Everything about New Year

Let me first wish 'Happy new Year' in advance to all fellow bloggers and blog readers.The dawn of the new year prompted me to think about the different New Years being celebrated in India by different states and by different linguistic communities in the same state.How this could have come in to being?Why there is no uniformity? Should we have different calendar years?Does it serve any purpose?.Is there any logic behind these?But irrespective of all these,January first is celebrated as New Year and December 31st as New Year eve by a huge majority in India too,in line with the global celebrations. New year was first observed in Babylon 4000 years ago.The first New moon after the first day of spring was celebrated as New year in Babylon.Still in West Bengal,Kerala,Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh New Year is celebrated with begining of Spring.Until recently it was so in Tamilnadu also.To add to the Confusion recently the Tamilnadu government changed the Tamil new year which was hitherto celebrated in April(As the first day of Tamil month Chithirai) to January (first day of Tamil month Thai ) .What prompted the government to do this is still anybody's guess.For Gujarati's New year coincides with Diwali.For the Jains,the New Year begins on the next day of the Diwali.The Sikh New Year begins with Chet 1 which normally coincides with March 14.The Muslim New Year is celebrated on the first day of Muharram.The Indian christians follow the westerners and celebrate january 1st as New Year.Jamshed Navroz is the Parsi New Year.It normally falls on March 21st.Navroz means Spring and Jamshed started the Parsi calendar.The Bhuddist New year is celebrated on different days through out the world.It is celebrated on the first full moon day in April in Thailand,Burma,Sri Lanka ,Cambodia and Laos.Tibetan Bhuddist celebrate in March.Bhuddists in China,Mangolia,vietnam,Korea,Japan and indonesai celebrate new year on first full Moon day in January. The Chinese New Year is celebrated on a different day every year.It coincides with the first day of the First Moon of the lunar calendar.The Romans were the most confused about new year,since the new year was frequently tampered with every emperor until Juius Ceaser set it right.Actually the first day of January was fixed as new year arbitrarily by Julius Ceaser.In 46 BCE Julius Ceaser fixed January 1st as New Year.Initially it was a celebration for God Janus,the God of begining.January is named after the Roman God Janus.Though observed for the first time 4000 years ago,New year is being celebrated by the world only for the last 400 years.New Year signifies completion and begining of a new period.Scientifically earth completes one revolution around sun at a particular point in its orbit.

Aiko,cyborg,transhumanism and the future

Vietnam born and canadian inventor Le Tung has created a female robot called Aiko at a cost of $25000.Aiko has unbelievable housekeeping skills,a page 3 pin up face,an enviable 32,23,33 contour,shiny hair,can talk English and Japanese,can do mathematics and manage accounts.Aiko is touch sensitive and reacts the natural way when showered with affection or hurt,recogonises faces says hello.she knows what drink Le tung likes and what he eats.Helps Tung with directions when they go out.Aiko can move her hands,nod head.She is patient,intelligent and never complains and above all she is just 20 ,5 foot tall,has silicone breasts says Le tung.Aiko undoubtedly is a perfect wife.Aiko means'Love child' in Japanese.Aiko can talk 13000 sentences in Japanese and English.She can tell about weather in all international cities through internet links.Le tung goes out for public outing with Aiko.Aiko is the first human robot to mimic pain and react to it.It took Le Tung 1.5 months to build Aiko.But it took years for him to program.BRAINS is the software used in Aiko to control artificail Intelligence (AI),speech,reading,doing maths,vision,colours,hearing,automation,sensors,temperature,face and object recogonition.Aiko can react to surroundings and environment also.Le Tung says future abilities of Aiko would include the following

"Facial expressions

Make Tea and Coffee

Feed Sushi to Tung

Making breakfast : Egg and bacon

Lying on Aiko's lap she would clean Tung's ears with Q tips

Ability to massage Tungs shoulders and neck

Able to print and write

Clean the windows

Dust the shelves

Clean the toilet and much more " says Le Tung

What more could be there except delivering a baby ?

