Category Archives: World Opinion

TAKE Solutions secures patent for clinical data standardization process

Business & Economy, Records, All, World Opinion

Chennai :

TAKE Solutions — a Chennai-based global business technology solutions provider — has been awarded a patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for its clinical data standardization process.

The process, delivered by Navitas — the life sciences arm of TAKE Solutions — is referred to as “Method for Optimizing Clinical Data Standardization.”

This process captures data from clinical trials coming in different formats and leverages TAKE’s clinical accelerator systems to standardize the data.

According to TAKE, the patented process is capable of reducing the time taken to standardize trial data, thus simplifying the analysis process by regulators and also reducing time to market.

“The process includes various pre-defined steps that convert raw data into tabular data sets. This enables regulators to easily understand the data, as well as enables easy analysis of trial data,” TAKE Solutions said in a statement.

“The clinical data and regulatory service accounts for almost 30% of our life sciences business and we expect the patented process to reduce cost of providing the services by around 20%,” Srinivasan H R, vice-chairman and MD of TAKE Solutions, told TOI.

TAKE’s clinical data and regulatory services team offers clinical data solutions, including clinical data standardisation, clinical data management, statistical programming and data standards.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India /Home> City> Chennai / by Sindhu Hariharan, TNN /June 25th, 2015

Sky is the limit

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Nri's / Pio's, Records, All, Science & Technologies, World Opinion
Suraksha Bhatla and Sharan Sundar. Inset shows their model for the 'shanty scraper'. — PHOTO: R. RAVINDRAN
Suraksha Bhatla and Sharan Sundar. Inset shows their model for the ‘shanty scraper’. — PHOTO: R. RAVINDRAN

Winning a competition for their vertical living design is a boost for architects Suraksha Bhatla and Sharan Sundar.

High rises are the future. Growing population, limited land area and talented architects will ensure that. This is probably why the eVolo Skyscraper competition to acknowledge outstanding ideas for vertical living is conducted in New York every year. “The brief encourages designers to come up with digital submissions of new urban vertical living proposals using advances in technology, new architectural methods and sustainable ideas,” explains Chennai-based Suraksha Bhatla, who, along with Sharan Sundar, won the second place in the competition. Out of the 500 entries from around the world, 100 are shortlisted to be published every year.

“We thought of how slums aren’t visible in the city’s skyline,” says Suraksha. Their proposal was for a ‘shanty scraper’, to address the problem of growing slums in the county. They believe that one of the reasons their proposal won is because the jury wanted to bring the issue of slums to the forefront to drive discussion.

“Usually with slums, the Government response is to relocate the dwellers. This doesn’t work because most of them end-up sub-letting their houses to move back to the slums, which is closer to their job,” says Suraksha, a sustainability consultant and freelance architect.

23mp_scraper

“Currently, vertical living is only for people who are from a high-income bracket, so we explored something different,” explains Sharan, who works as an architect for Zaha Hadid in London. The winning Polish entry proposed the idea for a utopian skyscraper in the middle of New York City, interwoven with nature, as a means to relieve one from city life. A Malaysian team proposed an idea for a limestone scraper, China, a tower of refuge and Russia presented Cybertopia.

The duo studied together in Anna University’s School of Architecture and Planning, and graduated from the Architectural Association in London. “We wanted to create something that’s aesthetically appealing and yet made of recyclable material,” says Sharan, while Suraksha adds that the materials used — post construction debris like pipes and reinforcement bars, timber and thatch — give the structure a post apocalyptic feel.

Although theirs is only a conceptual design, they say that it is feasible to execute.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus> Society / by Raveena Joseph / June 22nd, 2015

Biography of Dr Sanjaya Rajaram released

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Green Initiatives/ Environment, Leaders, Nature, Records, All, Science & Technologies, World Opinion

Chennai :

A biography of Dr Sanjaya Rajaram, who developed 58% of all wheat varieties that exist now, was released in Chennai on Sunday.

