A Real big suprise

A couple of weeks back, I approached rediff to publish my post on Devbagh on their GetAhead column and then forgot about it.

To my suprise, they published that article on by birthday. It was such a pleasant supirse gift, on top of so many suprise gifts I got:-)

Check this out Devbagh

Chasing the Monsoon – Jog Falls @ its Best

Spending considerable time of my life in MalNad, I had only a few opportunities to see the Jog falls at its full glory or near its full glory. I must say as years are passing by its slowly on the decline.

So this time around with monsoon zooming, I had a flash trip to Shimoga to savor good moments with river Sharavathi in her full glory. Only sad point of the trip was that I lost a precious mobile which was gifted by my brother :( Sorry Bro!


Snaps from Jog.

A walk alongside the beach

I must say, this one is one of my memorable trips, when I was away from all hustle bustle of busy Bangalore life relaxing along with the nature, with thunderous waves kissing the sea shore, a royal tan in the sun, having a splash in the sea, dive into the sky  ( Yeah.. it was exiting as ever) and watching birds catching their prey, watching those diving dolphins in awe… Huffffffff… this is not going to end…


Well.. well.. we were in the Jungle Lodges resort in Devbabg near Karwar. After a good 16 hour bumpy ride from Bangalore to Karwar, we were dropped at the JLR pickup point by an forest officer in his Mahindra Bolero :-) I was left wondering from when our forest department started getting so courteous towards its visitors :-) Then we were taken in to the resort by a motor boat, there on the shores an eco friendly vehicle was waiting for us to drop near our cottage (hmmmmmm... Mogambo..Kush huva...)Right now its a battery driven vehicle, I wish in future we would have a solar powered one which is really eco friendly!!!!!!


After retiring into cottage and freshening up, now it’s the time for some fun @ sea and some evening photography. The 2+km stretch beach side is really maintained well. I must say this was one of the finest beaches along side coastal Karnataka in terms of cleanliness, privacy, personal space.. blah blah blah blah…
Then there was a evening bonfire with barbecues and some good spicy veg bonda’s and pakoda’s ( Believe me.. I am still a veggie.. or rather eggie..). The food served for dinner was OK, and this is the best stuff you get in this island apart from crabs, fishes and shells


Next couple of days were fun filled with nature walks, some photography , banana boat rides, parasailing, having splashes in the sea.. getting the skin royally tanned in the sun and of course .. Collecting the memorabilia of the trip.. (how can I forget spending hours on shore collecting sea shells).

Info about the place

Place: DevBagh, Near Karwar,
Travel: One has to reach Karwar by road,rail or air and reach devbagh by forest dept boat.
By Road: Lot of private/government buses operate from Bangalore, pretty good choice is also available, ideally its an overnight journey (but for the bad roads)
By Rail: One can alight at Hubli and take a bus to Karwar which is around 3~4 hours drive which passes through scenic terrains of Uttara kannada district
By Air: Reach Goa by Air and travel either by road or rail to karwar.
Season: Best time is October till April.
Reference: http://www.junglelodges.com/resort_overview.asp?resort=Devbagh

BE COOOOOOOOOL

Did you know that by turning the heating down by a degree or so an average family can save 400 kg of CO2 every year??

Did you know that by turning not letting electronic equipment on STANDBY Mode one would save around 150 kg of CO2 every year??

Did you know that by buying local food and vegetables one would save 4 tonnes of CO2 every year???

Check out BE COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! on tips to save and conserve energy.

Conserve Energy and Save the world.

Save Energy.. Search using Blackle

A Mail extract about Blackle. Save the environment!! Search Using Blackle!!!!!!

Read this -> About Blackle

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Blackle is nothing but a black version of Google...

"A few months ago, TreeHugger Mark Ontkush wrote a post on his blog
EcoIron titled Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year. The
post lays out the following train of thought. "An all white web page
uses about 74 watts to display, while an all black page uses only 59
watts." Google, which has a white background and gets about "200 million
queries a day" could reduce global energy use by 750 Megawatt-hours a
year by simply changing the color of its homepage to black.

