Lost in Chennai Science festival 2010


From Feb 3 to 7 at Science city,Tamilnadu Science and Technology Centre, this year's theme is "Science in every day life".


Little bit confused in seeing this Alectrosaurus or Allosaurus, not sure of the family of Dinosaur, making bizarre screams thankfully not moving. Wonder the role of this giant lizard in Science in everyday life? but then found out, to amuse students!

Found an interesting stall

Ramanujan Museum & Math education centre showcasing Math learning kits


A tribute to Srinivasa ramanujan, man who knew infinity


Shapes with Triangles


Shapes with square, confusing?


Good outing for school children


but what about taking science beyond the schools and colleges?


Couple of Madras Red sheep



Ostrich desperately looking for more space


veterinary college stall, some pigs,rabbits and many more


One Prof instructing his students to go around,observe things and end of the day submit one page write up on the science fair

Daily dosage from the world of books

" Communism was a great system for making people equally poor. Capitalism made people unequally rich."

Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat

Image of the week

Amul Xerox

Business diversification at its best: From dairy products to Xerox! Utterly Butterly Xerox?

Extra Terrestrials landed in Chennai

75 minutes of Wow! : guaranteed! by Show space to mark

10th year in event management business, brought

8 International performers together for

1 of a kind show

Thats



The Extra Terrestrials!


The Venue: The Music Academy, Chennai


Thanks to Show Space, around 20 Bloggers were selected and given free tickets(including me)for the event.


Chennai Bloggers: Venkatesh, Benny, Ram,Prashanth and Shrinidhi,
Evidently happy about getting free tickets: minutes before the show


Great gesture by Show Space: around 350 children from Cancer Institute and Spastic society were invited for the show, here you see them eagerly waiting to get in!

Have a look here to know various bloggers' reaction


Mr. N.Ram,Editor-in-chief of The Hindu was the chief guest, inaugurated the show. He had a special message for the kids. Need to appreciate the best in the World beyond narrow nationalism.

So what to expect from ET?

1.Men in Gold: Hand balancing acrobatics by duo from Hungry: Sandor vlah and Gyula Takacs

2.King of German Wheel: Wolfgang Bientzle

3.One wheel wonder or Unique unicyclist from Sweden:Erik Ivarsson

4.Skating and mid air acrobatics by German skaters

5.Acrobatic Trio's hand balancing act

6.The illusionist Jerome Murat's Living Statue

7.Lord of the Ring or Houdini with Hoop from Russia: Anton Skopinov Houdini

8.Laserman: Theo Dari from France. World's first person to introduce Laser act and later Laser 3D act also

Watch a promo of the show here


And I heard a lot!

Thought of sharing with you wonderful TED talks by eminent personalities. Every Tuesday you will find here, named TED Tuesdays one inspiring idea. Lets start with Music.First talk rather performance by Percussionist Sivamani who uses traditional Western and Eastern instruments along with a tub of water, corrugated metal, spoons, luggage, stage props and what not. So lets enjoy and get inspired too
Sivamani: Rhythm is everything, everywhere | Video on TED.com

Daily dosage from the world of books

" It is easier to conquer the World than to master the mind."

Yayati by K H Khandekar

Image of the week

Anna library@Kotturpuram, Chennai


Upcoming Anna centenary library scheduled to be inaugurated on June 3 which will have second largest collection of books in the country, next to the National library in Kolkata

Daily dosage from the world of books

" Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks but of course if you dig deeper it's really how it works."

Steve Jobs, co-founder Apple

The Sapling Project: A great person's home, some saplings, few good men and a wonderful day

Chennai edition of the Sapling Project was organised at MGR's home and School for the Speech and Hearing Impaired,Ramavaram
Entrance of the MGR's house


Chennai's first dish at MGR's house



The Charismatic "Makkal Thilakom" Bharat Ratna DR.M.G.R





All the participants infront of MGR's statue, before the planting



Met this wonderful person Mr. Sugavanam. His motto is, to make paper we destroy the forest, lets destroy the paper and make the forest, what an idea Sirji!



His business card is a unique one (same as his name) made out of so called waste paper.



The card says " Reuse paper save forest"





Kiruba Shankar, The Sapling project, Chennai chapter coordinator in action





Raja another volunteer for The Sapling project, doing his share of activity



A well measured 1 ft width x 1.5 ft depth pit




NSS Volunteers from nearby college



Thats the one by Kiruba




Here we are with our sapling,planting it proudly



we have branded it also, "The TEDX tree" dedicated to the spirit!


Few hours well spent for sure

TEDXconversations, Chennai chapter

First edition of TEDX conversations happened on Jan 16, 2010. 4 interesting and inspiring TED videos were shown to highly motivated bunch


Nambiraj is the guy behind this wonderful initiative, here seen Nambi explaining the concept to the group


TED Videos

Hans Rosling's talk on global economic growth

Hans Rosling: Asia's rise -- how and when | Video on TED.com

Mallika Sarabhai on how art can be a change agent

Mallika Sarabhai: Dance to change the world | Video on TED.com

Malcom Gladwell on spaghetti sauce

Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce | Video on TED.com

Benjamin Zander on music and passion

Benjamin Zander on music and passion | Video on TED.com

Apart from seeing the videos, the best part of TEDX conversations is all about the group sharing their experience. Benny sharing his experience with Bharatnatyam shows



Another part of TEDX conversations is the live talks.

First one made by a group named Reclaim our beaches



The team shared their various efforts on saving the beaches of Chennai




Their latest effort is to prevent the Elevated corridor along the beach(s)thats been planned by the Tamil Nadu Govt



Its believed that the proposed elevated road might ruin the beauty of the beach(s)


Another talk was by a guy who was part of the Tata Jagriti Yatra. He shared his wonderful and inspiring yatra experience


Its a great initiative for sure and inspiring too

Daily dosage from the world of books

"Everybody can be enlightened, that is the only thing about which communism is right and strangely that is the only thing communism denies."

Osho, Autobiography of a spiritually incorrect mystic

Image of the week



Bemused to see this caution sign on the rear side of a scorpio " This vehicle stops at all airports."

So what?

Daily dosage from the world of books

" You draw the near things nearer by making the queer things queerer."

Danish philosophy

First ever Twitter based e paper: twt2day

I would like to share with you about my new venture.

You know how powerful various networking sites are and the role of social media is ever increasing. Twitter being the one which is making the most of noice (no pun intended).

Most of you might be knowing about the twitter, remember Shashi Tharoor and his share of controversies?

Now, along with my friend Nambirajan, I have ventured into a new business," First ever twitter based e paper", twt2day .

Start following http://twitter.com/twt2day and your tweets might feature in the epaper.

Let the World read your tweets,

Solar Eclipse @ Kotturpuram, Chennai

Chennai Birla Planetarium /Tamilnadu Science and Technology Centre (location) was all set for the mega event of the year, Solar Eclipse of Jan 15, 2010



All decorated with lightbulbs



Early morning scenes!



Police force ready for controlling the crowd



Men fixing the telescope and other equipments



The rush started by 10 a.m itself




There was a kilometre long queue to view the eclipse and length of the queue was ever incresing.Its like family outing almost like a mahakumbhmela




and here you see an illegal seller of goggles (you get free goggles inside) later the officials asked him to leave the premises and I found him outside selling the same




People are seeing Eclipse through telescope,


freely distributed goggles, welding glasses and films




There are standees kept explaining about the Solar Eclipse



Eclipse seen through a welding glass, captured in my mobile



Camera man of a local TV channel trying to fix the shot for a live telecast


Eclipse seen on a paper, reflected from a lense