FN: Frederick Noronha’s blog

Reg Mortimer [regmortimer1 at yahoo.com] had this story about a gruesome accident that took place in a region where the growing number of accidents are proving to be worrying:

With regard to the accident I have just got information that the motor cyclist and the lady both died. The man probably died on the spot with the impact. Some body parts are on the poles in the truck as you will see in the photos.

He was a KADAMBA WORKER. The lady sat behind was his wife working at SAINIK STORES. He was going to drop her to work. They have two small children.

The truck seems connected to the Electricity Department. The concrete pillars or poles were for them. The driver and other man on the truck ran into the dept. and disappeared within seconds of the accident.

In view of public safety in the future please consider the following that should be included in your articles in the papers.

* When reversing on a public road and into a public road —-ONE MAN SHOULD HAVE BEEN OUTSIDE THE TRUCK TO WARN TRAFFIC GOING ACROSS. and to also signal the driver.
* WHY DID THE DRIVER AND THE OTHER PERSON RUN AWAY? What will be the consequences. KADMABA / ELECTRICITY DEPT?
* The poles or pillars should have been prominently marked. THE ONLY MARKING or warning sign IS ONE FLIMSY RED RAG ( strip of cloth )TIED TO THE END OF ONE. The impact occurred on the left hand side of
the road near the centre of the pillars.
* Many of the residents on the same accident road have been constantly asking for speed breakers to be put on the road as the busses speed on the road to and from the depot. Perhaps now with the unfortunate death of a kadamba worker this will be done. If there were speed breakers on the road the motorcyclist would have had to slow down.
* All vehicles that transport similar material should be forced to have some warning on the truck or the
pillars.
* No doubt you will speak to the police with regard to the accident for other details names etc.

One thing I must say the police were very prompt in sending their vehicle to the scene soon after I had telephoned them. (They had also got another call with regard to the accident.) –Regnauld Mortimer.

technorati tags:goa, accidents, India, citizenjournalism

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Ricardo J. Meneses Fernandes ricardo.fernandes at standardbank.co.mz who works at Standard Bank SARL in Mozambique sent me this post… out of the blue:

An American decided to write a book about famous churches around the World. So he bought a plane ticket and took a trip to China.

On his first day he was inside a church taking photographs when he noticed a golden telephone mounted on the wall with a sign that read “$10,000 per call”. The American, being intrigued, asked a priest who was strolling by what the telephone was used for. The priest replied that it was a direct line to heaven and that for $10,000 you could talk to God. The American thanked the priest and went along his way.

Next stop was in Japan. There, at a very large cathedral, he saw the same golden telephone with the same sign under it. He wondered if this was the same kind of telephone he saw in China and He asked a nearby nun what its purpose was. She
told him that it was a direct line to heaven and that for $10,000 He could talk to God. “O.K., thank you,” said the American.

He then travelled to Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Russia, Germany and France. In every church he saw the same golden telephone with the same “$10,000 per call” sign under it. The American, upon leaving Vermont decided to travel to up to India to see if Indians had the same phone. He arrived in Goa, and again, in the first church he entered, there was the same golden telephone, but this time the sign under it read “One Rupee per call.” The American was surprised so he asked the priest about the sign. “Father, I’ve traveled all over World and I’ve seen this same golden Telephone in many churches. I’m told that it is a direct line to Heaven but in the US the price was $10,000 per call. Why is it so cheap here?”

Friends, it is your turn……..

Think…… before you scroll down …

………… ……..
…….. ……… ….
………… ……..
. ……… ……..
. ……. ………..
……… ……..
. ……… ……..
……… …………..
…. ……………

The priest smiled and answered, “You’re in Goa now, son - it’s a local call”. This is the only heaven on the Earth.

KEEP SMILING….. …..

If you are *Proud to be a Goan*….. pass this on!!!

[FN's comment: Okay, I'm not particularly proud to be a Goan, and strongly believe in accidents of history and of birth But this sure brought a smile to my face this morning. Thanks Ricardo!]

technorati tags:humour, goa

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Domnic’s book is out. Well, not officially. That will have to wait till Friday, April 27,2007.

technorati tags:goa, books, india

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Journalist Dionne Bunsha’s blog… Current entries include:

• Environment (6)
• Farm Crisis (12)
• Globalisation (2)
• Gujarat violence and its aftermath (45)
• Human Rights (4)
• Misc (1)
• Mumbai (2)
• People (2)

technorati tags:blogs, blogsbyjournalists, media, mumbai, india, vidarbha, gujarat

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WBUT organized a 6-day workshop on experimental physics teaching for college teachers.

A lot of the hands-on focus was on using and integrating the Phoenix from IUCC, in designing innovative experiments.