In response to this post a black version of Google emerged called
Blackle.com .. According to Blackle's homepage at
publication time, 4,408.917 Watt hours have been saved by. The site
encourages users to "make a difference today [by] ... Blackling "energy
saving tips" or visit[ing] treehugger.com a
great blog dedicated to environmental awareness." Nice ideas. But how
does the search measure up? Very well indeed. Give it a whirl yourself
and start saving energy one search at a time. :: Blackle.com

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3 Cheers to Election Commission

It's really heartening to read even after 50+years of independence one has to depend on loads of para milirtary forces to conduct a free and fair elections!!

Kudos to the whole EC team which conducted UP elections. Read out the eye opener article below from CEC.

How we ensured free and fair elections in UP

Courtesy: TOI

Getting nostalgic...

Dont you feel nostalgic when suddenly bump on something which you used to enjoy during our childhood days?? Well Yes!! Few days back while surfing the TV bumped on to some programme which featured few old ads from the Doordarshan ERA which took me back few years.. The concept and theme of this ads are so simple but still elegant they have created to an unimaginable impressions on the minds of people. Few of my all time favourites..

1. Bajaj Bulbs and Tubes: Jab my chota baccha tha.. Badi shararat kartha tha.. meri chori pakadi jaathi... Tab roshan tha Bajaj..

2. Lifebuoy: Tandurusthi ki raksha karta hai lifebyoy... Lifebuoy hai jahan.. tandurshi hai vaha..

3. Liril: Than refreshing LIRIL add.. wow... it was so good.

4. Bajaj: Yeh jameen Yeh asmaan... Hamara kal Hamara aaaj.. buland Bharath ki buland tasveer... Hamara... bajaj..

5. Another add which was based on the song.. " Gaadi bula rahee hai.. seeti baja rahi hai.." I dont remember the brand though..

6. Nirma: "Washing poweder nirma..." with that dancing kid...

and what about the inspirational ones.. few ads based on national integrity and unification..

1. Famous cartoon song of Didi and few kids " Ek our Anek": "Ek tithali.. anek thithaliya.."

2. And finally the one for national integrity "Mile sur merah tumhara.." featuring all great personalities from India..

hmmmmm.. went back to olden & golden days???? Good.. :-)
Btw what are your favourites?

Delhi Metro triperience (Trip+experience=triperience )

Well, I am starting this tripierence in reverse chronological order just to avoid scratching my head. I always loath to take notes when I travel but being too lazy never taken one so far!!! Now coming to the point, enroute to Uttranchal we had planned couple of days in Delhi. Initially we had a plan to experience the metro during our onward journey, but thanks to Delhi traders it was realized only during our arrival.

What really nice to see with metro is the sophistication, the clean and neat environment, timeliness with which it runs and of course the cost which is very affordable. A perfect showcase of emerging India built and executed to international standards by DMRC. Unlike in Mumbai, You won’t see garbage lying around the track, you won’t see that dammed MAD crowd, and you won’t see the stations with people and garbage alike.

Apparently while reading a newspaper report last week realized that the benefits of this project are measured in terms of Economic IRR rather than Financial IRR. Well in layman’s terms the benefits are not measured in terms of when does this project achieves break even in terms of expenditures incurred or When does this project starts making money and becomes profitable? But in terms of how much this project saves/contributes to society in terms of less number of vehicles or road, less number of accidents, amount of fuel saved its contribution in reducing the environmental pollution etc. Btw DMRC has advertised the Economic IRR it has achieved in few of its stations.

Have a look at the report on Social Cost Benefit analysis of Delhi Metro.. Now I am eagerly waiting for the launch of Namma Metro with loads of optimism.

Thanks to: DMRC, IEGINDIA, BMRC

After a Looooong Break...

Hmm.. I Kept wondering what kept me busy.... work? personal life? or my lazyness??? .. well never bother.. no justifications.. I am back again for good :-)

Well couple of weeks back had a chance to visit anniversary celeberations of my Music school. It was good show given that the average of singers on the stage was around 10~12. When I was going to the school I had seen the very same kids doing mistakes and learing during the process.

But then on this day they managed to put up a very good show:-) Thanks to their teachers Harish and Divakar. Couple of songs were really presented really well....

Nanage Avasaravilla (I wish my better half sings this for me .. every time I go late ;-) and Amma ninna edeYaladalli.

Btw.. I had even forgot that I have completed 2 Years of blogging now :-) Hopefully will write more on this space..