the positive side of the world

The moon mineralogy mapper (M3), a scientific instrument of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) onboard India's first lunar mission Chandrayaan-1, found iron-bearing minerals on the lunar surface, the US space agency said on Thursday.

"The mapper spectrometer has beamed images of the Orientale Basin region of the moon, indicating abundance of iron-bearing minerals such as pyroxene. Using different wavelengths of light, the instrument has also revealed for the first time changes in rock and mineral composition," M3 principal investigator Carle Pieters said in a statement hosted on NASA Website.

Data from the 7-kg mapper provides space scientists first opportunity to examine lunar mineralogy at high spatial and spectral resolution.

The Orientale Basin is located on the moon's western limb. M3 captured the data last week when Chandrayaan was orbiting the moon at an altitude of 100 km.

"The imaging spectrometer provides us with compositional information across the moon that we have never had access to before. Our ability to identify and map the composition of the surface in geologic context provides a new level of detail needed to explore and understand the earth's nearest celestial neighbour," affirmed Pieters, who teaches at Brown University in Rhode Island.

The mapper was selected as a mission of opportunity through the NASA discovery programme. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed and built the instrument at Pasadena in California.

"M3 will also help in characterising and mapping lunar minerals for knowing the moon's early geological evolution. Its compositional maps will improve our understanding of the early evolution of a differentiated planetary body and provide a high-resolution assessment of lunar resources," Chandrayaan project director M. Annadurai averred.

M3 is one of the 10 instruments onboard the unmanned Chandrayaan, conducting experiments while the spacecraft orbits over the moon next two years.

Five instruments were indigenously built by the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), while the remaining six payloads are of foreign origin, including three from the European Space Agency, two from NASA and one from Bulgaria.

Chandrayaan was launched on October 22 onboard the 316-tonne polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV-C11) from ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota spaceport, about 80 km north of Chennai.

After traversing 3,84,000 km through the deep space for 18 days, the spacecraft entered the lunar orbit on November 8 and its moon impact probe was lowered on the moon's surface on November 14.

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

On June 1st, fourteenth Loksabha completes its four years and now we enter in election years. At a time when several political parties are gearing up for new alliances and several politicians are changing loyalties to get through the hurdles of General Elections scheduled next year, think what we are doing. Here we stands for every one who is citizen of India.

Have you ever thought how important your vote is even if you did not choose to cast it? Just look at a possible statistics of a certain constituency
Number of candidates: 5 or 8 or 11 or anything
Percentage of Voting: 45%
Candidate A : 32%
Candidate B : 26%
Candidate C : 19%
And so on
You will say what is new in it. It’s usual and candidate A will win as A has secured more votes. Yes its usual thing and it is the picture of almost every constituency. Now lets have another look on statistics
Percentage of votes secured by A is 32 but it is 32% of only those who went to vote. That means 32% of 45% of total voters. That is equal to 14.4%. Let’s have a look on votes of top three candidates again
Candidate A : 32% of 45% : 14.4%
Candidate B : 26% of 45% : 11.7%
Candidate C : 19% of 45% : 08.5%
Now this is real picture Candidate with 14% votes won election by some what good margin by defeating those who got 11.7% and 8.5% and so on. Now you may blame Indian voting system which gives chance for such faults. But is it not known to you? Don’t you know from the first day that these are rules of the game and you knew that a candidate F is or may be a good candidate but you never choose to let him get your support in form of votes. May be remaining 85.6% people knew that A is someone who is not to be trusted but most of them choose to stay away saying politics is dirty.
Yes politics is dirty. And it is dirty because we choose it to be dirty.
It’s dirty because we don’t have heart to take responsibility.
It’s dirty because we could not perform simplest task given to us and that to only for our well being.
Do you know where your votes go when you don’t cast? Let me tell you
With not casting votes you passively (Actually actively) support people, ideologies and works you don’t like.
Its coming soon, the voting day is not far, one more chance to perform simplest task assigned to us is just one year ahead. Are you prepared to perform your duty? Are you prepared to do something for what you have been blaming others for years?

