VOLKSWAGEN “BIO BUG”

New Beetle runs on poo power!

Would you drive a car powered by human waste?

On first hearing of the Bio Bug, some people will smile, and some will go ‘Yuck!’ Either way, what I hope they realize is that this is exactly the kind of innovation we now need for a more sustainable world – and those directly involved should be proud that they are making a small but significant contribution to it every day.

A Volkswagen Beetle that runs on methane produced from human waste in sewage sludge has been unveiled in Bristol. This new version of VW Beetle model will be a hybrid version. The green hybrid from the German auto maker will be launched sometime in the next year which will be a more practical model in the market.

This funny looking VW Beetle is the most advanced poo-powered vehicle to date! And it’s the most efficient as well. Waste flushed down the toilets of just 70 homes in Bristol is enough to power the Bio-Bug for a year, based on an annual mileage of 10,000 miles. The car is a viable alternative to electric vehicles.

The Bio-Bug is a conventional 2 litres VW Beetle convertible, which has been modified to run on both conventional fuel and compressed methane gas. The car is started using unleaded petrol but automatically switches to methane when the engine is ‘up to the temperature’. If the methane tank runs out, the Bio-Bug reverts back to petrol. If both the tanks were filled up with methane, the car would travel for 250 miles. The biogas is enough to power a conventional two litre VW Beetle convertible to 250 mph without affecting the vehicle performance. And the drivers won’t even know the difference.

Recent reports from the auto makers reveal that Volkswagen is planning to unveil their latest Beetle with a completely redesigned exterior at the upcoming 2011 Detroit Auto show. The specifications are not yet known but it is speculated that it could be similar to their New Compact Coupe (NCC) that the German auto manufacturers showed off last year. For the record, the New Compact Coupe or the NCC features a 1.4 litre TSI in-line four cylinder engine and a 20 kilowatt electric motor. The car is powered by lithium–ion battery pack which generates 177 hp and 100 pounds of torque with the fitted motor. The new VW Beetle will be able to meet the above said specifications and may even go beyond. It can have some more power given the tough competition it might get from Toyota and Hyundai’s hybrid cars in the same size segment.

Countries including India and China use compressed natural gas to power vehicles and a number of companies in the UK are now using CNG mainly to fuel buses and commercial vehicles. In Sweden, more than 11,500 vehicles already run on bio methane produced from sewage; it first must be treated with anaerobic digestion, a process in which microorganisms – in the absence of oxygen – break down biodegradable material to produce methane. In an extra step to purify the methane, the GEM eco engineers used specialist equipment to strip carbon dioxide from the bio gas. The methane is stored in the two pressurized storage tanks in the boot of the Bio-Bug vehicle. The storage tanks are pressurized to about 200 bar and the vehicle is connected up, it basically equalizes pressure of the methane.

The vehicle still depends on petrol but only for a moment after starting the engine. Once the engine’s temp reaches 30 ° C, the petrol injectors shut down and the methane ones open up. While it is environmental friendly, it does not mean that the vehicle produces no emissions. It produces CO₂ out the tailpipe but it’s important to know where that CO₂is coming from .Of course, it’s not coming from yesterday’s CO₂ buried in the ground as oil , it is today’s CO₂ from waste . So it is environmental friendly.

If you were to drive the car you wouldn’t know it was powered by biogas as it performs just like any other conventional car. It is probably the most sustainable car around!!

Wouldn’t you want to go buy this one!

ARTICLE SUBMITTED BY:

KAVYA P.

3^RD YEAR, B.A (PJOE)

REVENGE

‘Man by nature is a social and political animal’, said Aristotle. Man cannot lead his life in isolation. He has to depend on the society for his development and other basic needs. When many people live together, quarrels do arise and fights do take place. Individuals differ from one another as defined by Psychology- a study of Human Behaviour. Some individuals take the quarrels and fights so seriously that they think that a quarrel has lowered their pride and decide to take revenge.

