Reflections of Rajaram Bojji

Comment on: Gulf Coast reeling as BP 'top kill' effort fails at 5/30/2010 2:09 PM EDT Liquid nitrogen in tanks to be lowered down to the area and released near the blow out and around the pipe there to freeze the water body into a thick ice block stopping the gushing oil has been my suggestion to BP. Simple and effective but will give immediate relief. Having controlled ecological disasater engineering repairs can continue. Intermettent supply of liquid nitrogen will keep the frozen water mass seal at minus 30 deg . BP is not listening. Hope some one can get head of BP to listen. Comment on: BP readies mud and robots to try to plug oil well at 5/25/2010 3:47 PM EDT I would imagine the fastest solution could have been to lower 5 to 6 tankers of liquid nitrogen , arranged in circular formation to surround the oil blow out, and release remotely the hatchets. This would freeze the entire water mass around into frozen mass, not allowing any oil to leak out. It gives time to put in...

The death of 70 persons in Midnapore is avoidable had there been just a minute of gap between the crossing of goods train at the location of derailment, if only ACDs are available on the trains. There is no other international technology available at any cost to address this type of accident to protect lives, except ACD. All of Railway Board are well aware of the proven functionalities of the ACD. It is a pity all the more that ultimately the very person who initiated ACD, Mamata Didi in 2000 , is unable to get benefit of the same. Her own people in Midnapore could have been saved. It is pity and karma of my countrymen that all good people look so helpless tied with strings and tapes of files, while lives are lost. Whatever chance we can give for people to survive we should strive to give. Else it is the greatest disservice to our nation, that too in an organised manner. May the souls rest in peace.

The People's Bank of China said in a statement that a Financial Times report that the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) was concerned about its exposure to euro zone debt was groundless. The central bank said Europe would remain one of China's main investment markets and Beijing would support actions to help the European Union resolve its debt crisis . The 16-nation single currency, which has lost more than 8 percent against the dollar this month, rose more than 1 percent after falling to a day low of $1.2154 on the FT report. European stocks also rose by 2 percent after a 3 percent jump on Wednesday.

http://timesofindia. indiatimes.com/India/Centre- wants-guards-barbed-wire-at- your-school/articleshow/ 5946750.cms "BANGALORE: Armed guards with walkie-talkies at entrance gates 24X7. Concertina wires on iron grills on boundary walls, concealing CCTVs. Sounds like regular security at a VIP residence? Not really, this could be the school your child might soon be going to. ....." Today our State is reluctant to punish a terrorist even after Supreme Court upheld the conviction, fearing law and order problem, as opined by Delhi State government. SO file stays back. The uniformed men of the state do not have protection of fundamental rights even to protect themselves leave alone the citizens. But terrorists enjoy unfettered freedom and also all the rights enshrined in our constitution and are entitled to protection by the venerable press too. So schools and parents have to cope with the reality of the local urban mafia, the state taxes, the under the table payments to the state ...

It stuck me as a genius whoever designed the F16... pilots have to be absolutely alert and true fighters remain agile every split second! Same way 'I' as pilot of our constant "restless brain" have got to be alert every split second , not to be led astray! But when we join an organised service in Government, it is like a stable passenger plane... quite restful with occasional exciting club games like pipping some one in the race for promotion! http://rstb. royalsocietypublishing.org/ content/364/1521/1181.short As much as this collection answers important questions, it raises and emphasizes outstanding ones. How are experiences coded optimally to afford using them for predictions? What is the mechanism underlying reconstruction, and how do we construct a new simulation from separate memories? How specific in detail are future-related mental simulations, and when do they rely on imagery, concepts or language? What is the difference in mechanism and cortical underpinnin...

Universe and barbs! [ My comments are at the end] Apr 30, 2010 10:45 AM in Basic Science | 2 commentsStar physicists trade barbs over cosmological modelBy John Matson [Photo][Photo][Photo][Photo]A tony social club in midtown Manhattan is not the place one might expect to find a verbal sparring match between famous physicists. But that was the case April 23 at the Harmonie Club, whenAlan Guth and David Gross had a feisty off-the-cuff debate about Guth's model for the dawn of the universe. Perhaps in keeping with their genteel surroundings, the two kept their jabs mostly playful, but a few may have stung nonetheless. The exchange took place at a physics symposium hosted by the City College of New York (CCNY) at which both Guth and Gross gave lectures. Guth, a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology renowned for his role in developing the concept of cosmological inflation in the early 1980s, had just given brief remarks introducing some of the concepts he would ...

Risk management and mitigation is the key. India has quite well advanced in designing sound PPP models. One need not re-invent. The actual hurdle is mental attitude. For some reason our finance and audit wings as well as many executives suffer from a complex; private party should not be allowed to get benefit from working for railway. Excessive fear that we may give away some undue benefit to the private party is at the back of our minds holding us back. It was more than 3 decades ago some dynamic officers in Board tried hard to create a professional costing expertise within railways to make a proper planning and execution of works and manufacturing of rolling stock. But it died after a two year effort. Any new project of railway construction is not a rocket science -- it is like any other civil engineering project. SO long as we do not have to do under traffic block conditions, the risks can be estimated and mitigated during construction phase. But even here, our planning and execu...