The Ministry is proposing to raise commission paid on petrol by 23 paisa to 1.72 and that on diesel by 10 paisa to Rs. 1.01 a litre.

The hike being considered for petrol and diesel is less than 67 paisa and 42 paisa respectively being demanded by petrol pump dealers in view of their working capital cost going up substantially due to frequent price changes and sharp rise in overheads like electricity charges.

The government has also raised commission paid on 5-kg cylinders by Rs 5.33 to Rs 18.63.

Currently, petrol pump dealers get Rs 1.49 a litre commission on sale of petrol and Rs 0.91 a litre on diesel.

Pump operators have demanded that this be raised to Rs 2.10 a litre on petrol and Rs 1.33 per litre on diesel reasoning that unlike LPG agencies, petrol pumps open 365 days a year on 24 hours basis thereby incurring higher operating cost.

LPG agencies are closed on national holidays as well as once a week.

Besides, petrol pumps provide free facilities such as toilets, water and air-pressure for tyres, while LPG dealers do not provide any such service, Federation of All India Petroleum Traders (FAIPT) general secretary Ajay Bansal said.

Also, LPG rates haven’t increased in over a year but petrol and diesel prices have seen frequent changes.

“Increase in prices mean our working capital (money used to buy fuel from oil companies) goes up. Also, our losses increase because of evaporation of fuel,” he said questioning the Oil Ministry’s rationale of hiking LPG dealers commission by almost 50 per cent and offering only 10 per cent to petrol pumps.

Officials said the hike in LPG rates comes within days of oil firms raising price of non-subsidised cooking gas (LPG) by Rs 127 per cylinder to Rs 883.5 on account of increase in international oil prices.

The government has granted exemption from customs and excise duty on non-subsidised LPG cylinders only for domestic consumption to reduce the price burden on the common man.

The price of commercial 14.2-kg LPG cylinder in Delhi will be Rs 1,062, while that of a 19-kg bottle would be Rs 1,536.5.

Prithvi II successfully test fired

Sharpening its missile prowess, India on 04th Oct 2012, successfully test-fired a nuclear- capable Prithvi-II ballistic missile with a striking range of 350 km from a test range. The surface-to-surface missile flight was tested at around 0907 hrs from a mobile launcher from Integrated Test Range's launch complex-3 at Chandipur.

The missile is 9 metre-long and one metre in diameter with liquid propulsion twin engine. Radars and electro-optical systems located along the coast tracked and monitored all the parameters of the missile throughout the flight path.

The state-of-the-art Prithvi is the first ballistic missile developed under the India's prestigious Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMPD) and has the capability to carry 500 kg of both nuclear and conventional warheads with a strike range of 350 km.

Where the missile uses advanced inertial guidance system with manoeuvring trajectory. The test-fire of the sophisticated short-range ballistic missile was a user trial by the army and monitored by scientists of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

The trial was conducted to gauge the effectiveness of the weapon in a real time situation and improve accuracy.

Father of Nation (Gandhiji)

Mahatma Gandhiji

Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) was born on 2 October 1869, and he was the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India. Employing non-violent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for non-violence, civil rights and freedom across the world.

The son of a senior government official, Gandhi was born and raised in a Hindu Bania community in coastal Gujarat, and trained in law in London. Gandhi became famous by fighting for the civil rights of Muslim and Hindu Indians in South Africa, using the new techniques of non-violent civil disobedience that he developed. Returning to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants to protest excessive land-taxes. A lifelong opponent of "communalism" (i.e. basing politics on religion) he reached out widely to all religious groups. He became a leader of Muslims protesting the declining status of the Caliphate. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, increasing economic self-reliance, and above all for achieving Swaraj—the independence of India from British domination.

Gandhi led Indians in protesting the national salt tax with the 400 km Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in demanding the British to immediately Quit India in 1942, during World War II. He was imprisoned for that and for numerous other political offenses over the years. Gandhi sought to practice non-violence and truth in all situations, and advocated that others do the same. He saw the villages as the core of the true India and promoted self-sufficiency; he did not support the industrialization programs of his disciple Jawaharlal Nehru. He lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn he had hand spun on a charkha. His chief political enemy in Britain was Winston Churchill, who ridiculed him as a "half-naked fakir." He was a dedicated vegetarian, and undertook long fasts as means of both self-purification and political mobilization.

In his last year, unhappy at the partition of India, Gandhi worked to stop the carnage between Muslims on the one hand and Hindus and Sikhs that raged in the border area between India and Pakistan. He was assassinated on 30 January 1948 by a Hindu nationalist who thought Gandhi was too sympathetic to India's Muslims. 30 January is observed as Martyrs' Day in India. The honorific Mahatma ("Great Soul"), was applied to him by 1914. In India he was also called Bapu ("Father"). He is known in India as the Father of the Nation; his birthday, 2 October, is commemorated there as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and world-wide as the International Day of Non-Violence. Gandhi's philosophy was not theoretical but one of pragmatism, that is, practicing his principles in real time. Asked to give a message to the people, he would respond, "My life is my message."

Perunthalaivar Kamaraj

Kamraj was born on July 15, 1903, in a family of traders at Virudunagar. His real name was Kamakshi Kumaraswamy Nader but was affectionately shortened to Raja by his mother, Sivakami Ammal. His father, Kumarswamy Nader, was a coconut merchant. Kamaraj was enrolled at the local elementary school, the Nayanar Vidyalaya but was later shifted to the high school Kshatriya Vidyalaya.
 