    “Revenge, at first though sweet, Bitter ere long back on itself recoils”- So says Milton. Revenge is an act of passion and often makes matters worse. Sometimes revenge continues for decades. Revenge never bears a sweet fruit or gives satisfaction to anyone. Revenge always destroys everything and everyone, who involve in it. Francis Bacon well defined Revenge in his Essays of Revenge, saying that “Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more mans’ nature runs to, the more ought to law to weed it out.” Revenge exists to show ones power, to begin with. Revenge is an act of wildness but I wonder why human beings want to take revenge!

    The only solutions are forgiveness or even better to forget. If you forgive your enemy’s doing instead of avenging it, he will be ashamed of what he has done and you will have a spiritual victory over him! Forgiveness is the noblest revenge. We should not forget that we pray to god to forgive us from our sins, which is even more a reason to forgive others’ mistakes.

              ARTICLE SUBMITTED BY :  MANOJ  I.  JAIN

                                                                1^st B. A. (PJOE)

PROSTITUTION

Society is an institution in which mankind lives peacefully. It has its own responsibility and ethics. It mends the members’ behaviour so that all can live calmly with each other. The principles of the society when, heard sounds amazing. Society seems to take care of all its members.

    But, society is not an exception to having any loop holes. Due to certain social evils, some more evils were born which show its effect till today. The main evil born through the ignorance and evil of the society is “Prostitution”. When we talk about prostitution, we just pass our comments about the lady involved in it. We are not bothered to know the problem, difficulties, reasons which force her into it. We do not try or want to know the other face of the coin. We just blame the woman who is involved in it. Do we ever try to know what made her to do so? Why didn’t she hesitate to take up such a profession? When the women want to do something in their lives to achieve their aims and goals, they will not be supported and encouraged. When a woman or a girl who tries to present a new dimension to the people and present tough competition to the men-who dominate the society, she is suppressed. The society tries to put her down in all the possible ways and does not allow her to develop her personality because it thinks a woman is meant only to do home chores. If women go forward and raise a call for help, the society tires to take advantage of her helplessness.

Men have lost their moral ethics that they hungrily run behind the flesh of women. Men want only to satisfy and enjoy themselves; society undoubtedly doesn’t raise an eyelid. Some people for the sake of enjoyment go to the extent of rape that morally breaks down the woman. This leads to suicides or forces the victims to turn to prostitution. I wonder why no one is bothered! When AIDS was first discovered in India in Chennai and the victim was found to be a woman, people mercilessly killed her. Why had people forgotten that the reason of being a victim of AIDS was a man who did this for his own satisfaction! A person, who does this, cheats the woman who he has married and to whom he had promised that he would abide by her. No one enters prostitution by choice but by the force of one’s circumstances. Why can’t we have different ways to justify the decision of such women? Are prostitutes not humans? We must think for the betterment of prostitutes and ways to stop it. Think now!

    ARTICLE SUBMITTED BY:    MANOJ  I. JAIN

                                                        1^st B, A.  (PJOE)

MAKAR SANKRANTI AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE THROUGHOUT INDIA

Agriculture is the mainstay of the country’s economy and ‘ Sankranti’- a harvest festival is a harbinger of hope to millions of farmers across the length and breadth of the country.

‘Makara Sankranti’ is broadly celebrated as a harvest festival but has different angles to celebration and even different names in different states. ‘Makara’ means the zodiac sign of Capricorn. ‘Sankramana’ means ‘to commence movement’ and hence the name ‘Makara Sankranti’ given to one of the largest, most auspicious and varied festival in the Indian bub-continent.

Because of the unique geography and size of India, this festival is celebrated for innumerable reasons depending on the climatic, agricultural, environmental and cultural background and position in the context of north or south of India. Thus, the words refer to the movement of the sun northwards from ‘Dhanur’ or Sagittarius sign to the ‘Makar’ or Capricorn sign in its celestial path. This is significant because it marks the gradual end of winter and the beginning of longer and warmer days.

Also known as ‘Uttarayana Punyakala’ , Sankranti is a festival that is celebrated over three days. The sun is the source of all life on Earth- physical, mental and spiritual. Hence, the sun is also considered as the ‘God of light’. People worship the Sun god on the day of this festival. The sun enters the 12 zodiac signs in different months called as ‘Masa Sankranti’. Out of the 12 Masa Sankrantis, two are considered auspicious days. This represents the movement of the sun to 2 different ‘Ayanas’- ‘Uttarayana’ and ‘Dakshinayana’.

