How to install ISRO's Bhuvan, The new tool to Map India and rival to Google Earth

This is the Home Page of ISRO Bhuvan:

http://bhuvan2.nrsc.gov.in/Bhuvan/WebClient/PresentationLayer/WebClient/index.aspx

[I thought it would be something like isro.gov/bhuvan or some small url]

1. Go to this URL to register: http://bhuvan2.nrsc.gov.in/Bhuvan/WebClient/PresentationLayer/WebClient/usr_reg.asp

2. Download the exe plugin from here:

http://bhuvan2.nrsc.gov.in/Bhuvan/WebClient/PresentationLayer/WebClient/BhuvanSetup.exe

This software tool has been make by

Skyline Software Systems, Inc.
4506 Daly Drive, Suite 100
Chantilly, VA 20151 USA

and of course this is an Indian company. I guess the picture has been provided by ISRO are from Indian satellites but the software piece is "foreign".

To start DO NOT launch the desktop icon which says: TerraExplorer, instead log in into the site with the username and password with what you registered. After the successful login you should see the tool working.

On the left hand side there are many places/option to set, You can set District to see the District boundaries. I tried to search Jawahar Nagar, Jaipur. But it returned with an error, shown at the end of this article.

I did not liked:

1. Not an fully Indian, tool (TeraExplorer) made by Skyline, USA.

2. Slow and a very poor GUI. The Indian website is also not good.. If you look as the registration page the GUI look as if some just know to create a simple HTML page has made it. ALL the fields are compulsory and asking Organization, Designation , Address and Purpose of Browsing BHUVAN. I do not understand the purpose of these fields. What should one enter in "Purpose of Browsing BHUVAN": Fun/ exploring.

Anyways, I just entered asdasdas, and this is we all do when stupid question are asked.

3. The website is damn slow, in the beginning you will realise that the maps are blur. But wait for 2-3 minutes and it will make terrain clear.

4. There are many bugs, I just ran into an error after working for 10-15 minutes.

5. Some watermark:

Conclusion:

A very good and bold step by ISRO. But the tool is half cooked. I guess the company did not employed any GUI engineer. Also some of the text is hardly viewable.

TED talks about his invention which is a very simple bottle for safe drinking water.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/08/lifesaver-water-purifier-makes-ted-audience-say-eeeeew.php

Blocking kontera.com -The double line advertisement

I read all my Indian news on Times Of India

I am not against displaying ads on the website, because I know most of the revenue comes from it. But I am against forcing people visit the website to see the ads.

Some of the examples are flash ads, heavily blinking ad saying that you are 99,999,999 visitor of the website.

Today I decided to block the kontera.com ads. These are shown in an India Times article with double line under a keyword and it points to something totally unrelated and annoying.

Actually, what I used is already know and proven. It just need some patience and some work.

I am referring to the HOSTS file. I am not giving the significance of this file as this as been described

at many places. You can see the wonderful small file capablities here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_file#Internet_resources_blocking.

I added the following entry to my HOSTS file and it worked.

0.0.0.0 kona.kontera.com

kona.kontera.com: This url brings the JS file that is responsible of the advertisement.

However, I am not sure why this do not works if I use

http://kona.kontera.com or http://kona.kontera.com/.

Notice I am just appending http:// or "/" in the end.

Also, I did experimentation with *.kontera.com, that too did not worked.

But 0.0.0.0 kona.kontera.com worked and now I have no more ads of kontera.com (until the time they don't change the JS location :D )

Roads made out of Plastic. 6 out of 5 stars. and its proved

http://www.hindu.com/2006/08/16/stories/2006081620460400.htm

http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/may/02karna.htm

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/239-plastic-roads

New Vision: turning around the desert state of India; Rajasthan and other places of world

Hello All

Let me start with something which is very well know these days and this is the problem of

1. Water
2. Electricity
3. Energy

and the solution is simple but required commitments from govt., people and from you and me of course.

1. Rain water harvesting
2. Solar panel
3. Bio Diesel (Jatropha, Algae)

Water:

The state of Rajasthan gets very less rainfall. and therefore there is an acute shortage of water almost all time of the year.

I was reading and watching a news piece on NDTV where they were telling about a community in Mumbai where the wise people was done water harvesting and thus saving some water for their hay days.

Rain water harvesting is such a easy techniques where 4 major things are required.

