Visuals of Ootty, South India

photo: m k harikumar

PHOTOS FROM OOTTY

THE NATURE'S MIND IS SRTUCTURED IN THIS WAY?

SEE THE BEAUTY OF OOTTY.

ONE OF THE BEAUTIFUL PLACES OF SOUTH INDIA.

PHOTO : MK

ചീവീടുകള്‍

ചീവീട്ടുകള്‍ രാത്രിയില്‍

കൂട്ടത്തോടെ വായിക്കുന്ന പുസ്തകങ്ങള്‍

ഇപ്പോള്‍ സ്റ്റോക്കില്ല.പാരായണം

അവര്‍ക്ക് വലിയ ഒരു ഓര്‍മ്മപ്പെടുത്തലാകണം.

മൃണ്മയമായ എല്ലാ സൗഹൃദങ്ങള്‍ക്കും,
രാത്രി അത്താഴം കഴിക്കുന്നതിന്‍്‌ മുമ്പു

ഒരു പങ്ക് അവ മാറ്റിവയ്ക്കും.

ആ കാലത്തിനുള്ള ഒരു തിലോദകം.

ഇനി ആരൊക്കെ വരും, പാടും.?

നിശ്ചയമില്ല.ഇന്നലെയും

കാടുകള്‍ വെട്ടി നശിപ്പിച്ചു.

മനുഷ്യനിലെ കവിതകളൊക്കെ

നിര്‍ജീവമാണിപ്പോള്‍.

കവിതകളൊക്കെ പഴകിപ്പോയി.

വാക്കുകളെന്നേ ദ്രവിച്ചു.

എന്തു പരഞ്ഞാലുമതു പഴയതായിപ്പോകും.

ചീവീടുകള്‍ പക്ഷേ പ്രാര്‍ത്ഥന മുടക്കുന്നില്ല.

news past

A versatile search tool

j murali

http://www.hindu.com/
A9

A FEATURE packed search portal developed using different search services such as Google, IMDB and Amazon is featured in this week's column.

There are many general search engines like Google to spot resources on the web. There are besides services that host specialised databases and provide the necessary tools for accessing them with ease. The Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com/) is an example of a popular specialised search service.

To make use of such services, you need to access each of them separately. That is, you need a search tool that automatically looks into various search services and lists out the results on a single web interface. The search service, A9 (http://a9.com), recently floated by the famous on-line book dealer Amazon, is an innovative endeavour in this direction. Rather than building a new search service from scratch, it tries to assemble a product that leverages on the services already in place. In this regard, it is almost like the search comparison tool jux2 (http://jux2.com/) (discussed in this column a couple of weeks ago), which also builds its service using search results from other search engines. Creating new services using output from popular search services seems to be an emerging trend on the Net.

A9.com

Once you invoke a search on A9, it passes the query on to such services as Google, Amazon, Internet Movie Database and the reference tool GuruNet (http://a9.com/-/company/whatsCool.jsp). A9 collects the output from these services and places them on a single web page with a "customized multi-column interface.'' The service provides the required tools for viewing the results in multiple ways. For example, if you want to see only the results from Google, you can expand the column that holds the Google's search output (click on the `Full' option). Another feature of A9 is that it provides a `Site Info' button along with each output entry. If you move the mouse over this button, you will find a window that pops up with a brief explanation about the listed site.

A notable highlight of this service is its ability to remember the searches made by you in the past. All the searches invoked by you are "stored and organised by time.'' That is, A9's `search history' feature allows you to view the old searches made by you from anywhere on the Net any time. To get this personalised experience, you need to register with the system.
Of course, this `personalisation' feature enables the service to track the web pages you visit and in this context the service may draw some criticism from privacy conscious people.
A9 provides a tool bar that lets you invoke many of its features directly from your browser. It also features a diary tool that can be used to keep notes/annotation about sites. Unfortunately the toolbar feature is available only to IE users

IceRocket

IceRocket (http://icerocket.com/) is another search tool that culls information from popular search engines that include Wisenut, Yahoo, MSN and Alltheweb. A notable aspect of the tool is that it displays thumbnail photos of the `results' homepages. This enables you to get a glimpse of a site's home page without having to visit it. There is also the `Quick View' feature that lets you view the top 40 per cent of a page without leaving the results page.
Creative Commons
Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/) that helps authors publish their works in the "public domain or license them to the public on generous terms'' is one of the revolutionary movements fostered by the Net.

