Solar Lighting a Dark Stairwell

How much does it take to set up a solar-powered system?

I've been mulling over the installation of a solar-based back-up for a while now. For starters, I wanted to install a self-contained system that automatically lights up our building stairwell. 

The problem is quite straightforward: We stay in an apartment complex that has about 30 towers (4x4 houses each), without a central power back-up. Each apartment has a stairwell that is vulnerable to power outages. At night - especially in winters - it becomes particularly difficult for the children and the elderly to use the staircases.

From whatever little I have gathered so far from the net, a solar-panel based lighting system would require: solar panels, a charge Controller, a deep discharge battery, wiring (4mm), a light-activated switch, and a panel of LED lights.

What I do not know for sure - and this is an ongoing challenge -  are questions for which I am yet to find dependable advise:

• How do I align the panels on the terrace so that they can be installed - and maintained -  easily?
• The most appropriate configuration of panel + controller + battery + LED panels?
• Which is a reliable place from where I can buy the components?

At least in NCR Delhi, it is difficult to find somebody who can guide you. The shopkeepers and aggregators always want to sell you the biggest system possible, whether you need it or not. They are all chasing contracts from big-ticket clients - the railways, public-sector companies, large housing complexes to keep the assembly lines running. Companies like Simpa Networks are building models that resemble telecom service providers. Not for them the one-time pocket-change from individual residences.

Reliability is also an issue. Almost none of the components comes with a performance guarantee. The usual refrain is "electronic cheez hai, kuch bhi ho sakta hai..." (its electronic stuff - anything can go wrong!). Not an encouraging start for people who see this as a long-term investment in clean energy.

Amongst all the people I have met, the most sensible advise came from a marketing executive at Maharshi Vedic Construction. His point was simple - longevity of any equipment depends on how you go about maintaining it. He gave the example of an inverter he has installed at home 17 years ago. According to him, regular vacuum cleaning and greasing is all it takes to make electrical equipment last longer. Clearly he had a point.

Yet, even as a manufacturer of solar panels and controllers, he could not offer a formal performance guarantee for the stuff he was selling. His panels cost INR40/Wa, so a 60Wa panel cost INR2400. The controllers were available only for 10A and 20A with a starting price of INR1100 (note: the 10A model came with a useful USB charging port).

Ultimately, I ended up buying the following stuff from the electonics wholesale market at Bhagirathi Palace, Old Delhi:

- Solar Panel Tata BP - 60Wa (INR 1200)

- Charge Controller - (INR 250)

- LED lights set - 12W (INR 150)

- Twilight Switch - 12V, 6A (INR 368) - from Electrocine Corp, 1801/5-6, Bhagirath Palace

- Copper wire (INR 160 for 10m - Kalinga Gold 4mm copper wire) 

- Battery - 26Ah, 12V

I was about to purchase a new 28Ah battery when a friend offered to pass on an old battery he was going to dump anyway. It has been purchased a year ago but seemed to have got completely discharged due to non-use. It took three about three days for the voltage to climb over 12V.

Apart from the battery glitch, the system seems to be working beautifully. 

Now, only a few questions remain: The battery runs out of juice in just four hours...is the LED panel drawing out more power than 12W? Or is it just an old, deep-discharged SMF battery acting up? How does one measure the W/h remaining in a battery unit?

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Vendor's Contacts:

* DC Twilight Switch - Electrocine Sales Corp, 1801/5-6 Electrical Market, Bhagirati Palace - www.escorp.in 

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* Bijli Bachao - solar panels in India - https://www.bijlibachao.com/solar/solar-panel-cell-cost-price-list-in-india.html

* Understanding Solar Power - an excellent resource that brings "Solar Power to Ordinary People"-- https://livingonsolarpower.wordpress.com/  

* Instructables - Solar charges with day-night switch - http://www.instructables.com/id/Solar-charger-with-day-night-switch-v2/

- 2N3904 NPN Transistor, linked to photo transistor and then using a 100k pot to regulate the sensitivity level.
- Day-night switch - http://www.ebay.in/itm/222242083233?aff_source=Sok-Goog
- INR 292 on EBay

- Solar charge controllers - https://www.batterystuff.com/solar-chargers/charge-controllers/

Steel Production in Perspective

Staying up-to-date is a quite a challenge these days. There is so much information floating around in the print media, and in cyberspace that its a constant struggle to separate the wheat from the chaff; the signals from the noise.

Take for instance the recent headlines in the Financial Express on global steel production. According to the news report, India has "registered a 6% growth in steel output in Jan-Sept... India remained the only bright spot among major steel-producing nations in the world."

Quite impressive to be the 'only bright spot' -- until you notice a graphic tucked away. Now this tells you that a growth of nearly 6% actually translates in an increase in production from 67 million tonnes to 71 mT. The exalted position of the "third largest producer of steel in the world" looks quite pathetic when you realize that the guy in the fist position has produced 604 mT of steel -- nearly 10x times the Indian production during the same period!

An increase of 4mT gives India an "impressive" 6% growth while just about the same increase (3mT) gives China a growth of "only" 0.4%.

Is there a better case of comparing watermelons and lemons?

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REFERENCES & LINKS

- Financial Express (22Oct16) - India registers 6% growth in steel output in Jan-Sept. http://www.financialexpress.com/markets/commodities/india-registers-6-growth-in-steel-output-in-jan-sept/426301/
- World Steel Association - https://www.worldsteel.org/
- Top Steel Producers (2015) - https://www.worldsteel.org/statistics/top-producers.html

A Churning of Conventional Wisdom

I like books that yank me out of my comfort zones. The one I am reading right now - Sanjeev Sanyal's "Ocean of Churn" clearly falls into this category.

 Using the latest research evidence available - DNA profiles, population genetics and climate change data -  it punctures many 'historical facts' that have long been accepted as the gospel truth.

While one can find faults with the writing style, with Sanyal's lame attempts at being humorous, the book is certainly worth the hype on social media.

It collates and presents some startling new findings:

* Iron tools were being used in central India 3800 ago, in 1800 BCE  when the Egyptians and Mesopotamians were still in the Bronze Age (2500 - 800 BCE)

* Emperor Ashoka the poster boy for Ahimsa (non-violence) was anything but that. The great Kalinga War (262 BCE) was hardly an inflection point - he had already converted to Buddhism a few years earlier!
Also, the decisive battle may not even have taken place on the banks of the river Daya at Dhauli, but at Yuddha Meruda (Jajpur Distt) and the Kalingan capital city of Tosali (Dharmasala)



* The Sri Lankan Sinhala's have much stronger linkages to ancient Odisha than was known earlier

* In Peninsular India there have been instances of royalty being brought in from South East Asia...it was a two-way traffic of goods, people and ideas.