The book, “Mr Golden Grain, the Life and Work of the Maharaja of Wheat,” traces the humble beginning of Rajaram and his success.

The book highlights Rajaram’s sheer grit and determination that took him from a humble wheat researcher to a global leader in research arena.

The book, written by agriculture communications specialist G Venkataramani, was released at the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation. M S Swaminathan, founder of MSSRF, released the book and applauded it for being one of the best biographies on scientists.

“Dr Rajaram has shown single-minded devotion and desire not only for knowledge but to work towards public good, bringing him awards cutting across national boundaries,” he said.

“The book not only delves on not only on the humanistic aspects of the person but also on the scientific strength of Dr Rajaram,” he added.

Rajaram — who is the recipient of the 2014 World Food Prize for his scientific research that lead to an increase in wheat production by more than the 200 million tonne — expressed his concern over the growing population and the need to strengthen a holistic approach to agriculture especially related to soils and seeds.

“Wheat is a great programme on paper. However, the quality of seeds is a great concern where different varieties are being mixed and sold. Although it is distributed by the public sector, if farmers don’t get good seed, they won’t get good crops. We can look at public-private or public – NGO supported models for better seeds,” he said.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / by Karthikeyan Hemalatha, TNN / June 21st, 2015

Indian origin scientist to get Russia’s highest tech award

Amazing Feats, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Nri's / Pio's, Records, All, Science & Technologies, World Opinion

St Petersburg :

B Jayant Baliga, a US-based Indian-origin scientist, is being awarded Russia’s top technology award in recognition of his work as a major development in energy management which brought about huge increase in efficiency and major savings.

B Jayant Baliga, a US-based Indian-origin scientist, is being awarded Russia's top technology award. (Representative image)
B Jayant Baliga, a US-based Indian-origin scientist, is being awarded Russia’s top technology award. (Representative image)

The award will presented to Professor Baliga and Shuji Nakamura on Friday by Russian President Vladimir Putin at a ceremony here.

Nakamura, a Nobel Laureate, is being recognised for his work on blue light emitting diodes (LEDs). In Russia, the Global Energy Prize is known as the electronics equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

Professor Baliga invented the digital switch or the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) while working at General Electrical research & development centre in New York state in the US in 1983. The IGBT switches energy hundreds of thousands of times a second, raising the efficiency of any equipment manifold.

“Every equipment from your refrigerator to lights to motor vehicles has the need to use energy efficiently. If you take away the IGBT today, almost everything will come to a standstill,” Baliga told a visiting IANS correspondent on the eve of receiving the award.

Scientific American magazine called him among the ‘eight heroes of the semiconductor revolution’, and President Barack Obama awarded him the highest American technology prize last year and he is the 2014 recipient of the IEEE Medal of Honour, a rare distinction.

Professor Baliga, who now teaches to the North Carolina university as ‘distinguished university professor’, said that the IGBT that his invention combines two streams of electronics and electrical engineering and has possibly saved the world around $24 trillion dollars by raising efficiency, according to one detailed calculation.

“I got zero out of it. But then I did it all for humanity.”

Of course, says Prof Baliga, that he did make some money when he started three companies, but these were financed by venture capitalists who exited with enormous profits at the right time.

He says every motor today is at least 40 percent more efficient, the light bulb like the CFL better by almost 75 percent and a motor vehicle saves over 10 percent fuel because of his invention. He has written 19 books and over 500 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Baliga passed out of IIT Madras before going to the US for his MS and PhD after electrical engineering after which he joined GE where he spent over 15 years.

After his ‘switch’ was invented, several of his colleagues told him that it would not work, and many scientists said he would fall “flat on his face”. But he said it stood the test of time.

The chairman of GE at that time, Jack Welch flew down especially to meet him when he heard what it could do. GE used the switch in the several of the equipments it sold, including medical devices.