1. A Roof top to collect water: We already have this, so need to make an investment here. We might need some cleaning.
2. Pipes: to divert the rain water from the roof tops. Generally this is also in place. We will have to do some alterations so that now the pipe channels the water to the tank and not to the streets.
3. Tank/Container: The bigger the better. Tank can be underground, or we have built a concrete tank on the surface. I am not comfortable having a plastic tank because of the obvious reasons.
4. Filters: There will be placed before the water enters into the tank. We can have a simple net mesh, with pebbles, sand and other things available in the market. It depends, if the water so collect is to be used for drinking then more care can be taken. A home remedy is the alum (and http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080716192228AArQ6Dn) stone, This was used by our grand parents for cleaning the water.


Electricity:

http://labl.teriin.org/index.php

Energy:
1. Bio-Diesel

India Election 2009 - What are the predictions ...

The voting is over and the time for the guess work has began. Diff ppl have their own opinion.

I am compiling some of the source, so that we can see who's guess work was the best.

Times of India (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4526849.cms)

UPA : 198 (Congress: 154 + Others: 44)
NDA: 183 (BJP: 142 + Others: 41)
Left: 38
BSP: 27
SP: 23

IBN Live (http://ibnlive.in.com/news/in-dead-heat-upa-and-nda-keep-contest-alive/92554-37.html)
Cong+: 185 to 205 seats
BJP+: 165 to 185 seats
Third Front: 110 to 130 seats
Fourth Front: 25 to 35 seats
Others: 20 to 30 seats

NDTV (http://www.ndtv.com/news/india/upa_leads_the_race_nda_plays_catch-up.php)
Cong+: 216
BJP+:177
Third Front: 100
Left: 35

Creating drinkable water using Saline/Ocean/Sea water

India is a country with less drinkable water and the lazy, uncommitted govt, municipal and govt official makes it worse.

Lately, i was reading an article on timesofindia.com, which says No right to be in office if you can't solve water crisis: SC to govt.

And I think its right. If a govt cant fulfill the basic rights of a citizen it has no business to be in power.

Anyhow, I can write pages and pages on this. My objective to write this article is; How easily we can convert the abundant saline water to drinkable water. Many Indian states have unlimited access to ocean water from Gujrat in the west till West Bengal in the east. I live in Rajasthan and I guess we can pump the water from ocean via Gujrat. Narendra Modi will be more than happy to allow that.

So there are many ways of converting saline water to portable or drinking water. Here are some:

1. Distilation: If we remember the simple experiment that we did in our 9-10 th science lab. Boiling salt water with emit vapors and that these vapors are converted into water. This water is 100% drinkable. The steam leaves behind the impurities and salt. This is the general idea.

a. We can pump water directly from ocean/sea. using simple filter we can filter out the dirt, impurities, solid waste like plastic, paper etc. The filter can be of simple plastic or a charcoal-sand filter. We can have multi point filter so that the water does not clogs. Also we need to clean these filter often.


b. The water so pumped is feed into the boilers. The water boils in these large vessels and the vapors can be collect to get the drinkable water. As far as I know, we need not add anything to it like iodine etc.


Of course we need to have multiple arrays of large vessels in order to have continuous water supply.


isn't that simple ?

2. Reverse Osmosis: This method is a little complex one. A special kind of membrane know as emipermeable membranes is used. This a special type of filter that allow water molecules to pass but not other large molecules likes the molecules and ions (e.g. sodium and chloride ions in salt water).This company Water Makers is specialist in making drinkable water using ocean water by Reverse Osmosis method. Water Makers is a US based company, but I am sure we have many Indian companies doing the same thing.



Now we have another challenge: How to get the power or electricity for doing all this.


Hopefully and believe me this can be done using renewable energy. Yes there are many choices to choice from.



1.Wave powered machines: We can harness the waves and can create turbines generating electricity.

2. Since these project are most likes to be present near the coastal region, the wind power is abundant. You guessed right; we can have wind mills that produce electricity.

3. Solar power: Again a IQ. Since these project will be generally used in the dry areas, there should be abundant sunshine. This is good for solar panels.

We can employ one or a combination of these techniques.

In this way we will not ONLY get drinkable water but the Green way. So let me call this one Green Water.


A step forward: We can even use waste water from kitchen, urine water etc. I know this will not sound OK for many people. But just in case .....

Let me finish this with a simple note.


I like many Indian are very passionate about India. I really want to bring IT and technology to the common man living in a remote village of India. There is no use of modernization if we can't improve the living condition of the poor and real India.

I want to do it. If you are reading this and want to make a difference, do let me know.



References:

1. http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2001-02/983131856.Ot.r.html

2. http://www.watermakers.com

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_osmosis