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LINKS and REFERENCES

* Tiwari, Rakesh () - The origins of iron-working in India: new evidence from the Central Ganga Plain and the Eastern Vindhyas -- http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/tewari/tewari.pdf

* Das, Prafulla (2005): Exploring an Ancient Kingdom - http://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl2220/stories/20051007000106500.htm

* Book Review - Mint - http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/2GYBckosLVkNrM1TMSgRAK/Book-review-The-Ocean-Of-Churn-by-Sanjeev-Sanyal.html

* Book Review - Manu Pillai (Open) - Rim of Life - http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/books/rim-of-life

Don on Blockchain

Digital currency, Blockchain, Bitcoin...for quite some time now, these terms have been floating around in my mind like dragonflies on a sunny afternoon. I've always wanted to learn more about them but have never got hold of anything that I could relate to - until today.

This TED video by Don Tapscot has finally presented the topic in a way I could finally understand,at least to some extent. One example that struck me in particular was that of Analie Domingo, a Filipino housekeeper living in Toronto. It seems she is now able to send money to her ageing mother in Manila, on a Blockchain app called "Abra". It costs her a  fraction of time and money she used to spend on Western Union money transfers.

I did not know that the biggest flow of funds from the developed world to the developing world is remittances. At USD 600 billion per year, it is a far greater flow of funds than corporate investment or foreign aid. According to Don, it is also the biggest global rip-off by companies like Western Union.

If Blockchain is the wonder technology that can make international money transfers more efficient, if it can help artists earn a fair price for their creations and help maintain digital privacy of netizens, the next obvious question is - How can we change from byestanders to participants in this perfect storm coming our way?


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LINKS / REFERENCES

* Transcript - https://www.ted.com/talks/don_tapscott_how_the_blockchain_is_changing_money_and_business/transcript?language=en

* ABRA - transfering money freely and securely! - https://www.goabra.com/

* Imogen Heap - the first (?) Grammy awarded artist to sell her songs on Blockchain http://imogenheap.com/home.php?

* Vitalik Buterin - the founder of Etherium Bitcoin for Digital Contracts - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalik_Buterin

* Bitcoin Magazine - http://www.bitcoinmagazine.com/

ShinMaywa US2 Seaplanes for India

This has been a long standing mystery: What is holding back the first major India-Japan defence hardware transaction - the sale of ShinMaywa US2 Maritime reconnaissance aircraft?

The US-2i is quite a unique aircraft, capable of short take-offs from land as well as water with a range of over 4,500 km. Powered by four big turbo-props, it can land even on rough seas amid three-metre high waves.

Perhaps this is just the sort of recce-aircraft that we needed while searching for the AN-32 that disappeared while flying from Chennai to Car Nicobar. The $1.65 billion defence deal was slated to be signed in the first quarter of 2016 with the first two aircraft delivered off-the-shelf and the remaining ten built under license in India.

The deal has been "under discussion" since 2012. Over the past four years there have been numerous speculative reports as to why an ostensible commitment at the highest levels of government, is yet to translate into action.

Today's Times of India states that Japanese defence ministry is trying to reduce the price-tag of the USD 1.6 billion for 12 aircraft in a bid to revive the deal. This is a new one. Until now none of the reports had claimed that the price was a sticking point.

Recently, India purchased six C-130J Super Hercules military transport aircraft for an estimated price of USD 1.2 billion. Even at the risk of comparing chalk and cheese, the price-tag for a a sophisticated amphibious aircraft does seem to be quite reasonable.

In fact the reasons for the delay stated so far have been:

Policy related -

• Japanese side has been waiting for the amended Defence Procurement Policy-2016, which is yet to be available for the companies wanting to do defence business in India
• Department of industrial policy and promotion is awaiting for Acceptance of Necessity (AON) from the Indian Navy
• While Japan had been pitching for the sale of these aircraft as a special case, for the moment it did not figure on India’s list of priorities

Bureaucratic / Red Tape:

• Deal delayed further as the next Defence Acquisition Council cannot take place, since there is no Chief of Integrated Staff (CISC) in place in the ministry of defence.
• The major hurdle remains successfully navigating through the myriad of layers of bureaucratic red tape, something that Japanese defence contractors, given Japan’s self-imposed ban on exporting military hardware, have very little experience in doing.

The last reason sounds more plausible. Getting the bureaucracies in India and Japan to talk to each other must count among the most formidable challenges of today. Surely this is not merely a question of an inflated price-tag!

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UPDATES:

- (8 Nov., 2016) - Japan, India likely to ink pivotal US-2 aircraft deal - http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/11/06/national/japan-india-likely-ink-pivotal-us-2-aircraft-deal/#.WCFsZNV97IU
- “The sticking point then was India’s insistence that Japan relocate production to the ‘enth’ degree”

- ( 25 Oct., 2015) - INDIA, JAPAN RESOLVE PRICE ISSUE - Price concession of more than 10% brings down the cost of the US-2 planes from USD 133m to USD 113m per piece - https://inserbia.info/today/2016/10/india-japan-solve-aircraft-price-issue/

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* (11Sep16) - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Japan-may-cut-price-to-ink-aircraft-deal-with-India/articleshow/54272792.cms

* (18May16) http://www.financialexpress.com/article/economy/indias-nod-to-buy-japanese-amphibian-plane-us-2i-to-face-further-delays/258215/

* (5May16) - http://thediplomat.com/2016/03/is-the-japan-india-military-aircraft-deal-dead/

* (28Feb16) - http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/japan-noncommittal-on-supply-of-strategic-amphibious-aircraft-to-india/article8290054.ece

* (12Dec15) - India-Japan Joints Statement 2025 - http://www.mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents.htm?dtl/26176/Joint_Statement_on_India_and_Japan_Vision_2025_Special_Strategic_and_Global_Partnership_Working_Together_for_Peace_and_Prosperity_of_the_IndoPacific_R


* (6Jan14) - http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/japans-amphibious-aircraft-not-a-priority-for-india-now/article5545706.ece.