Products published under Creative Commons licence generally come with less restrictive copyright terms. On the Net, hundreds of such products/services are already in place and several of them are being rolled out. To help you easily locate products under Creative Commons, the service has floated a search tool called Creative Commons Search. The service, powered by the open source search engine, Nutch (http://www.nutch.org/docs/en/about. html), can be accessed at: http://search.creativecommons. org/index.jsp.

Firefox saga continues

Regular readers of this column need no introduction to the brilliance of the free open source browser, Firefox (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/), which is being fast adopted by netizens worldwide. The latest version of this browser (Firefox 1.0 Preview Release) has some notable features. The `RSS integration' or `Live Bookmark' feature that automatically displays an `RSS' icon whenever you visit a site with RSS feed is going to be much appreciated by regular readers of news feeds. It helps you subscribe to news feeds and read them directly from the browser. Another feature worth a remark is the enhanced `Find' tool that finds as you type. When you type in a string in the Find toolbar (press `Ctrl- F' to invoke the `Find' toolbar), the first result gets automatically highlighted in green.

Deepnet Explorer

If you are an IE user, take a look at the IE based browser, Deepnet Explorer, that has many useful features that IE lacks. One such feature is the tabbed browsing capability that lets you open multiple pages in separate tabs inside a single window. Tabbed browsing means no need to open new windows that clutter your display and consume more resources. Apart from being a feature packed IE compatible browser, Deepnet can be used as a news feed aggregator and as a P2P client for downloading/sharing files on P2P networks.
For more details: http://www. deepnetexplorer. com/.

SE on-line

If you are a software engineering student or practitioner, check out the software engineering on-line site hosted at: http://billing.computer.org/ portal/site/seportal/.
J. Murali
Email the author at: murali27@satyam.net.in
Printer friendly page Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

sky

Household Leaves

PHOTO: MK

sky mood

photo: mk

The Leaves

sky sketches.

photo :mk

Hands

They walked on
as if reciting some cosmic
postscripts in anguish

Paramu waved his hands
from behind attempting
to catch some thing from the air in vain
Then the hands retreated
and went behind once again

Vasu’s hands were moving
in cautious slow motion
akin to that of a fat reptile
but he was not sure how to keep
his hands down

Because it was his hands
that had always helped him to
erase his agonies
It was those hands
which steadied him in troubles

Whenever he faltered
he managed to maintain his course
by waving his hands aimlessly into ages

When Ravi waved backward
with spread fingers it was like rowing
The movement of his hands appeared as if
he was cuddling his appetite for mating with death

Alternatively entwining
the hands in the front and back
he stood at times probing
his immeasurable self

Krishnan waved both his right
and left hands back and forth
giving them vain
hopes of reconciliation


Though they swayed
like trapeze artists they had to retreat
as they filed to get the grip

All the four-Paramu, Vasu, Ravi and Krishnan-
were walking at the same speed
Their hands strolled into separate worlds

For Paramu, his hands supplied
the gadgets to cleanse
the blemish of his sins
It was those hands that
always lighted his pathway

Vasu’s hands were in a frenzied
quiver shivering like an epileptic

For Ravi , his hands
were an stranger woman
always numb as if they knew nothing

Like contented accomplices
returning after a successful robbery
Krishnan’s hands were looking again
for weapons in the void