A US citizen since 2000, he now has very little connection with India and does not travel to his home country much, especially after his parents and parents of his wife passed away. But, says Prof Baliga, an invention like his is unlikely in India, because it needs huge research infrastructure to be in place from universities to industries.

He feels, that India has a potential which has not been fully used, although in software “it has made great strides”.

Could a Nobel be on its way in the future? “I used to say no way,” but with so many recognitions and this “global prize where I am being feted with a Nobel Laureate, who knows”, he says. His regret though is that India does not know much about him.

“Top scientists that I meet always ask me, why has India not recognised your achievement?” And with characteristic modesty, Baliga told IANS, “I tell them that perhaps my country does not know about what I did.”

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> NRI / IANS / June 18th, 2015

Back to basics

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Green Initiatives/ Environment, World Opinion

Study of homes

RohiniShankarCF19jun2015

She has pored over curvilinear walled houses in Upper Volta; shell-decorated chieftain’s houses in the villages of Fijian Islands; dome-shaped huts with stilt legs in Samoa Islands, Polynesia; huts with pitched roofs and a front porch in fortified Maori villages (New Zealand); castle-style  farmhouses in the Taiaakon region (Dahomey); the large togunas (public buildings) supported by carved pillars in Mali; the diverse structures of Morocco; dwellings in British Columbia with free-standing totem poles in front of them; the log huts of Lapps in Scandinavia, and the huts of Naga Angamis.

There is more: the cusped roof structures with horns as insignia of rank in interior Assam; huts with saddleback roofs in New Guinea; dwellings with geometrically decorated walls in Mangbettu (Zaire); temporary shelters made from branches and pandanus leaves in Solomon Islands, Melanesia; keel-shaped tents of Ethiopian nomads; huts covered by mats and bent branches in eastern Madagascar, aboriginal cave dwellings in Australia…
And yes, she has been to Timbuktu!

Well, for Chennai-based Rohini Shanker, the study of primitive architecture around the globe has been a relentless, fascinating and satisfying three-decade odyssey. The charm never seems to wear off.

It sparked off when she first set foot in interior Alaska. Conical tents greeted her. “It was a shock. I had seen the same kind of structures in Mongolia on the other side of the globe,” reminisces the architect and designer. For Rohini, this exploration grew as a casual offshoot of her frequent travels abroad to attend conferences. She began to take a day or two to travel beyond the tourist spots. “It’s beautiful that tribal people see the entire land as their abode, their architecture. They are gentle and sociable, there is nothing aggressive about them. If they are afraid of you, they will keep away from you,” shares Rohini.

Giving it a skip

Strange as it seems, primitive architecture is a realm that has been overlooked by everyone — archaeologists, historians, and even art enthusiasts. Most architecture pundits tend to give primitive architecture short shrift, considering it to be a temporary solution to an existential challenge, and a dead end that really didn’t evolve into much. But that may not be the case, as pointed out by the architectural theorist Marc-Antoine Laugier.

Recall that as early as in 1755, Laugier had elucidated in his seminal but overlooked essay, Essay on Architecture, that the aesthetics and architecture of ancient Greek temples were drawn from the plan of the primitive hut, which is considered the oldest of habitations built by man. As he pointed out, the basic Doric style of architecture was inspired by the hut’s format in which a horizontal beam was supported by vertical tree trunks embedded into the ground, with a sloping roof to channel rainwater into the ground.

Considering the range of architectural features that come alive in the ancient primitive dwellings that Rohini Shanker has documented, it would be interesting if someone were to study them in depth.

While some of the features are quite apparent, others don’t hit the eye straightaway, and some other similarities are downright puzzling.

For instance, the pagodas of Buddhist temples bear something in common with the saddlebacked roofs in New Guinea, though the geographical and cultural distance between the sites dissuade the speculation. Likewise, the dome-shaped huts of the Polynesian islands show a definite resemblance to the domes of Islamic architecture. Nevertheless, leaving aside the road taken by primitive architecture, some of these structures are marvels by themselves.