Unfortunately his father died within a year of Kamaraj’s enrollment in school. Kamaraj’s mother sold all jewelry except her earrings and deposited the money with a local merchant and cared for the entire family on the monthly interest that the money earned.

Kamaraj was not a good student in school and dropped out when he was in the sixth grade. When he entered mainstream public life he felt handicapped and realized the importance of a good education. He educated himself during his periods of imprisonment and even learned English from his co-worker.

Kamaraj joined as an apprentice in his maternal uncle Karuppiah’s cloth shop after dropping out of school. He would slip out from the shop to join processions and attend public meetings addressed by orators like Dr. Varadarajulu Naidu and George Joseph. His relatives frowned upon Kamaraj ‘s budding interest in politics. They sent him to Thiruvananthapuram to work at another uncle’s timer shop. Even there Kamaraj participated in the Vaikom Satyagraha led by George Joseph, of the Congress, against the atrocities of the higher caste Hindus on the Harijans. His elders had him called back home and pressured him to marry. Kamaraj resolutely refused to bow to the dictates of his elders.

At the age of 16, Kamaraj enrolled himself as full-time worker of the Congress. He participated in inviting speakers, organizing meetings and collecting funds for the party. He also participated in the march to Vedaranyam led by Rajagopalachari as part of the Salt Satyagraha of March 1930.

Kamaraj was arrested and sent to Alipore Jail for two years. He was twenty seven at the time of arrest and was released in 1931 following the Gandhi-Iriwn Pact. Kamaraj was implicated in the Virudhunagar Bomb Case two years later. Dr. Varadarajulu Naidu and George Joseph argued on Kamaraj’s behalf and proved the charges to be baseless. Kamaraj was arrested again in 1940 and sent to Vellore Jail while he was on his way to Wardha to get Gandhiji’s approval for a list of satyagrahis.

While still in jail, Kamaraj was elected Chairman to the Municipal Council. Nine months later upon his release, Kamaraj went straight to the Municipality and tendered his resignation from his post. He felt that “one should not accept any post to which one could not do full justice.”

Kamaraj was arrested once more in 1942 and sentenced to three years in the Amaravathi prison for spreading propaganda material for Quit India movement initiated by Gandhiji. While in prison, Kamaraj read books and continued his self-education.

Kamaraj’s political guru and inspiration was S. Satyamurti, orator and parliamentarian. Satyamurti found in Kamaraj “an efficient, loyal, indefatigable worker and skillful organizer (p. 147, Pakshirajan).” Both developed a deep friendship and complemented each others’ skills. In 1936, Satyamurti was elected President of the Provincial Congress and he appointed Kamaraj the General Secretary. Four years later they swapped positions. The party base was strengthened under their leadership. So deep was Kamaraj’s devotion for Satyamurti that when India gained independence, he first went to Satyamurti’s house and hoisted the Indian flag there. On his election as Chief Minister, Kamaraj went to Satyamurti’s house and garlanded his photo and paid his respects to the leader’s widow.

On April 13, 1954, K. Kamaraj reluctantly became the Chief Minister of Madras. To everyone’s surprise, Kamaraj nominated C. Subramaniam and M. Bhakthavatsalam, who had contested his leadership, to the newly formed cabinet. Kamaraj gave simple advice to his ministers, “Face the problem. Don’t evade it. Find a solution, however small…. People will be satisfied if you do something.” The State made immense strides in education and trade. New schools were opened, better facilities were added to existing ones. No village remained without a primary school and no panchayat without a high school. Kamaraj strove to eradicate illiteracy by introducing free and compulsory education upto eleventh standard. He introduced the Midday Meals Scheme to provide at least one meal per day to the lakhs of poor children. He introduced free school uniforms to weed out caste, creed and class distinctions among young minds.

Under Kamaraj’s administration, a number of irrigation schemes were completed in record time. The Land Ceiling Act and the Tenancy Protection Act benefited small farmers and saved them from being exploited by landlords. Medium and small scale industries prospered in the midst of large industries making Madras one of the leaders in industrialization. Nehru complimented Kamaraj for making Madras (later renamed State of Tamil Nadu) the best administered State in India.”

Kamaraj remained Chief Minister for three consecutive terms. On October 2, 1963, he resigned to serve a greater purpose. Kamaraj noticed that the Congress party was slowly losing its vigor . He came up with a plan which was called the “Kamaraj Plan.” He proposed that all senior Congress leaders should resign form their posts and devote all their energy to the re-vitalization of the Congress. A number of Central and State ministers like Lal Bahadur Shastri, Jagjivan Ram, Morarji Desai and S.K. Patil followed suite and resigned from their posts. In 1964, Kamaraj was elected the President of the All India Congress and he successfully navigated the nation through the stormy years following Nehru’s death.

On October 2, 1975, Gandhi Jayanti, Kamaraj awoke from his afternoon nap feeling uneasy. His housekeeper, Vairavan, rang up his physician. While he was on his way out, Kamaraj said, “Vairavan, put out the lights when you go out.” K. Kamaraj died that day. He was honored with the highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna, posthumously in 1976.