* http://theweek.com/articles/575407/japans-defense-industry-super-excited-about-amphibious-plane
- Japan and India have been discussing the sale of the amphibian since 2012. 
- US-2's manufacter ShinMaywa traces its history back to one of the founders of Japanese aviation, Seibe Kawanishi. This Kobe-based industrialist made his fortune selling woolen blankets to the military during Japan's turn-of-the-century wars against Russia and China.
- After the war, Nakajima's company became Fuji Heavy Industries — the parent company of Subaru, the automobile-maker.
-  Kawanishi churned out 2,800 civilian and military aircraft between 1928 and 1945 — an average of 165 planes a year.
- Building under license has always been Japan's favorite way to gain and maintain cutting-edge skills and technologies.

That Thingy On Your Wrist

I used to always wonder: Why would anybody want to keep a tab on the number of steps they take each day?

Perhaps this was a notion conditioned during the formative years. I had an grand-uncle who had a disdain for things that were superfluous. Having spent his best years in the Royal Indian Air Force, serving forward bases that were battling the Japanese in Burma during WW2, he always felt that giving precedence to form over function was just "bloody bullshit!". Once while were deep into a conversation, my watch gave off its little hourly beep. He stopped mid sentence, took a closer look at all digital numbers on the wristwatch and asked, "Does the damn thing also tell you the time?"

Soon after this, my Timex died on me and I got a Swatch Chronograph - a chunky metal time piece with dials within dials. I never really understood how to use them all but a chunky watched seemed cool anyway.

Then came the Casio G-Shock. It was certainly not be the most elegant or comfortable thing to wear but it is certainly tough. It can see you through through random rainstorms; the Delhi summer means nothing to its straps; it can be a handy alarm to remind you that your lunch is on the stove; you don't have to set it aside while travelling across time-zones or while diving into a swimming pool.

A slight change of heart came after I watched a TED video recently. An elderly speaker observed that these days, watches are things that are worn by an older, less tech-savvy generation. He gave the example of his daughter who found them distinctly uncool because, "For God's sake, Dad, who wants to wear single function devices?!?"

Now that was a valid point. Surely a piece of equipment you carried on your wrist all day ought to do more than just tell you the time and date? While I was still debating the pros and cons of investing in a health-band it appeared at the door wrapped in a courier from Amazon - a thoughtful Rakhi gift.

I have been using the GQii for two weeks now and I like it. For one thing it is nice and lightweight, then it tells you the time only when you want to know, and despite the fact that its inaccurate, once you start wearing the band it does prod you to pay more attention to physical activity, sleep-timings and calorie-burning.

So now I have revised my notions of an ideal watch. It ought to combine the lightness and multi-functionality of a health-band, and yet be tough enough to be worn just about anywhere. Will there be an affordable product that can, one day, combines the ruggedness of a G-Shock to the multi-functionality of a GQii?

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LINKS

- GOQii leads Wearables Mkt in India - http://indiatoday.intoday.in/technology/story/goqii-leads-indias-wearable-market-xiaomi-slips-to-second/1/757668.html

A Pain in the Neck

Pain is an excellent guide. It tells you how to sit, walk, sleep or run; it takes your body through the paths of least resistance until time, medicines, or both, manage to heal you.

These days I am discovering the uses one particular set of muscles on my right neck - the Splenius Capitis. It is a broad band that stretches from the mid-shoulder to base of your cervical vertebrae, behind the ears.

I have now become aware of how exactly this strip of muscle helps in tilting and turning my head; of how it stretches out stretches out when I am lying on my side, without a pillow, and the amazing way in which a simple sneeze sends a stab of pain somewhere deep inside my shoulders.

I am not quite sure how I managed to hurt it - was it an unintended turn of the head while performing the Shirshasana? or did it get damaged when my son pounced on my shoulder while I was bending down to pick something on the floor?

Whatever its origins, I now feel like 3-CPO of Star Wars - that dazed, surprised look of having to turn my whole body to see what is happening behind. I now find lying down distinctly uncomfortable. Even while sitting or standing, raising my right arm eases the pain.

The strangest thing about the guiding pain is that requires me to sit, stand or walk to follow the path of least resistance. Lying down is distinctly uncomfortable, and each morning, I have been waking up with my head tilted to the right. Trying to set it straight is like holding a barbed wire fence marked "No Trespassing!"

It seems Mr. Splenius Capitis is just one of the 70,000 muscles in the human body. While its great to know he is well connected, I am not looking forward to meeting his friends any time soon!

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LINKS

* Inner Body - Splenius Capitis Muscle - http://www.innerbody.com/image_musbov/musc41.html
* Pain Mgmt - http://www.practicalpainmanagement.com/pain/maxillofacial/splenius-capitis-muscle-syndrome
* http://muscular-system.blogspot.in/2013/03/splenius-cervicis-muscle.html

PHP for Server Emails

Last week I launched my first "Mobile First" website using Bootstrap3 at <Kai-PDQ.in>. And today I found myself diving deeper into the alphabet soup.

After I launched the website, I realised that there was one functionality that was beyond the magical powers of Bootstrap3: Email Forms that actually sent out emails.

Inside the Bootstrap3 framework, the responsive "containers" could help you create an entire website that would work across mobiles, smartphones, tabs and PCs, but to make them send emails you needed something more: PHP.

PHP is supposed to be the acronym for Hypertext Preprocessor (how is that?). It is apparently a super-popular script executed on the servers which lies at the heart of blogging sites like WorldPress, It is also used extensively by the social media behemoth with more than 1.5 billion users - FaceBook.

So how do you write a PHP script that enables forms on your website to send emails to your Yahoo or Gmail accounts?

As in the case of Bootstrap3, its best to start with a YouTube video tutorial. This is the one that worked for me:

TeachMeComputer: PHP for Beginners - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY5P9sZqFas

Once you get a hang of the basics, its best to dive right in with the code for a basic email form, as described in this video by MushroomHeadBangers - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW5cgqf6cNo

 Then, to install a web server on your PC, you need XAMPP. This tool comes as a package with Apache, MySQL and PHP. Once you have all these things in place, you are ready to go.

One thing none of these video's tell you (perhaps its common knowledge?), is that your web-host needs to have a PHP enabled portal. It is also not clear from the videos how we can go about with the trouble shooting.

My site takes in the feedback form, returns the "Click Here to Go Back" page, and I do get an email in my Yahoo account. However, for some reason, the mails land up in the Spam-box even if they are marked safe. Also, the message is coming in blank with the just the sender's email id.