Consider the case of the primitive tribes who live in Andaman Islands. “With just poles and leaves they build such simple and sturdy structures that bear the brunt of the sun, wind and of course, the islands’ spectacular and notorious monsoons. They manage this miracle because the structure is built in a way that allows the wind to blow through it rather than blow on it. I saw similar structures in Congo, but the foliage used for the roofing was different,” recalls Rohini.

Of course, primitive architecture cannot be viewed in isolation. Like other aspects of art and culture, it reflects a certain attitude towards life. Chiefly, a reverent and non-disruptive attitude towards nature. This is something that gets confirmed over and over again with any and every primitive dwelling that you consider.

Let live 

Rohini points out to the aboriginal settlements in Uluru in Australia, which is an annual visit that she hasn’t missed for the last 30 years. “Without gadgets they know exactly where to find food and water, the raw materials to build their shelter, the mineral-rock pigments to make their dot-paintings, and the reeds to make their musical instruments (like didgeridoo). Their culture and attitude towards  our planet is wonderful. Though this land is so tough to live in, they leave no footprint of themselves there. Not for building their homes, not for meeting their other needs,” remarks Rohini.

This is one of the reasons she reckons that we shouldn’t rush to ‘civilise’ the tribes who live in their own ‘archaic’ ways. “They continue to lead a happy life, without our lifestyle diseases. We shouldn’t enforce their culture, unless they ask for it,” is Rohini’s explanation.

The needs of primitive people by way of habitable structures were limited — a hut for home, a shrine for worship, a granary for storage, a stockade for defence, a cairn/mound as a grave marker of the shaman, chieftain and priest. But within the limitations of their needs, as also the limitations of the resources and the technology they have at hand, primitive architecture holds some elegant and fundamental solutions for architectural challenges, which is something that modern architects might ponder upon.

“I once asked a little child to draw houses, and I was amazed to see her come back with just rectangles. The child has seen nothing but our cuboidal blocks, towers and tenements. Well, that is the state of our architecture today, with most urban buildings tending to be just blocks. In this context, nobody realises just how exciting, interesting and rewarding studying primitive architecture can be,” remarks the architect.

source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> Supplements> Sunday Herald / by Hema Vijay, DHNS / June 14th, 2015

Fusion puts Tamil bhakti music on global stage

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Nri's / Pio's, World Opinion

When Susheela Raman sings ‘Paalum Thelithenum’ (milk and pure honey), an Avvaiyar prayer to Vinayaka recited everyday by millions of Tamil children, with a twang in her velvety voice, the invitation is surely compelling. What is to be lisped with childish innocence, however, assumes a husky edge in Susheela’s beginning line. When she repeats the word ‘thunga’ (elephant trunk) unnecessarily and distorts and elongates ‘thoo’ in the word ‘thoomaniye” (pure and precious treasure), ‘maniye’ is completely lost on us. Tamil listeners may now feel far removed from the prayer they learned in childhood.

We have already forgiven her for mispronouncing the word ‘theli’ in ‘thelithenum’ with a lighter ‘l’ which is a common mistake television newsreaders in Tamil Nadu commit. But Tamils would wonder why the line offering four eatables to Vinayaka invites a swaying of the hips from Susheela. And even before we come out of our wonder Susheela makes the gesture of spinning a top and lifts her hand like a cricket umpire while praying to Vinayaka for proficiency in Tamil. She doesn’t stop there. Ecstatic gyrations, eyes-shut trances, and wild hair whippings follow, accompanied by electric guitar riffs.

For the traditional Tamil, Susheela Raman’s sound, gestures and gyrations may be controversial. But, in taking the genre of Tamil bhakti to a global audience, UK-born Susheela, a major star of world music, in her own way communicates the essence of the genre — invoking ecstasy. She declares on her website: “I don’t want to respect artificial barriers between music, I want to channel everything into the experience. Music is like a goddess that is always changing its mind, never straightforward. To earn her blessings and stay close to her, musicians have to try new things.”