Needless to say, the entire program was conducted on FOSS, with nearly 3-days of Python Programming thrown in as the language of choice for interacting with Phoenix-M.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/indradg/sets/72157600095133839/

PHOENIX: Physics with Homemade Equipment and Innovative Experiments

This project started as a part of the program by Inter University Accelerator Centre to improve the laboratory facilities at the universities. It is a Hardware and Software Framework that can be used for developing computer interfaced science experiments without getting into the details of electronics or computer programming. The objective
is to make teachers and students familiar with computerized experimental systems and also to enable them to develop new experiments. Different sensors elements can be interfaced and accessed by few lines of Python code. Phoenix utilizes the power of personal computers for experiment control, data acquisition and its mathematical analysis. The instrument is designed using locally available low cost components and the design is freely available for commercial production. Design supports hardware plug-in modules for expansion. Phoenix is developed using Free Software tools. The Phoenix
Live CD contains all the required phoenix programs plus a collection of science and engineering software.

For detailed documentation and to get started quickly, download the book in PDF format. The Help Page has addresses of the users who are willing to help. Find out the ones closest to your location

http://www.nsc.res.in/~elab/phoenix/

technorati tags:education, physics, floss-in-education, gnu/linux, india, westbengal, higher-education

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Journalist Shubhranshu Choudhary wrote in, in another context… but his mail reminded me of the chhattisgarh-net which seems to be going strong at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chhattisgarh-net/ and also accessible via the shorter URL of http://36garh.notlong.com Nice to see such initiatives grow!

technorati tags:India, mailing-lists, states, networking, alt.media

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Eugénio Viassa Monteiro <evmonteiro at aese.pt> sent in a 221kb PDF copy of this newsletter, meant to share news about India in Portugal. Eugenio is from the Escola de Direcção e Negócios (a 25-year-old institution doing work in fields like company policy, human behaviour in the organisation and ethnics, commercial policy and marketing, operations and technology, accountability and management control systems, finance, economic and social analysis for management).

He writes:

I tried to shorten the Newsletter by putting aside a number of news/articleswhich had full right to be included. Balancing is always difficult when so manyimportant events take place in that sub-continent.

In this issue you can find:

Right at the start is the suggestive article on biotechnology: India’s BiotechIndustry Emerging as World Innovator, Collaborator, Competitor. India abolishedunilaterally customs duties on goods imported from neighbouring countries ofSAARC, a remarkable attitude when India is growing rich and is tryingto help the less favoured neighbours. A short note on micro-credit to relievepeople from poverty follows.

The strong export of services to take place in the next years is well developed.Job creation in services is expected to grow in the retail sector, namely infoodstuffs. Clothing is occupying an increasing number of firms such as Raymondwhich will triple its outlets; and pressure of new incoming groups is sensed.

BSNL (telecommunications) is developing capacity for new 40 million ground lines.Nearly 1.000 of the biggest cities will shortly have WiMAX. It is interestingto see that the increment of new subscribers keeps on round about 6.1 millionper month.

Huge investments in power generation and in acquisition of Companies from abroad aresteady. So also are national and foreign big investments for creation of hotelrooms in big cities of India.Just Bangaloreis creating 6.000 rooms in 5 and 4 stars hotels. One only chain is investing$6.0 bn.

Meanwhilethe biggest Indian IT Company, TCS,earned $4,3 bn during the fiscal year 2006/7, with a 44% increase as comparedto the previous year. The other big ones of the sector had a similar or highergrowth.

And the low-fare airways companies and the telecommunications operators, with theirprice reduction strategy, keep on enlarging the market. Big ones of the sector had a similar or higher growth.

technorati tags:Indo-Portuguese, economy, trade, Europe, EU

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A blog focussing on journalists and journalism in Goa. “Discover the rotund flanks and the shaggy underbelly of the Goan media. And of course, the rare honest rib.” Check it out at http://www.penpricks.blogspot.com/

Their first couple of posts are here:

WWWW & H

W (WHEN) — As of today
W (WHERE) — Over a sticky piece of Kitkat and a spiked lime soda
W (WHY) — Frustrated at the way we are and what we appear to be.
W (WHAT) — Moderated by two Goan journos. Forum for placing issues on record, which are otherwise only discussed.
H (HOW) — Readers and journalists (if at all there are any), pls write to penpricks@gmail.com any Goa media related wrongs, grievances, ills and praise, where need be.

THE SEASON’S BEGUN

Electionsannounced, its time for Jeckyl to don the robes of Hyde. Read in acouple of days bout the innocuous Rs 1,000 tip-off to journos by anelected representative for a constituency development news report.

technorati tags:media, goa, news, journalism, journalists, blogs

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Check this report on an initiative by two expat Indians (in a team of five) to build a tool to fight cervical cancer. Says the report in MedIndia.net

A US-based team, with two Indians on board, has won $100,000 in fundingat the Duke University’s CUREs competition to develop a device tofacilitate cervical cancer prevention in poorer parts of the planet. The device, cerviScope, is a portable colposcope - an electricmicroscope that gives an illuminated and enlarged view of the cervix,that will cost roughly 95 percent less than comparable technology inUS-based hospitals. Since it is portable, it can be transported inmobile hospital units to benefit patients in remote areas.

Check with ramakrishnan.balasubramanian at gmail.com for details… FN

technorati tags:health, expats, India, overseas, cancer

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The Cambodia Mirror an interesting publication that collates material from the Khmer press, run by Norbert Klein, and now in an online version… Check it out http://cambodiamirror.wordpress.com/

Some recent highlights:

technorati tags:Cambodia, BytesForAll, Khmer, SouthEastAsia

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