I agree lot of positives from this technology can be utilised in various other fields like using mechanised limbs for those with amputated limbs,face recogonition can be utilised in investigations,intelligence services.But I strongly feel there should be some limits imposed on such future inventions.Integration of humans,computers and bioelectronics beyond a limit could have far reaching social consequences.The inventors of these technologies might try to implant these bio gadgets into human beings to augment capabilities or performance.That could prove fatal.It must be borne in mind human beings are not biological machines.There is much more and human beings are unique.It is foolhardy to stretch human capabilities and build organic humans with robotic capabilities.

Mind reading

A Japanese research team has developed a technology that would display on a screen what is in your mind.This may help in investigation.But I consider it as a blatant violation of one's privacy.Here the electrical signals of the brain are reconstructed in to images.Stretch your imagination and see how all this could be misused and the resultant chaos in every field you can imagine,be it official,familial or political.

Where do we draw a line and decide what is ethically right for the human race?Who will do it?I am not against technology or inventions.But there should be a right balance.Earlier robots were mere machines.But current robots are cyborgs containing mesh of flesh,wires,neurons,steel,blood and circuits.Or one may call it androids.There are organic components.In otherwords a human transformed in to a machine.Yet there is something called humanity,I mean the humane emotions.That gives me some hope, all that is human can not be duplicated.But the transhumanists will continue their attempts to radically change the human life.Future and posterity can only asess the psossible ill effects of transhumanism.

Trilingual blogger

Google Search results for "trilingual Blogger" has returned outshine and Aguas.It appears Aguas has a travel blog in three languages.But I do not know in what three languages he is blogging.From his "blog.travelpod.com" I can't find out the three language details.It also appears trilingual blogging was started by Aguas as late as September 2008 from the google search results.Trilingual postings by outshine started from June 2008.As it appears now outshine is India's and world's first trilingual personal blogger.Yet I would like to get some conclusive proof on this to check its veracity.Hence I request fellow bloggers to enlighten me on this.If you know of any one else blogging in three languages,no matter what the language is,please leave a comment.Outshine started blogging in three languages English and two other Indian regional languages Tamil and Malayalam from June 2008.

Mumbai attack and its aftermath

Before I dwell on the Mumbai attack,I would like to go back to the 9/11 USA attack.Since then there has been no attack worthy of mention in USA.How could they achieve this? But in India there have been attacks after attack and every time the government issued statments about gearing up security measures.I don't think any concrete action has been put in place despite umpteen number of attacks.The chief difference between USA and our government lies in the fact We in India were talking about taking defensive measures for future attacks.But whereas in USA they went on the offensive,and rightly,after proclaiming it to the sinister forces so loudly.It did yield results.It was very very disturbing to hear, such a senior former government officialMr.Brijesh Varma,responsible for national security, going on record in an interview to national Tv channel that the politicians are solely responsible for this inaction.He is right in saying we have been tolerating militant terrorism for more than two decades.There has been no political will to put an end to this. All because of electoral politics and efforts to appease sections and pockets of the vote bank.One can not but believe this,because in many cases including the present Mumbai incident, there has been intelligence reports about a possible attack on Mumbai.Despite all this how could there be a serious security lapse?It is now alleged that intelligence reports did mention about possible attacks on some hotels.We have been talking about federal policing to tackle terrorism for so many years.It is high time the government and voluntary organisations also involve themselves in creating public awareness against terrorist plots and ivolve them in giving vital clues about suspicious activities to the concerned.Implanting explosives in crowded places can never go unnoticed by everyone.Invariably after every blast or attack someone comes forward to give evidence about some suspicious activities which he or she had witnessed earlier.Lack of awareness prevents them informing them to authorities concerned.Recently in Gujarat after the first day of blasts,alert and vigilant citizens could give clues to diffuse umpteen number of bombs on subsequent days.How was this achieved? The Gujarat government did publicise elaboratley through placards and public adress system.The terrorists and militants must know crores of eyes are watching them through out the country.That will surely instill fear in them.Our politicians should take a solemn resolve not to interfere in Anti terrorist drive by police/special forces or do petty politicks in the efforts taken by law enforcing authorites to curb/end terrorism.