For Susheela, the ecstasy that Tamil bhakti music seeks to provide is not to be achieved through slow ascendance. She simply plunges into it in the very first opening line as she does in the album ‘Vel’. K B Sunderambal, Madurai Somasundram, and Bangalore Ramani Amma would have also begun their first line of their Murugan bhakti song in a high pitch and gone for a higher pitch as the song progressed. Susheela has no such compulsions and her European audience would not have cared less had she opted for a more sober opening. However, Susheela’s first leap into ecstasy facilitates her fusion, like in her rendering of Madurai Somu’s ‘Marudamalai maamaniye murugaiyya’.

In the song, Somu ascends into emotional heights only after a few syllables. Kunnakudi Vaidhyanathan’s violin accentuates Somu’s climb and the ecstatic bursts come nearly at the end. What Susheela does is to begin in the second half of the original Tamil song, and replace the native morsing, ghatam, and violin interlude with the singing of Mian Miri Qawwals from Lahore. Followed by the tabla, Susheela launches her ‘Marudamalai maamaniye’ from a still higher pitch with a faster rhythm.

The effect is terrific because of the newness of the Qawwali singing merging perfectly with the high singing of Tamil bhakti music. The faster rhythm does not allow Susheela to distort words as she does in other songs. When she hands over the mantle back to the Quwwali chorus the similarity of rhythms smoothens the transition. Susheela’s frenzied whipping of the hair does add its visual quality to the orgasmic outbursts. In a way Susheela discovers and demonstrates the inner flow and the connectivity that exists between Qawwali singing and Tamil bhakti music.

When she sings ‘Velundu mayilundu’ with the interceptions from Quwwali musicians singing ‘Nuri Nuri’, the mixture already feels like a natural flow. It also becomes clear that the meanings of the words no longer matter to anyone except the singers themselves. For the audience, it’s all pure rhythmic sounds and bodily gestures.

Tamil bhakti music is at the centre of her three albums: Salt Rain, Music For Crocodiles, and 331/3. In Tamil Nadu, bhakti music is a vehicle for devotees to achieve communion with their gods guided through the meaning of words. The ecstatic experience is supposed to be the result of such a communion. In the Susheela Raman variety of world music, the ecstasy and emotional heights are already there as rhythms, sounds, gestures, and ambience. Devoid of meanings delivered by words, we experience words mingling with other sounds to create pure music. Perhaps only through such channels and loss of ‘word meaning’, native Tamil bhakti music could reach out and achieve a universal appeal.

For Tamil bhakti music is both ancient and contemporary and is deeply ingrained in the consciousness of Tamils living worldwide. For instance, while the poem ‘Paalum thelithenum’ is a Sangam-age composition attributed to Avvaiyar, the grand old lady of Tamil poetry, ‘Marudamalai maamaniye murugaiyya’ is a film song written by Kannadasan. Along with the Saivite and Vaishnavite bhakti movements, Murugan worship had seeped through Tamil history from ancient times, and it achieved canonical status in the 15th century as evidenced by the corpus of songs by Arunagirinathar. Trance behavior and Tamil Murugan bhakti are intimately intertwined, and it takes a Susheela Raman to identify its potential to sync with the ecstasy of Sufi Quwaali music of Pakistan.

(The author is a writer and folklorist who heads the National Folklore Support Centre, Chennai)

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / by M D Muthukumaraswamy, TNN / June 13th, 2015

Jaya’s Bid to Spread Glory of Tamil Resonates in Australia

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Education, Nri's / Pio's, World Opinion
Chennai :
Australian MP, Williams Matti and the Adelaide Tamil Association have heaped praise on Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa for her strenuous and unceasing efforts to spread the glory of the Tamil language across the globe.