·        3 days of festivities

This festival is celebrated for a period of three days in some parts of the country. This festival is also associated with agriculture, since it occurs during the period of harvesting.

The 1^st day is known as ‘Bhogi’. This falls on the ‘Pushya Masa Shukla paksha navami’ according to the Hindu calendar. This is the day previous to the festival. On this day, people cook delicious food and sweets at home and the whole family get together to relish them.

The 2^nd day is ‘Makara Sankranti’ which falls on the ‘Pushya masa shukla dasami’. On this day, people wake up early in the morning, bathe with Sesame oil. Also called ‘the festival of sesame and jaggery’- a mixture of white sesame, groundnuts, fried gram and pieces of dry coconut is kept along with sugarcane, banana and sugar blocks as ‘naivedhyam’ or ‘offering to the Lord’ and then distributed among the family members. On this day, people prepare a sweet dish called as Pongal in Tamil Nadu which is rice cooked with jaggery along with dry fruits and ghee. They also bake the new harvest of raw groundnuts and sweet potato. In the evening, especially girls wear new clothes and distribute the sesame mixture to neighbours, friends and relatives.

The 3^rd day is known as ‘Mattu Pongal’, it falls on the ‘Pushya masa shukla paksha ekadashi’. On this day, the farmers wash their cattle and decorate them with coloured papers, colours and ribbons are tied to their horns and one feels a sense of gratitude towards them; once again a reminder of the agrarian background of this festival.

·        THE DIFFERENT HUES OF SANKRANTI

The harvest festival is known by various names and is celebrated across the country in unique ways.

In TAMIL NADU, the festival is celebrated as ‘Pongal’ and is a 4 day long festival. On the eve of the festival, rice is boiled with milk and other condiments in a new earthen pot and allowed to flow over the vessel’s brim. This symbolises a year that will be flourishing and prosperous.

Celebrated as Sankranti in KARNATAKA, it is also known as ‘yellu-bella habba’in local parlance. ‘yellu’ means ‘seasame seeds’ and ‘bella’ is jaggery. A mixture of sesame seeds, jaggery, coconut and groundnuts are distributed to relatives and friends to spread goodwill. This signifies the spirit of accepting and goodness of life in its full glory and wishing goodness for all.

In ANDHRA PRADESH,          it is celebrated as ‘Bhogi’ on the first day of the 4 day festival. People here invite Goddess Lakshmi-The goddess who bestows wealth, by drawing colourful ‘rangolis’. The 2^nd day is Sankranti, the big festival, when everyone wears new clothes and offers their prayers to their deity. The 3^rd day is called ‘Kanuma Panduga’. Flying kites is another important part of this widely celebrated festival in the Gujrat, Maharashtra, Punjab and Assam states of India.

ARTICLE SUBMITTED BY: MEGHANA SHASHIDHAR

6^TH SEMESTER, B.A. (PJOE)

IN THE GRIP OF TIME

Even before the sound of the blaring loudspeakers belting out hit numbers from recent ‘block-buster’ movies at the New Year’s Eve party fade away from his memory,  Mehul already had something else on his mind; ‘How to wake up early the next day?’- was both a question as well as his ‘new year resolution’! With Mehul still asleep and cosy on his bed at 10:30am on the 1^st of January, the question ‘Do New year resolutions work?’ wakes up to us.

One wonders what is so special about a ‘New year resolution’ that sets it apart from other commitments. While it seems to be working for a few, it has most often than not failed to keep company with the enthusiastic resolution-maker for the length of the year. It is therefore no wonder that we have the adage that ‘resolutions are meant to be broken! ‘But, what about the great resolve with which most of us take up resolutions and vow to stick on with for the rest of the year? It is an enigma for many as to how and why their resolve wanes.