Well, in the starting I abused Sanjay for creating embarrassment for his reputated and noble father. I was about 14 yrs ago when he was arrested and sent to jail. As the case went on I gradually turned soft on Sanjay but I knew he broke the law and he will be punished and he must be punished. I felt happy when Judge said that he is not a terrorist even then I knew that he will get the punishment for his crime. Its hard to see such a versatile entertainer behind the bars but I don’t think it is unfair or any type of injustice.
I want to discuss what this guy,whom India Today says “Mother India ka kabhi bada na hone wala bachcha” gave us. Few days back my little niece was talking me and she told me that she likes Gandhiji. i asked what she likes in Gandhi ji, she told me that he is so nice man. then i asked her what she knows about him. she told me about slaps on face and so on. i said he said this because he was not so strong to answer the slap. Now she told me that he was not weak and it was his way to make the other guy good. I knew it all, I knew<, Gandhi is not name of majboori but he is a majbooti which we cant understand because we are so weak to understand. I knew all this because I read a lot of books, but my niece knew it because she saw the movie of Munna bhai(wahi bachcha jo kabhi bada nahi hoga according to India Today). She is not 8 and she knows this philosophy of making people good. I don’t know all those who learnt about Gandhi in Munna Bhai classes, will keep it with them or not but atleast they knew a little. I rememeber few years back many college going youths were not clear about Gandhi and his identity. I smiled a little when i knew that Sanjay is sent to Yarwada jail where Mahatma spent much of his time. Infact for a long time i was thinking about postive punnishments and these days just because of the appeal of Sanjay i felt the need of such punnishments more. As we could have used his appeal for some purpose for our society.

What New Delhi stands for you? May be the capital of India, may be center of power, may be the city of so called big people but to be very sure from today thousands of people from every corner of India and world will remember it as a place where they shared their dreams with people like them around the world. They are going to remember New Delhi as the place where they shared their pains and rose their weak voices strongly. The difference is- they are participating in India Social Forum(ISF) 2006.
The ISF is third event organized by WSF-India; Asian Social Forum-2003 and the WSF-2004. Building another world: visions for the future'' -- as the theme suggests -- focuses on engendering dialogue, optimism and hope, by creating a space that will enable a greater mobilization of resources for an alternative future within India, Asia and Africa.. The event started on November 9, 2006 with a grand gathering of more than 60,000 people on the exhibition ground near JLN Stadium. The excitement, the joy and sense of belongingness with the ISF was more than visible in the gathering. People were there to say something about themselves, about others perhaps for the first time in their life. Every action and every scene was telling the truth that it is a self motivated gathering from grassroots.
The show began with folk music when Ramdayal Munda with his people from Jharkhand made a cultural presentation which was followed by a poetry reading session by renowned Urdu poet Shahryar. It was an all women panel to inaugurate the event showing the concern of the WSF for women empowerment. When weak but firm voice of Irol Sharmila of Manipur made the declaration that she will keep on her fast till the People of Manipur get justice, everyone in the ground was moved. She has refused food, water and medical attention, since November 2000, to protest Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. Tulsi Mai Munda, a tribal leader of Orissa talked about dreams of a better status of women in India. While Eileen Kuttab, activist from Palestine, narrated her experiences while working with the women in her country. She had been at the forefront of the Palestinian struggle and women's movement during the days of the first Palestinian Intifada. Medha Patekar, the NBA activist, Wahu Kara, a global social justice campaigner from Kenya, discussed about the impacts of Goobalization. Ruth Manorama talked about her efforts to break the upper-class, upper-caste image of women's movement in India.
It was a dreamy evening where everyone was there to share dreams which contained simple wishes, the wishes which has the capacity to change the world. The small dreams which are powerful enough to make the world happier and pretty. At the end of the function when the small fog particles started to make the sight diminished, the dreams were getting clearer and the faces were getting brighter. You dont need some thing extra to read the clear message in their eyes saying- Yes! Another World Is Possible.