The Australian MP, while speaking in the Australian Parliament on June 4, hailed the International Tamil Conference and Seminar, organised recently by the Tamil Development Department of the Tamil Nadu government. He said it was the first of its kind to be hosted in Australia for the Tamil people living there.

“It was great that the Tamil Nadu government and the World Tamil Association chose Torrensville Primary School in my electorate to facilitate the event. The two-day seminar and workshop covered teaching, education and development of Tamil language and culture for communities outside India.

Williams MattiCF12jun2015

Lawrence Annadurai, president of Adelaide Tamil Association, in his letter to Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, congratulated her on taking over the reigns of the State government for the fifth time and expressed confidence that Tamils across the globe were praising her measures for the welfare of the people of Tamil Nadu and those living abroad.

He said the international Tamil conference, held recently was highly praised by many personalities in Australia.  Zoe Bettison, Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Grace Portolesi, Minister for Multicultural Affairs and Chair of South Australian Multicultural Ethnic Affairs Commission, Angela Keneally, Mayor, City of Charles Sturt and many other invitees from Australian Government who attended the conference lauded the conference.

When traditional Tamil music was played, they danced to the tunes happily, he added.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by Express News Service / June 11th, 2015

Driven by passion

Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Records, All, Sports, World Opinion
Vintage Treasures: the car collection at Gedee Car Museum Photo: S. Siva Saravanan / The Hindu
Vintage Treasures: the car collection at Gedee Car Museum Photo: S. Siva Saravanan / The Hindu

G.D. Naidu’s love for automobiles is well documented at the Gedee Car Museum in the city.

So, this is how it feels to sit in Hitler’s favourite car. The bug-shaped vehicle has four seats. It is a so small that I have to duck my head while stepping out of the car. Yet, it is cosy and warm and just right for a family to enjoy a drive. At the GeDee Car Museum, the Volkswagen Beetle occupies pride of place. It is said the Fuhrer loved this car and urged his people to buy it as an investment. Called “the car at the price of a motorcycle”, it cost around Rs.850, those days. At the newly opened museum set up by G.D. Naidu Charities, I am tempted to hop into all the cars (there are 55 of them) – Chevrolet, Rolls Royce, Mercedes Benz, Porsche from the collection of the renowned industrialist G.D. Naidu. Some of them are Hollywood stars! For instance, the Love Bug has featured in almost six movies! The collection also includes rugged-looking vans of Fordson and Thames which were used as ice cream vehicles and carrier vans.

Vintage Treasures: the car collection at Gedee Car Museum Photo: S. Siva Saravanan / The Hindu
Vintage Treasures: the car collection at Gedee Car Museum Photo: S. Siva Saravanan / The Hindu

Automobile history unfolds before you as you walk down the curving hallway. There are interesting bits of information and stories wherever you turn like how Tutankhamun used the wheel in ancient Egypt. There are also pictures of steam engines and electric cars that were in vogue in Victorian England. “We are planning to extend the space. There are also workshops for restoration inside this campus,” explains Prem Saravanakumar, the museum guide.

Vintage Treasures: the car collection at Gedee Car Museum Photo: S. Siva Saravanan / The Hindu
Vintage Treasures: the car collection at Gedee Car Museum Photo: S. Siva Saravanan / The Hindu

Each car has a story to tell and is linked to world history. For instance the Bubble Car of the 50s and 60s was designed for the common man to commute during World War II in Europe. It can seat only the driver and a passenger. There are no doors on the side and the windshield of the car doubles up as the exit. These micro cars were manufactured for cheap transport for the locals.

Vintage Treasures: the car collection at Gedee Car Museum Photo: S. Siva Saravanan / The Hindu
Vintage Treasures: the car collection at Gedee Car Museum Photo: S. Siva Saravanan / The Hindu

The Rolls Royces tell a love story. The bonnet ornament has a lady leaning forward with her arms outstretched behind her. The emblem is called the “Spirit of Ecstasy”. The billowing robes of the lady stream past her like wings. According to legend, the bonnet ornament commemorated a secret love affair of John Montague, a pioneer of the automobile movement and Eleanor, the model for the emblem.