Some progress...but I guess there is still a long way to go!

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LINKS - Responsive Forms

• PHP Download - http://php.net/downloads.php
• W3School Tutorial - http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_intro.asp
• XAMPP - PHP development environment - https://www.apachefriends.org/index.html
• https://www.formget.com/how-to-make-simple-responsive-form-for-a-website/

The Ivory Throne

I was not too keen on picking another 500 page tome. Having just finished "The Gene", I was looking for something lighter, something which did not have its notes and index running into a hundred pages.

I had almost set the book aside when I decided to flip through the book one last time. I saw a map of South India in the 1920s and an old sepia print titled "The Matriarchs of Mavelikkara", and got hooked.

"The Ivory Throne" by Manu Pillai is more than just the "Chronicles of the House of Travancore". It is a refreshing new way of looking at the history of a kingdom that has, so far,  seen only the fawning eulogies of erstwhile aristocrats, or the dismissive narratives of Marxist historians.

Pillai's attention is focused on the life and times of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi. While this is, no doubt, quite interesting, I find myself drawn back to an earlier phase when Kerala saw, within the span of one century (1400-1500), the influence of foreign ships coming from two different directions.

From the East came came Admiral Zheng who sailed from China to Calicut no less than seven times to during the period 1405 to 1430. His fleets had as many as 250 ships manned by 28,000 soldiers. Even after the Ming emperors decided to isolate themselves, there remained in Kerala a fairly large community of Chinese-Malayali's called Chinna Kribala, with one of its stat sailors a pirate named Chinali!

A few decades later, in July 1497, King Manuel of Portugal sent Vasco da Gama to find the fabled spice gardens of India, with a "distinctly expendable crew of convicts and criminals". Ten months later, he was trying to peddle baubles and trinkets at the court of the Zamorin, Manavikrama. Unable to break the Arab monopoly over the spice trade in the first instance, King Manuel sent an armada led by Pedro Alvarez Cabral in 1500.

The Zamorins of Calicut were obviously nor prepared for Cabral's persuasive methods. Stymied by the Arab traders, he decided to let his guns do the talking. A single day of bombardment from the sea, killed nearly 600 people, and then he went about playing one kingdom in Kerala against another.

Once the dust settled, the natives had their fill of internecine wars of attrition ("Kudipaka") while the Europeans had ended up with a trade monopoly, and then some more. It was not until Marthanda Varma took charge of Travancore in 1729 that things started to look up in this part of India.

"The Ivory Throne" leaves me wondering - when will we have more historians piece together this real history of Kerala? What are the secrets that continues to be locked in genetic markers and mitochondrial DNA of the Mallus who come in all colors, shapes and sizes?


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LINKS & REFERENCES

* Interview - The Hindu - http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/society/manu-s-pillai-zooms-in-on-the-life-of-maharani-sethu-lakshmi-bayi-in-his-debut-book/article7900248.ece

* Book - The Ivory Throne - http://www.amazon.in/Ivory-Throne-Chronicles-House-Travancore/dp/9351776425

In Praise of Bootstrap3

In the world of web-design I am a bit like Rip van Winkle - a solitary rustic who once dabbled in ancient HTML; the oldie who goes off to sleep for 15 years and then wakes up to discover a digital world that has been completely transformed.

Nothing remained of the familiar landscape. Old HTML had become too primitive, too cumbersome and simply incapable of showing up on anything other than a clunky old PC. As webpage designing had moved from one version of HTML to another, the newer versions had teamed up with CSS and outsourced all the layout grunt work, Java and JScript had come in to add heft and magic to the amazing things that could be accomplished using smartphones, tablets, and laptops. A bewildering new world that would not reveal itself in "view page source".

It is while wandering through this maze that I stumbled upon the answer to all my problems - Bootstrap3. It was built on whatever little I knew of HTML and CSS, and then, with a few online stylesheets helped me create websites that worked beautifully across platforms and devices. Magic!

Here are links to the sites that were a big help:

* GetBootstrap (Currently at v.3.3.7) - Home - http://getbootstrap.com/
Repository of all the latest download files, Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) and sample pages

* YouTube - Lalit Bassi's Bootstrap3 Tutorial (1:40 hrs) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqOEoUR5RHg
Even after downloading Bootstrap, I was quite lost until I stumbled upon this much-viewed tutorial. Starting with a simple HTML layout, this video takes you through a wide range of functionalities that can help you launch a fully functional website is a few hours. It also introduced me to the joys of using SublimeText - an editor infinitely better than MS-Text!
Caveat: The Dilliwala Yankee accent can be tough...but remember: no pain, no gain! ;)

* YouTube - Bucky Robert's TheNewsBoston (14 short clips)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIULMnbH2-o
Unlike Bassi's package this one tells you about various different tools in short, easy-to-understand videos.

* YouTube - Bootstrap tutorial by Derek Banas (1:04 hrs) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqOEoUR5RHg
More like a catalogue presentation of the various things you can do with Bootstrap3. Derek keeps adding and deleting code so you might be disappointed to find many components missing in his final "cheat-sheet".

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* Bootstrap - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrap_(front-end_framework)
* Tutorial Sites

• W3Schools - http://www.w3schools.com/bootstrap/

* DevelopMentor YouTube - Easygoing pace but the guy seems unsure of many functionalities - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGotwBWGL7A&spfreload=5

Our Genes

In the Mahabharata epic, there is a poignant exchange that takes place after the Great War, between the eldest of the Pandava princes, Yudhistira, and a forest spirit. A quiz in metaphysics is the price demanded by the Spirit for reviving Yudhistira's siblings who have died of thirst and poisoning.

One of the questions is: 'What is the greatest wonder in the world?'
And Yudhistira's reply is : "People die everyday and those who are alive go on as though they will live for ever!"

Siddhartha Mukherjee's books seems to capture this profound irony in his first book, "Emperor of All Maladies" and then again, in his latest book, "The Gene". A 'normal' healthy body and mind is something most of us take for granted - even as an entitlement - until something happens to us, or to our own close friends or relatives that brings us face to face with the fragility of life itself.

The great advances in science & technology lull us into a false sense of security - until raconteurs like Mukherjee tell us about the heroic efforts, pain and serendipity that underpin each and every invention that mark our progress, as well as the huge lacunae in our own understanding of the world around us, and within us.