They turned into a deserted
isle craving for freedom
and free will to kill

All the three were walking
absolutely insensitive
to the movement of their hands
even as the hands were waiting for
the earliest chance
to encircle them unawares

poem by m k harikumar

sky as remaining

photo: mk

Scourge of terrorism
V.R. LAKSHMINARAYANAN
www.hindu.com

RED SUN — Travels in Naxalite Country: Sudeep Chakravarti; Penguin-Viking, 11, Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110017. Rs. 495.
Reading Sudeep Chakravarti’s Red Sun, a travelogue-cum-political narrative of his travels through India’s ever lengthening Red corridor, is intimidating. The picture of young Indian intellectuals, a collection of educated, unemployed and unemployable youth coming out of schools in JNU fashion is demolished by the stories that Sudeep unveils. One better watch, he warns of the imminent peril that a large chunk of India may explode any moment, for the stories are real.

Perpetual losing war

When we gloat over the expanding list of native billionaires, and a shining India, Sudeep pours freezing water with the travails of a perpetual losing war. As we turn the pages, one is frightened by the tragic image of a growing India that is being perilously and needlessly, but increasingly, taken over by a revived combination of naxals, fanatics, parochial chauvinists and insane insurgents of many sorts.

After 9/11, we thought the rest of the world will be afflicted with the destructive terrorism of the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and our native brands may cause us some “concern” but not enough to cause us any insomnia. I don’t think any minister has publicly admitted to losing his sleep over what is happening in Chattisgarh or the liberated districts of Orissa or the expanding troubled parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka or the explosions in Mumbai and Coimbatore. The fluid flow of violence all clubbed under the label “Maoists and Naxals” is now turning into a flood that it is time the country does not wish it away as just a “law and order” problem.

Chakravarti reminds us that from Pasupathy to Tirupati there are home-grown movements that do get help from Nepal to Sri Lanka and elsewhere. Years ago, when there was a police firing in Naxalbari, one of the warriors of the People’s War had observed, “from now on, the map of India will not be as it was yesterday.” Only a few days ago parts of Orissa were under siege. The basic point that Sudeep drives at is that we are not taking a comprehensive view of the insurgencies assailing us. Suicides of farmers are first denied, then grudgingly admitted as an irritant, and swiftly swept under the carpet. That they are connected with the overall growing unrest in the country is never thought of. We should admit that in India the grammar of terrorism and violence of various shades defy precise definition.

We have a bewildering collection including the Al-Qaeda and Taliban outrages, perfect mindless destruction, ideological class killings, peasant unrest and immolations, suicide deaths, tribal revolts, caste conflicts, a multitude of causes, genuine and imagined, igniting one part or other of the body politic. The question is, are we to dismiss it as causing “some concern” necessitating strengthening of the law and order machinery, and getting the local people involved by what is called Salwa Judum or in other words, local militias and setting one set of thugs against another? It will finally end up turning an undercurrent of rising anger, constantly bruising the nation’s body, and jolting our democratic institutions into a major destructive killer.

History tells us that no nation has lost its freedom by external invasions more than by the collapse of internal security, political, social and economic. It is here that the spirit of Nandigram spreading from West Bengal to Orissa to Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh with echoes even in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, let alone Maharashtra and others is part of a national “hara kiri”.
K.P.S. Gill was a hero in the Punjab but his method was good for the Punjab and to the Punjab only, and the Punjab of that period. He has not succeeded in Chattisgarh and he himself according to the author, is not sure whether his diagnosis and therapy will hold good today. The fact is, the ageing barrier has made him lay down his arms and he may soon put away the hockey stick.
The author laments the lack of strong and proper democratic governance, free of corruption. The “Red Sun” is being fed by widespread corruption, a diagnosis with which most of us will agree. Sudeep Chakravarti has now had a good look at the patient. It is for him to suggest in the succeeding volume the therapy that has been eluding us. A book that every MP, MLA and minister should read before entering office. Needless to say, sociologists and senior bureaucrats should treat it as compulsory study material.
Printer friendly page Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

sky as a remaing