Vintage Treasures: the car collection at Gedee Car Museum Photo: S. Siva Saravanan / The Hindu
Vintage Treasures: the car collection at Gedee Car Museum Photo: S. Siva Saravanan / The Hindu

There is also a tribute to the good old ambassador. Cartoon strips show how the car has become indispensable to the Indian way of life. Caricatures show the car being used to bear the bride and groom at their wedding, hang out laundry and so on. Of course, it is also the status symbol for politicians and gangsters. Don’t miss the luxurious black limousine. “You can even host birthday parties here,” says Saravanakumar in all earnestness. I realise he is not exaggerating when I peep inside.

Vintage Treasures: the car collection at Gedee Car Museum Photo: S. Siva Saravanan / The Hindu
Vintage Treasures: the car collection at Gedee Car Museum Photo: S. Siva Saravanan / The Hindu

Inside there is a fridge, shining glassware, a television set and a phone for the passenger to talk to the chauffeur! At the end of the hall, a young man on a bike surveys you from a black and white photograph. G.D. Naidu looks happy riding a Rudge Multi, a vintage bike made in 1912. Saravanakumar tells me why he looks so happy in the photo.

Vintage Treasures: the Rudge Multi used by G.D. Naidu Photo: S. Siva Saravanan / The Hindu
Vintage Treasures: the Rudge Multi used by G.D. Naidu Photo: S. Siva Saravanan / The Hindu

While working in his father’s farm, G.D saw a British officer zipping past him in what he thought as a ‘strange looking vehicle having two wheels creating a funny noise’. It was love at first sight. He tracked down the officer, helped him clean the vehicle and service it. He vowed to save up enough money to buy a similar bike for himself some day. He did not have to wait long as the officer was so taken with his passion that he sold it to him for Rs. 300. There are other black and white photographs of G.D. Naidu taking classes, holding workshops and shaking hands with other automobile tycoons. The museum is indeed a tribute to this man of humble beginnings, who emerged to become one of the biggest automobile entrepreneurs in the world.

(The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The museum is closed on Mondays. The fee is Rs.50. For details, call 0422-2222548.)

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by Parshathy J. Nath / June 11th, 2015

Chunkath’s scrabble journey: From kitchen table to top prize

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Leaders, Records, All, Sports, World Opinion

Chennai :

Growing up in Delhi, Mohan Verghese Chunkath used to play ‘kitchen table scrabble’ with his siblings and parents. What started out as a pastime became a passion and today, despite a demanding career, the senior bureaucrat is a force to reckon with in the war of words. Chunkath recently won the Bayer National Scrabble Championship 2015 held in Mumbai from May 29 to 31.

“I have been playing scrabble since my childhood, but it was a family game and never played one on one, there were always three of four of us playing together,” says Chunkath, who began playing competitive scrabble in the 1990s.

“I had gone to the US on study leave, and began going to the local club to play. I got interested in competitive scrabble and went from rookie to expert level while I was there,” says Chunkath, director, Anna Institute of Management, and additional chief secretary and director general of training, Tamil Nadu.

He became the first person to represent India in the world scrabble championship held in Melbourne in 1999. “I also participated in the world championships in 2001 and 2007 but work pressure was building up,” says Chunkath. The demands of his growing career meant that he couldn’t devote as much time for competitive scrabble though he did play on the net or sometimes with friends. “I almost drifted out of competitive scrabble, but after my change of job in December 2014, I came back to the scrabble scene,” he says. In January 2015, he participated in iGate International Scrabble Tournament held in Bangalore.