Here are a couple of shockers that hit me while reading "The Gene"

There are more than 2500 different genetic defects that have been recorded to date. Most of them are like simple spelling mistakes that end up destroying lives, across generations.

Take the case of Sickle Cell Anemia. It is the result of a single change in one triplet in our DNA. The sequence GAG gets changed to GTG. This results in the substitution of one amino acid for another: glutamate gets switched to valine, thus altering the folding of the hemoglobin protein chain. As a result protein debris gets accumulated in string like clumps in our red cells; they are unable to glide smoothly through our blood capillaries, and get jammed into microscopic clots throughout the body, interrupting the flow of blood, and resulting in excruciating pain, like corkscrews being drilled into our bones.

Then there is Huntington's Chorea. It is the "opposite of a dance, a joyless pathological caricature, the ominous manifestation of dysregulated brain function".

In 1992 researchers tracked the disease down to one gene called “interesting transcript 15” (IT15). This gene was found to encode an enormous protein - a biochemical behemoth containing 3,144 amino acids, larger than any protein in the human body (insulin has a mere 51 amino acids). And yet, beyond the fact that this protein is found is our neurons and testicular tissue, we know nothing about its actual role in our bodies, let alone why it causes a debilitating disease...

The Gene puts the Spirit's question and Yudhistira's answer into completely new perspectives.

Nikon's Sticky Monarch

What has gone wrong with my Monarch? It has gone sweaty, sticky and seems to just crumble away! :(

Its nearly six years since I purchased my first pair of 'serious' binoculars - a Nikon Monarch from Yodobashi Camera, Akihabara, Japan. It was a handy companion while ascending Mt. Fuji, and subsequently brought me within 'touching distance' of numerous birds across India.

Then, one day, I took it out of its packaging to find its rubber grip covered with a kind of fine, white fungus. Wiping with a dry cloth made it appear clean but the rubber continued to be sticky and crumbly. The Nikon Service Centre at Noida took a look at the device and simply said that they could do nothing. The rubber components could neither be repaired nor replaced.

I tried looking for a solution at the online forums where it is called the "sticky armor problem". One user was able to partially solve this be rubbing the armor with isopropanol.

Still, what irks me is Nikon's care-a-damn approach to this problem. For a company that has build it reputation on sturdy outdoor optical equipment, surely this is not a one-off problem of mouldy rubber jackets!

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Postscript (20 Aug 2016): One thing that does seem to work in the hot, humid Indian climate is Neem (Azadirachta indica) powder. A well known natural germicide in India, Neem extracts are now available as prickly heat powder. I used a product from Hesh Pharma and it seems to work perfectly fine on the sticky Nikon binoculars!

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* Bird Forum - http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=266061

* Rubber coating breakdown - http://www.fixya.com/support/t116476-rubber_coating_breaking_down

Textiles and Terror

Last month a terror strike at the Holey Artisan Cafe in Dhaka, Bangladesh, left 21 people dead, along with two police officers and four terrorists. Among them were nine Italians, seven Japanese, one Indian, three Bangladeshi's and one US citizen.

More than half the number of victims were closely linked to an industry that is critical to the country's economy: Textiles.

What has been the impact of this terror attack on Bangladesh's textile sector?

The textile sector constitutes around 80% of Bangladesh’s total exports providing direct employment to 4 million people. This $19 billion-a-year, export-oriented ready-made garment (RMG) industry accounted for 45% of all industrial employment in the country, and yet, only contributed 5% of the Bangladesh's total national income.

Over the past few years, Bangladesh had surpassed India in the export of RMGs - thanks to cheaper labour, better support from the government and a favourable global trade-quota system. In India around 12 percent of exports are from the textile sector and it employs more than 38 million people. Since there are nearly 10x more people in India dependant on the textile sector any change in trends was bound to have a cross-border impact.

This point hit home when I ran into a neighbour who works with an RMG export firm. He was unusually upbeat. "Things are now looking up", he said, grinning happily, "Our industry is not getting the attention it deserves!" INR 6,000 had been allocated in the latest Budget for financial incentives, along with a move towards flexible labour laws. "Now, with the Europeans and Americans getting wary about Bangladesh, we sure to bounce back!"

It seems the global textile-RMG market is not very different from the local subzi-mandi's (vegetable markets). Frequent meetings and the perception of safety, and the assurance of having a glass of chai in peace and quiet, are all confidence builders for both buyers and sellers...

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LINKS & REFERENCES

- Dhaka - The Attack Victims (CNN - 6 July 2016) - http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/02/asia/bangladesh-dhaka-attack-victims/
- http://www.iipnetwork.org/CaseStudy_Compendium.pdf2

- ET, 23 Jun., 2016) - http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/finance/cabinet-clears-rs-6000crore-package-for-textile-sector/articleshow/52876601.cms

- (IBT 23 June 2016) - http://www.ibtimes.co.in/cotton-production-holds-key-textile-policys-multi-billion-dollar-export-push-684011#6FoGIRr5mbh5L9mf.97

Let There Be Light

Are high pressure sodium vapour lamps more efficient than LEDs?

The key to answering this question is "Luminous Efficacy", a measure of how well a light source a Watt of electricity into Lumens, a measure of light intensity visible to the human eye.

Today, while clearing some litter at a nearby park, I came across this box -

It was lying on the grass, right below a high-mast lamp. Even though I knew that these sodium vapor lamps consumed a lot of electricity, what struck me was the quantum of light produced by these bulbs. A 400W bulb produces more than 44,000 lumens!

If this makes little sense, just compare it to the standard LED lamps being distributed by the government, in its efforts to being down household electricity  consumption -

In terms of luminous efficacy, one would have thought that the LED lamps are a lot more efficient that any incandescent, power-guzzling bulb. However, in terms of light output (lumens), the sodium vapour lamp produces 110 lumens/W while the LED lights prouduce 114 lumens/W, which is hardly any difference.

If there is not much difference in the efficiency of LED bulbs and sodium-vapour lamps, is there a big difference in cost? The sodium-vapour lamp costs INR 675 per unit while an (unsubsidized) LED lamp costs anywhere between INR 150 and 250. This means that the cost of luminous efficacy is INR 0.16 lm/W/INR for the sodium-vapour lamp and 0.57 lm/W/INR for LEDs.  

This simply means that you are getting 3.5 times more bang for your buck with LEDs, compared to sodium-vapour lamps. So it does make sense to switch to LEDs.

