Sayan’s BlogWorld

This is an amazing video by Faithless.




What is happiness, and how can we all get some? Buddhist monk, photographer and author Matthieu Ricard has devoted his life to these questions, and his answer is influenced by his faith as well as by his scientific turn of mind: We can train our minds in habits of happiness. Interwoven with his talk are stunning photographs of the Himalayas and of his spiritual community.

Another thoughtful (and humorous) TED talk was the one given by Bob Thurman sometime ago. It is one of my favorite TED talks and I have blogged about it previously. But it is probably appropriate to include it once more:

The cyclone Sidr narrowly missed hitting India directly and instead hit Bangladesh causing widespread devastation. I encourage you all to donate to help alleviate the suffering of one of the poorest countries of the world. Coastal Bangladesh is bearing the brunt of environmental disasters - rising sea levels will make it worse. I support Direct Relief International since 100% of the contribution goes into disaster relief especially medical aid. Why should you donate? Sheril explains lucidly:

All the major petro-companies are pushing for the hydrogen economy as a replacement for fossil fuels….some argue that this would allow them to keep their existing monopoly on transportation fuel.

My gut feeling is this an over-simplification. I came across the concept of ‘deep hydrogen reserves’ sometime ago. Apparently the Kola Superdeep Borehole, the deepest hole drilled by man at 12+ kms (~7.5miles) has been found to be bubbling with hydrogen. So do you think, the petroleum companies will simply shift from petroleum drilling to hydrogen drilling? Or maybe even methane drilling? I would be interested in your thoughts / opinions.

The article here and its accompanying video describe this invention as, “…a taut membrane fitted with a pair of magnets that oscillate between metal coils. Prototypes have generated 40 milliwatts in 10-mph slivers of wind, making his device 10 to 30 times as efficient as the best microturbines…”

The mystical poems of the 13th century Persian poet Rumi have made him one of the best known poets of our times. UNESCO has declared 2007 as the International Year of Rumi.
Here are couple of video recitations of his poems…

Here a few more Rumi videos from Youtube (I will keep adding more as I find them)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hqhNPY882kE
Shakespeare of mystics

Watching this video today morning made my day…hopefully it will make yours too! its such an interesting fusion of Indian and Western… and remember the sitar is a very difficult instrument to master. Anyway here is the video, enjoy !



In case you liked the sound of the sitar, I heartily recommend watching Ravi Shankar and Allah Rakha playing at the Monterey Pop Festival 1967 : Part 1 and Part 2. It will give you a glimpse into why they are counted among the greatest musicians of all time.

I have been dreaming of visiting Ladakh for ages…

As featured on Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria. This video excerpt from a film by Dan Schreiber explores the tension between tradition and tourism in a remote region of Northern India.

This is a video of the the Pale Blue Dot.
As the Youtube psot says having Carl Sagan read to you from the book with the same title is something else. Enough said. Take a listen and leave comments please.

The Ministry of Tourism, India has launched a new channel on Youtube. Check out this very refreshing tourism video from India

I haven’t posted in a while so I thought it will be nice to write a few lines… I came back from a short 2-week vacation in India and have been pretty busy with work since then.

I spent a week or so in Bangalore, 2 days in Chennai (Madras) and 2 days in Calcutta. This was the first time I flew direct from US to India. The 15 hour flight was not as nerve-wracking as I thought it would be. Weather-wise Bangalore was amazing, in spite of the large scale de-greening it has seen, it is still greener than most cities. Madras was oppressively hot and humid. The 2 days I was in Calcutta, it didn’t stop raining. On my way in and out, I stopped in Delhi for a few hours. It was amazingly hot but it was dry heat so it was bearable. Otherwise, Delhi still has the best roads and Gurgaon is well on its way to becoming a sky-scraper filled megapolis of fashionable housing and malls.

Bob Thurman’s insightful talk on happiness…

I just revisited the Thinking Allowed series by Jeffery Mishlove. This particular video is an interview of Prof. Dean Brown, theoretical physicist / entrepreneur.

Prof. Dean Brown points out that most European languages can be traced back to a root language that is also related to Sanskrit - the sacred language of the ancient Vedic religions of India. Many English words actually have Sanskrit origins. Similarly, many Vedic religious concepts can also be found in Western culture. He discusses the fundamental idea of the Upanishads - that the essence of each individual, the atman, is identical to the whole universe, the principle of brahman. In this sense, the polytheistic traditions of India can be said to be monistic at their very core.

My classroom blogging for the Global Impact of Communication Technology course I am taking at the School of Journalism has overtaken this personal blog. So you can visit it to read about what I am working on for the course. Cutting out the suspense- I am doing some studying on the impact of mobile phones on society especially in the developing world- how it is helping bridge the information divide.

If the migration goes successfully, you will see a major site redesign, a more user-friendly interface and better organisation of posts.

This process may take several days and please let me know if you get any broken links during or after the migration.

Thanks!

UPDATE (July 17): Content migration is complete.

UPDATE (July 17): Commenting system currently down as I try to configure the SecureImage comment-spam protection system.

UPDATE (July 18): Commenting system is now online and using HashCash comment-spam protection.

UPDATE (July 18): Resolved issues with display of hyperlinks in archived posts. Thanks to Viz for pointing out the bug.