The face behind Facebook

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 6/14/2013 4:45:03 AM

'A post in my Facebook  Newsfeed reads: ‘Listening to Pandit Shiv kumar Sharma – Raga kirvani.’ Apparantly,  the person who posted it believes this  interests  his FB friends. Another post:  ‘Of to Bangalore with family’ Comment - Enjoy and be safe. Most people in my age-group are not on Facebook.  I am 75.  Some of […]'

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Artist Sahasra at work

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 6/4/2013 2:59:56 AM

'It has been a while since I made an addition to our YouTube channel – My Take by GVK –  The latest addition is Artist Sahasra at Work. I can’t recall if I took to crayon drawing when I was her age. Three-year-old Sahasra is so proficient in colouring her sketch book that her work […]'

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Solar speed-breaks

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 5/13/2013 11:25:41 AM

'Our earlier post – Some solar facts – needs to be read with this one,  to get a sense of why we have problem meeting our solar aspirations. Vendors at the Chennai expo on renewable energy organised by the Tamil Nadu Energy Development Agency (TEDA) quoted between Rs.1.6 lakh and Rs.1.8 lakh, for putting up […]'

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Some solar facts

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 5/6/2013 11:56:31 AM

'The Hindu devoted an entire page of  its Sunday edition to solar power, carrying articles that cover nearly every thing  one needs to know to go solar. It is not as if awareness is lacking. People do see the advantages. And yet most of us remain solar skeptics. Despite govt.  incentives we don’t see a whole [...]'

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How do parents react to kids raised on iPad ?

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 4/6/2013 11:30:05 AM

'As I read author Hanna Rosin’s article – The Touch-Screen Generation – I was thinking about my US-based grandsons, aged 5 and 7, who, I noticed, loved to spend time with an iPad during their India trip for a couple of weeks. They watch basketball, run car races, play tennis, chess, and do quite a [...]'

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Internet: Can we do without it ?

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 3/26/2013 1:59:04 AM

'God moves in mysterious ways; so does the Internet,  I would say.  I  type something here, and it shows up on someone’s desktop or iPad elsewhere, at times, baffling the recepient.I was baffled to see a mail in my Inbox the other day,  from Air India, sending me an e-ticket to Chicago, for a flight [...]'

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Solar panel: Leasing as an option

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 3/24/2013 4:08:41 AM

'Despite the govt. subsidy  most of us are not that keen, because of high cost of putting in place a household solar power system. Maybe, it is time some fresh MBA graduates get enterprising enough to start a solar leasing company in our town. In Chennai, and most other cities and towns residential apartment communities [...]'

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Kitchen waste powers street lights

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 3/1/2013 7:30:22 AM

'The Mamallapuram  branch of Adyar Ananda Bhavan generates 30 kg. kitchen waste a day.  A seaside resort  across the East Coast Road accounts  for 10 times more of food waste.  There are 700 odd eateries in this tourist town.  Till about five years back,  food waste from  Mamallapuram restaurants and hotels  wound up at  the [...]'

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Snails crossing: Tread carefully

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 2/16/2013 1:15:43 PM

'Padur lake viewed from my 9th floor apartment on Chennai’s  OMR I have heard Padur residents get water supplied from a  lake in their backyard. Truckloads of water Mantri Synergy residents used to get before borewells in their complex got  activated was,  presumably,  sourced from this lake.  Oddly enough, I didn’t bring myself to visit [...]'

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Curbing household food waste

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 2/5/2013 4:29:21 AM

'Most food items we buy carry an expiry date .  That is the cut off date,  after which  the producer can’t be blamed if the food item you buy turns unfit for human consumption.  Publication of the expiry date is statutory, and  in many food labels  you also find a  ‘Best-before’  date of consumption.  Which,  [...]'