Now, what is the difference is cost between LEDs meantand SVs for high-mast lamps? That would berhaps perhaps be a better comparison of oranges with oranges!

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LINKS

* Energy efficiency of LEDs - http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/ssl/led_energy_efficiency.pdf

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy

* 2009 - Toshiba releases 93 lm/W bulbs - http://ledsreview.com/news/367/

Disruptive Designs

Another fascinating talk...here are some nuggets:

* Ying Zheng (300 BC) - The first military leader who insisted that all bows and arrows be designed identically.  Having interchangable daggers, axes, spears, shields and every other form of weaponry, made fighting much more

* Edward Teach aka Blackbeard designed the jolly-roger design used by sea pirates

* Hungarian artist László Moholy-Nagy was among the first to study the impact of technology on daily life

* Arthur Zang. He's a young, Cameroonian design engineer who has a adapted a tablet computer into the Cardiopad, a mobile heart-monitoring device

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LINKS

Rolex Awardee - http://www.rolexawards.com/profiles/young_laureates/kailas_neeti

Chasing out Yoursites123

I am constantly at odds with a virus that hijacks my browsers. It goes by the name "Yoursites123".

A few months back I had cleaned it out of Chrome and it worked just fine - until last week. Now the browser keeps hanging, forcing me to re-boot and employ that peculiar Chrome-special shortcut to get back all my tabs.

For a change, I switched back to Explorer and found that the earlier clean-up exercise had no impact on browsers other than Chrome. So when I got down, once again, to the step-by-step process for removing Yoursites123, a bigger problem surfaced - there were other bugs lurking in the dark corners.

Like the soot-balls in a Miyazaki movie, these turned up when I cast the following spell on the command-line:

The appearance of strange IP addresses below "localhost" is supposed to indicate that my PC has been hacked. And these three three fellows certainly look strange and suspicious.

127.0.0.1       down.baidu2016.com
127.0.0.1       123.sogou.com
127.0.0.1       www.czzsyzgm.com

What are these bugs doings in my machine? How do I get rid of them?

So far, all the online help available points you to some fancy sofware, which may again contain other new viruses. How do I figure the difference between online frauds and the do-gooders?

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LINKS

* Command Line reference - https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490890.aspx
* Removing Sougou - http://easyviruskilling.com/how-can-i-remove-123-sogou-com-virus-123-sogou-com-removal-guide/
* Removing down.baidu2016.com -- http://greatis.com/blog/how-to-remove-malware/remove-down-baidu2016-com.htm
* http://www.fixingvirus.com/remove-www-czzsyzgm-comwww-czzsyzxl-com-threat-and-protect-your-os/

Notes, Emotions and Classical Music

Benjamin Zander on "Transformative Power of Classical Music". This would count among the most cheerful and engaging TED video's I have seen.

While explaining how music connects to our deepest emotions, Zander says at one point, "This is a B. The next note is a C. And the job of the C is to make the B sad. And it does, doesn't it?"

In fact it does. This made me wonder if there was any connection between Western classical notes that evoke a particular emotion, and their equivalent in the Indian classical "Swara-maala". In the Hindustani classical tradition, Raagas that evoke a feeling of sadness ("Karuna" / Compassion) are - Desh, Vihag and Peelu.

If B and C are considered equivalent to Sa and Re across scales, does this combination figure in Desh, Vihag and Peelu as well?

Amongst the three, the combination of B and C (or, roughly, Sa and Re) seems to be there only for Raag Desh, and that too only in the ascending notes (Aaroha).

Is this because the Karuna has a much deeper meaning than just "Sad"? Or am I missing something here?


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LINKS:

* Western / Indian Note Equivalents - http://chandrakantha.com/articles/indian_music/western_Indian_scale.html
* Mood and Nature of Indian Classical Ragas - http://musicalescapades.com/useful-articles/moods-nature-raga-raaga.htm
* Raga's - http://www.soundofindia.com/raagas.asp
* Solfege - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solf%C3%A8ge

Captain Sparrow

Has there really been a shap decline the population of House Sparrows in India? In our corner of the National Capital Region (Noida) evidence points the other way.

This summer our home seems to have become the favoured destination for a variety of creatures. A couple of squirrels have claimed the space under a bedroom airconditioner; A pigeon laid two eggs on another window ledge, a tennis-ball-sized honeycomb nest on the foyer roof is home to family of yellow wasps, and the fourth corner of the house is the domain of Captain Sparrow and his family.

Three years ago, four organisations - BNHS, MoEF, NCBS and NCF -  had launched a two-month campaign to build public awareness on the disappearing House Sparrow. While participating in the nation-wide "Citizen Sparrow"survey I had pointed out that, at least in Noida, there was absolutely no shortage of this little bird. They were all over the place - in the hedges, on the Arjuna trees, and all over the local vegetable market. 

As if to reinforce this data-point, Captain Sparrow landed on one of our windows that just would not close. In this gap, safe from the prying claws of crows, rats and black-shouldered kites, it started making a tentative nest. At first it was a shoddy piece of work and none of his girlfriends were impressed. He then added a roof, some extra furnishings, and got steady with one. 

First it was a single, tiny, speckled egg. 

A week later there were three more.  

All four eggs went out of sight for a while until one morning we discovered that there were two plump little chicks in the nest. 

Every morning they made a huge racket and Captain and his wife seemed to be perpetually going to and fro getting them things to eat. If any of us approached the nest for a peek, the chicks would quickly backtrack in to the deepest corner, turning themselves completely silent and invisible against the straws and twigs.

Then, as suddenly as they had come, both the chicks turned into young ladies and flew away. So that was that we thought, time to clean up the window sill and settle down for some peace and quiet. 

We then went off on a three week holiday in mid-May. When we returned home in the June, not only had Captain refurbished his hangout, it was now a plush nest with two more chicks! 

So in just one summer, our window sill has been a maternity ward that has seen four baby sparrows fly out into the world.

Will Captain Sparrow come back again next season? We hope so!

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LINKS

* Citizen Sparrow - http://www.citizensparrow.in/
* India Searches for its missing sparrows (2012) - http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/india-searches-for-its-missing-sparrows/article3287189.ece
* Citizen Sparrow Survey Report (2013)

Extraordinary Facets

A TED video on Conversations. A Malayalam writer and an unsung politician.

One common thread that runs through all three is the delight of discovering something completely unexpected. Serendipity in many colorful layers.