For the voracious reader, scrabble is chess with words. “There is a lot of strategy involved, and a lot of nuances to the game — you track tiles that are played, work with probability, know what is in your bag, what your opponent is likely to have in his bag, how to maximize your offence and defence. It is an interesting hybrid between skill and luck,” says Chunkath.

The championship he recently won saw him pitted against the best. “Indian scrabble players have become very strong and the games were fought very keenly,” says Chunkath. “Younger players have an advantage as don’t get fatigued easily. We played a fairly gruelling number of games – on the first day we played eight games, nine on the second day and though I was supposed to play eight games on the third day, I was able to wrap up after playing just seven,” says the 59-year-old, who beat Sherwin Rodrigues, a player in his mid-20s.

According to him, the future of scrabble in India is very bright. “With the stellar spelling bee performances by Indians in the last decade, scrabble is just waiting to explode in India,” he says. “There is tremendous potential.”

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / by Priya M. Menon, TNN / June 04th, 2015

‘Tamil-Korean Link is Age-Old’

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, World Opinion
A visitor checking out the exhibits displayed at the Korean Exhibition at Fort St George | D Sampath Kumar
A visitor checking out the exhibits displayed at the Korean Exhibition at Fort St George | D Sampath Kumar

Chennai :

Just as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was recalling the age-old cultural and business relations between South Korea and India in Seoul on Monday, Kyungsoo Kim, Consul General of South Korea in Chennai, revealed that his country indeed had a link with Tamil Nadu from the first Century AD., at a function held at Fort St George. Speaking at the inauguration of exhibition titled Museums of India and Korea, Kim said strong evidence to this connection lay in the common words used in Korean and Tamil languages even today. He narrated an interesting incident that took place just a day before, on Sunday, when he was visiting Mahabalipuram. As he was walking along the sea-shore, Kim heard his son calling him. When he turned back, he realised that it was not his son, but another child who was calling him Appaa. He learned, to his surprise, that the two languages shared some common words.

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In all, he claimed, there were around 4,000 words in Korean and Tamil that had similar meaning, indicating the age-old connection between the two countries. It was the French missionaries in Korea who first noted the similarities between the two languages. Many of the names of ancient colonies of Southern Korea were the exact counterparts of Tamil words. Exhaustive as it is, linguistic similarities were not all. The Consul General pointed out that the way both people built their hutments were the same, so were some of the household utensils like ural (a heavy stone or wooden mortar) and ulakkai (long heavy wooden pestle). Experts say that agriculture, pottery, beads, textile, turtle boats, and many ancient industries and cultures in the two countries have stunning similarities.

These similarities, they add, are not coincidences. Early Tamil people migrated to the Korean peninsula around the first century AD, noted N Kannan, Orissa Balu and Dr Nagarajan, all experts on the topic.

The connect between the two cultures is believed to have started way back in CE 45, from the period of King Suro and Hok and Ayi of Pandian Kingdom. Incidentally, King Suro’s kingdom was named Karak, which has a Tamil (proto-Dravidian) meaning fish. “This view was confirmed by the Centre for Korean Studies at the University of Hawaii. Both languages are agglutinative, follow the subject-object-verb order, nominal and adjectives follow the same syntax, particles are post positional, modifiers always precede modified words are some of the common features,” they say.

Inaugurating the photo exhibition, R Kannan,  secretary, Culture, Museums, Tourism and Religious Endowments Departments, recalled the strong cultural connection between the two countries.

Earlier, Consul General Kim released a CD on the museums in Tamil Nadu for the student community. K Moortheeswari, Deputy Superintending Archaeologist, Archaeological Survey of India, said the CD would be distributed to all schools in Tamil Nadu free of cost if they approached the Fort St George museum.

The theme of this year’s International Museum Day is ‘Museums for a sustainable society’. It highlights the role of museums in raising public awareness about the need for a society that is less wasteful, more cooperative and that uses resources in a way that respects living systems, she added.

The exhibition will be on till the end of May.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities>Chennai / by T. Muruganadham / May 20th, 2015