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A meal ticket for the needy

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 1/28/2013 4:36:26 AM

'Harsh Mander in  a recent magazine  piece in The Hindu  refers to sale of food token by wayside eateries at  Jama Masjid  and Nizamuddin areas  in Delhi. Idea  is customers can buy these plastic tokens  for hand-outs among the needy in the  neighbourhood. Recipients can exchange the plastic token for a take-away  parcel anytime over [...]'

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Siragugal @ Ooty: Kalyani takes off

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 1/16/2013 1:10:55 PM

'It has been a while since  I heard from my friend and blogger Kalyani in Ooty.  So  it was a pleasent surprise,  when I got a mail  from her the other day,  in her  avatar, as secretary,  Siragugal. The last time  we interacted,  this was a few years back , she said the library she [...]'

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Frankl’s Choice

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 1/14/2013 4:46:34 AM

'Viktor E Frankl (1905-1997), a Jewish psychiatrist and neurologist in Vienna, had a choice to make, at a crucial time in life: Frankl had applied for a visa to America, which he was granted in 1941.  By then, the Nazis had already started rounding up the Jews and taking them away to concentration camps,  focusing [...]'

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Trash-busters @ OMR, Chennai

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 1/10/2013 4:37:20 AM

'A reader of TOI article – OMR residents go on trash-busting drives – left a comment, asking “Where does the garbage and trash go? How do you transport it ?”   Philo Stalwin,  a resident of Kelambakkam, provides the answer:  In a mail to  OMR Greens   Stalwin says the garbage that the local panchayat collects [...]'

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Students for community service

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 12/27/2012 5:25:37 AM

'A couple of college boys  (KSR College, Tiruchengode)  hit upon a community initiative to address food wastage by customers in restaurants.  They got a poster printed ,  showing  photo of a needy child  with empty plate.  The message :  ‘Please don’t waste food….wrap it’. Palaniappan, and  Mohammed Ali, both engineering students, with Merwin Wesley,  found [...]'

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Mahabaratha for the Facebook Generation

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 12/9/2012 12:52:32 PM

'Writers at times resort to fiction to push their  hypothesis  that counter  long held social beliefs.  On such belief sustained by caretakers of the Hindu faith is that Krishna is  a mythological figure.  And here comes  Ashwin Sanghi   who depicts Krishna,  not as a figure conjured up by collective minds several generations back,  but [...]'

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‘Sadabishekam’ : Re-wedding at 80

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 12/3/2012 3:38:26 AM

'If you are 80,  and stay married still  (to the same person) ; and if your grown up children and their kids wish it, you are entitled to Sadabishekam -   wedding celebration,  all over again,  with the pomp and  ceremony  of the real thing. My uncle Padmanabha chittappa and Sambu sitti had the credentials , [...]'

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Homestaying Kerala: Kannur

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 10/12/2012 5:00:26 AM

'Between the beach and the backwater is Blue Mermaid, our host at Kannur, Kerala. Krishna was an anytime errands boy  for everyone.  He could fetch or fix anything anyone at the Homestay wanted. A bunch of techies from Bangalore, out on a boys weekend out, wanted a case of beer bottles. Kathy needed help fixing [...]'

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Homestaying Kerala: Wayanad

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 10/9/2012 1:56:10 AM

'Our homestay  host   Sunil, with mother, wife Reena, children Meenakshi and Suryakiran readily agreed to my request to pose for this shot.  Sunil had earlier taken  our pictures for his album – ‘we keep photos of all our guests’. I sensed in it a personal touch.  And I guess it is the personal touch [...]'

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Should Padur go the Pallavaram way ?

Author : gvk2      Blog : My Take by GVK      Date : 10/2/2012 4:10:23 AM

'Muthukkadu Lake on ECR, as viewed from Mantri Synergy on OMR Pallavaram municipal chairman has been directed by the national green tribunal not to dump garbage into Pallavaram Lake. A Madipakkam resident S.P. Surendranath Karthik, who petitioned the tribunal has also claimed damages under the ‘polluter pays’ principle. But then the civic body would argue [...]'

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