In the TED video by Celeste Headlee one quotation struck me: "Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't" (Bill Nye). I had heard this one before but in an altogether different context. Over here Headlee was talking about the Art of Conversation.  Dig a little deeper and you find that the need to keep your mind open about people extends way beyond people you are ever likely to meet in flesh and blood.

Last week saw the release of new book on a Congress party politician and ex-PM who, for a change, has no roads named in his honor: "Half Lion" by Vinay Sitapati. The book seems to be full of surprises and stories of intrigue that was, until now, outside the 'public domain'. Such revelations are, of course, expected from biographies on politicians. What you would not expect to find are facets and qualities that seem so very unlike the regular, seasoned politicians.

PVN Rao was aparently a serious polyglot and technophile. He could speak Telugu, Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, and even some Oriya. Over the years, he had not only taught himself COBOL and BASIC but also went on to code in UNIX for mainframes!

Then you have the famous Malayalam writer, Vaikom Muhammad Basheer. A few days ago I revisited "Bhargavinilayam", one of his well known short stories. Even while going down a familiar path I was surprised to notice that, as a writer his interest in music went way beyond Kerala. He would travel from one cheap rental house to another carrying all his belongings in a few cartons. One of the boxes contained his favourite wind-up gramophone with a collection of over 200 LP records. His range of interests was quite amazing - Pankaj Mullick, Dilipkumar Roy, Saigal, Bing Crosby, Paul Robeson, Abdul Karim Khan, Kanan Devi, Kumari Manju Dasgupta, Kurshid, Juthika Roy, M.S. Subbulakshmi...

 What an amazing world some people carry in their minds!

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LINKS

* TED - "10 Ways to have a Better Conversation" by Celeste Headlee


* Book Review - ET - http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/interviews/vinay-sitapati-on-congress-betrayal-of-pv-narasimha-rao-and-bjps-attempts-at-reviving-his-legacy/articleshow/52918738.cms

* A Clutch of Indian Masterpieces - Extraordinary Short-Stories from the 19th Century to the Present, Edited by David Davidar, Aleph, 2014

India's War

Over the past few weeks two different authors launching two very similar sounding books: "India's War" by Srinath Raghavan and "India's Wars" by Arjun Subramaniam. Except for the pudgy looking elephant on the Srinath's book, both would have had similar covers too.

I picked the author was more familiar - Srinath. There are already a lot of glowing book reviews in the magazines and newspapers so let me just stick to the points that I found interesting or fascinating.

"India's War" makes a very interesting start with the author's curiosity getting piqued at the Indian Military Academy. At IMA, officer cadets were divided into groups named after distant, strange-sounding places in foreign lands. Battlefields where Indian units fought - and won - many significant victories.

Victories and defeats. The book does not attempt to whitewash battles where the British Indian Army suffered significant defeats. I liked that. I also liked the way in which the Germans and Japanese were given due credit for adopting significantly better strategies and tactics. Details of the logistics and costs involved in ramping up an army from 50,000 to 2.5 million, and the travails of moving the divisions from one corner of the world to another, makes fassinating reading.

It was also good to know that the supposedly "progressive" princely state of Travancore, under Divan Sir CP Ramaswamy Aiyer, fared no better than British Bengal when it came to providing foodgrains for its citizens. While the former starved for the want of imported rice from Burma, the latter just shipped off whatever it as reserve-stocks for British soldiers in Europe. During the Famine in Travancore (1941-43), a sack of rice cost Rs. 65. An Indian soldier fighting in North Africa or Southern Europe received a monthly salary of Rs. 17 while the British tommies in the adjascent trenches got Rs.67 - three times the salary for the same work.

Unknown names also came to the fore: Maruyama Daisaburo, the spy who lived in Gandhi's Wardha ashram in the 1930s went on to set up a superb school for espionage in Penang. And then there was Lt Gen Mutaguchi Renya, Commander of the 15th Army in Northern Burma. If it were not for the misclculation he made for for the main offensive "Operation U-Go (8 march 1944) and  Op Ha-Go (to stop and destroy the 5th and 7th Indian Division along the Mayu Ridge), the war could have turned out very differently indeed!

Delhi Metro: Blueline Blues

Stranded: Delhi Metro Blueline

Is the Delhi Metro unprepared to cope with its own rapid expansion? How do passengers cope with sudden disruptions in the suburban network?

Things that you read in the papers, shake your head in disappointment, and then flip over to the next page. It takes a first hand  experience to jolt you out of the detached, disinterested way in which most of us go through the daily grind. I got mine today.

At 15:30 today, I went down the ITO station to a business meeting at Dwaraka Sector-12 . On a normal day this journey takes about 40-60 minutes and I was quite sure that I would reach in time. About an hour later, at Uttam Nagar on the outskirts of Dwaraka, the train suddenly stopped. For the next one hour annoucements on the PA system mentioned a "technical snag", and then about "disruption in electrical supply" which would be "repaired soon". At 17:45 the train slowly crawled to the next station.

By this time it was clear that I would have to reschedule my meeting. So I went down for a chat with the metro staff before taking a return train to Noida. "Oh, this sort of thing keeps happening", said the man at the turnstiles, "There is no way to predict how long the repair work is going to take...40 minute, or four hour, your guess is as good as mine!"

A fee passengers who had stepped out to look for alternate transport came back dejected. As soon as news of the network failure got around, the taxi and auto drivers had promptly switched to "surrge pricing", a nifty term for fleecing helpless people.

Nearly an hour later, at 18:30 the train came to a stop at Rajiv Chowk. There was an unbelievable mass of humanity outside the windows, and as soon as the doors slid open, commuters exploded into the compartment, and then, the doors would not close because folks on the outside just did not want to let go. It took a lot of coaxing and cajoling from the guards to get the train rolling again. The same scene was repeated at the next major crossing - Yamuna Bank.

I got out of the Blue-Line at 19:30, full four hours after I entered into the network.

DMRC is clearly under severe strain. The Delhi network currently handles an average ridership of 2.7 million people a day, of which the Blue-Line (the longest with 44 stations) handles a million passengers - 64 percent of the load.

Is there a pattern to the network failures along the Blue-Line? Is there a better way of communicating such failures to the commuters? Is there a more cost effective way of evacuating passengers in emergency situations?

DMRC has an active PR department but it needs to go way beyond issuing the usual press-releases. Disruptions like these present opportunities to prepare the city for bigger emergencies.

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LINKS:

* 27 June 2016 - http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/delhi-metro-blue-line-overhead-wire-fault-2880355/

* 4 June 2016: http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/snag-on-metro-blue-line-delays-services-in-delhi-2833522/

A Look at Rexit

A day before Brexit, there has been a sharp drop in the number of shrill op-ed's and commentaries on "Rexit" - the exit of RBI Governer, Raghuram Rajan.

Reactions to Rexit have, by now, covered the entire spectrum of reactions and predictions, from the impending collapse of the Indian economy to 'good riddance'. As a man-on-the-street, I have been trying to understand why the governement decided not to extend Rajan's tenure, who, by all accounts seemed to be the perfect man for the job.

So far, the many opinions rationalizing Rajan's exit centred on a handful of points: The RBI governor was exceeding his brief; he was playing to the gallery by taking on the role of a public intellectual and a government functionary at the same time; He was not being senstive enough to the plight of rural India by refusing to lower the interest rates, etc..

Today I came across an entirely new angle presented by Gurumurty. According to him, Rajan, with his Western education did not sufficiently understand the importance of small towns, the unorganised sector. He illustrated this with two examples:

• Morvi, Gujarat: The town produces 70 % of ceramics, 80% of CFL lamps, and the largest producer of clocks in India. It has the highest per-capita income in the country.
• Tirupur, Tamil Nadu: Here, entrepreneurs with less than 10 years of formal education export more than USD 4 billion worth of knitwear garments.

According to Gurumurthy, towns like Morvi and Tirupur account for more than 58 million unfunded, unorganised businesses that needed a capital of INR 12 Lakh Crores (USD 184 billion). A new financial architecture called the Mudra Bank, to fund these unorganised businesses, has been stonewalled by Rajan at RBI citing regulatory arbitrage and systemic risk.

Obviously there is more to Mudra than meets the eye. Finance is certainly a problem for SMEs, especially for those located in rural areas where the going rate from local money lenders ranges from 30 to 120 percent. If RBI under Rajan was not too keen on having yet another banking/regulatory body (apart from NABARD, SIDBI and NHB) what were the arguments against it?


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LINKS & REFERENCES

* Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency (MUDRA) - wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Units_Development_and_Refinance_Agency_Bank

* Mudra Bank - Genesis - http://www.mudra.org.in/AboutUs/Genesis

* Unnikrishnan, Dinesh (Firstpost, 2015) -- http://www.firstpost.com/business/mudra-bank-has-an-obvious-risk-of-endorsing-shadow-banks-2189251.html
- National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) and National Housing Bank (NHB)

* Gurumurty - http://linkis.com/newindianexpress.com/4AnuK
* Sanjay Baru - Interesting - http://m.firstpost.com/politics/the-numbers-rbi-governor-raghuram-rajan-did-not-get-2014-and-282-2846970.html
* Harish - http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/in-fact-where-raghuram-rajan-may-have-erred-in-policy-2865447/

Marthanda Varma's Legacy

Padmanabhapuram Palace

A casual visitor driving on NH-47 from Kerala to Kanyakumari (aka Cape Comorin), Tamil Nadu is stuck by two things: firstly, the roads in Kerala are now much, much better, and that despite change in language, climate and topography, close linkages continue to be forged between the two southernmost districts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

My last visit to the Cape was more than three decades ago. It was a journey in an Ambassador taxi packed with cousins from Bombay and I have vivid memories of the large ponds and hills along the way, the visit to the Vivekananda Rock and the long line of vendors selling polished sea-shells and packets of multicolored sands.

Almost every accessible site of historical interest seems to have strong connections with one king of Travancore - Marthanda Varma (1705-1758) .

Marthanda Varma was perhaps the most proactive and agressive of Travancore rulers. He had inherited a weak state surrounded by enemies, at a time when the Europeans had just promoted themselves from supplicants and spice traders, to power brokers and conquistadors.

Varma survived numerous assasination attempts before striking back to decimate his enemies, and to make strategic alliances that would make Kerala what it is today.

It was also during Varma's reign that the Padmanabha Swami Temple in Trivandrum became a major repository for state treasure. Recent discoveries put the value of this treasure at more than USD 1 Trillion!

Yet, when you look at the map it is difficult to understand why Varma made his capital city at Padmanabhapuram, a city far from his hilly hinterland in Kerala and one that was vulnerable to attacks from the land and sea.

Perhaps due to this vulnerable location European traders thought it was logical to start their conquest of Travancore from Colachel port. In 1741, Dutch East India Company forces led by Admiral Eustachius De Lannoy landed at Colachel port and marched north-east towards Padmanabhapuram Palace, hoping that a quick, dirty battle would force a surrender leading to a full control over the spice trade.

Vattakottai Fort, Kanyakumari Distt, TN

Unfortunately for De Lannoy, superior weapons and battle tactics were not of much help when the Travancore kind, Marthanda Verma called in reinforcements from his coastal domains. The Dutch army was not only defeated but the captured European soldiers were offered terms which turned out to be a lot more attractive than the incentives being offered by their employer which was also the richest MNC of the time.

De Lannoy became the Chief Strategist of the Travancore army and, over the next 20 years,  went on to oversee the construction and reinforcement of a number of forts Kerala. He was also instrumental in building a defense line that stopped the Mysorean army led by Tipu Sultan from conquering Travancore.

The original question, however, still remains unanswered: Why did the rulers of Travancore place thier capital city so far away from the hinterland?

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* USD 1 Trillion Treasure in Kerala Temple - http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2015/11/13/a-one-trillion-dollar-hidden-treasure-chamber-is-discovered-at-indias-sree-padmanabhaswam-temple/#4a82c6ab21eb
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devi_Kanya_Kumari

Life in the Paddies

Nostalgia drove me to the erstwhile paddy fields of Thrikodithanam in Kerala.

A few decades ago a river of fluroscent green rice saplings stretched as far as a child's eye could see. Neat fields separated by narrow strips of slushy mud, clear streams teeming with Manatthu-kanni (eyes-to-the-sky) fishes and the smell of overturned earth.

All that has disappeared now. As in much of Kerala, paddy fields have been abandoned, filled-in, turned into tiny parcels of land and sold as residential plots. A little patch that now remains of my grandfather's paddy fields is now home to hundreds of unfamiliar insects.

A ten minute walk along the edges of this wild patch revealed these new inhabitants. What are they called?