It is important to probe into the nature of ‘resolutions’ before we could ask ourselves if they really work. Most of the resolutions that people take up are firm on an idea but weak on their time of implementation. When the deadline is not fixed in time, then it becomes very easy for one’s own mind to wriggle out of this new stranglehold. For instance, ‘I will not smoke’ or even ‘I will quit smoking’ sounds resolute enough to last long but simply comes apart. The trick lies in making a ‘time-bound’ commitment. A resolution works best when it is tied to a duration of small measurable units of time like a week, a fortnight or a month. Saying, ‘I will not smoke for the next one week’ has proven to work wonders as there is a sense of achievement at the end of the week.

This system of reward and reiteration also increases ones confidence in oneself as well as sets the ball rolling for the new commitment to bear fruits. Just as a pitcher can be filled by a steady flow of minute drops, resolutions can also be strengthened by small time-bound commitments, renewed regularly. Just like one doesn’t require to light up the entire road from the beginning to the end for a night-journey but is suffices by the headlights of a car lighting up to a few metres ahead, one can go a long way just by defining short time-bound commitments.

The back-bone of any resolution is the need or urge to bring about a change and to free oneself from binding and energy-draining habits. Stronger the need for this change, stronger is one’s commitment and faster one’s independence from the vices. One may stumble once in a while or even many times on this path, one simply has to renew one’s commitment to one’s cause immediately.

With this much in mind, whatever one’s resolution may be, whenever one might decide to begin, one can very soon be independent of one’s habits and emerge out glowing and basking in the newly gained confidence. I know resolutions work, be it new or not!

Are you willing to resolve now?
ARTICLE SUBMITTED BY: PANKAJ A. DESAI
                                         4^TH SEMESTER, B.A.

FAILURE

It would be an honest effort from my side to inform you beforehand that this article is not for those who are fascinated with failure. This small piece is not for those so called ‘nonchalant’ personalities who are hardly bothered to respond when they experience failure. My views seem foreign and unheard of concepts for people who have the attitude of escapism towards failure. Here, as far as mankind is concerned, the two things which are accepted in large numbers are – love and passion. I would never hesitate to be a believer of love and passion.

The media, on a daily basis, provides the society with the largest exposure on failure. Bombarding one with various news stories which reflect failures of different personalities in as many as different fields, going down or not, having the last laugh has become a common phenomenon among the people. Here, going by the imposing presentation of stories from the media houses, one should not fall into the tarp of accepting failure as something to loath for.

Very recently, former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly expressed his disappointment for not being picked for the fourth venture of the ‘Indian Premiere League’. We know Ganguly for his stupendous success in his cricketing career. His name is also familiar for quite a bit of aggression and controversies in the cricketing world. Along with this, he is also known for his famous comeback to the national squad after he was dropped because of poor form. Here, the message from his story is quite straightforward. It is very fine to speak about one’s failures. By doing that, one realizes where one stands. But, this self-introspection must be backed up with hard work to reach the door of success. I won’t be surprised if we see Ganguly coming back to his playing days next year. This is just a small drop in the ocean.

Seeing the rapturous face of Rafael Nadal, holding the priceless Wimbledon crown, one may wonder how many critics could write him off as an average player on grass court. After facing huge criticism, the commendable effort of music maestro A. R. Rehman to win a global award under the category of best original song must be applauded. The youngest IITian of the country( below 15 years) made all the students group across the nation sit up and search for the real meaning behind failure in academics. When asked, the achievers gave immense value to passion and hard work for being the reason behind success.

“So what is the ‘in thing’”-one might ask. There is love. And there is passion. Find your interest and start showering all your love. It builds the much needed respect which will then make way for goal setting. Follow your goals with passion and hard work. Sincere hard work helps us to kill the ego within us. So where does failure fit? It is just a part of your work process, a part of your passion and hard work which must be taken into your stride to go in search of success.

This you will know: Every one of us will have a name who would have achieved something, after various efforts. Man, YOU are no less! Find that ‘super person’ in you! Start working towards your destination. In your race to success, respect the speed breakers but never let your finish line be blurred. ALL THE BEST BUDDIES!!!

ARTICLE SUBMITTED BY: VIVEK M. V.

                                                  2^nd B. A. (PJOE)

EDITORIAL NOTE - 3RD EDITION

We are happy to bring out the third edition of ‘THE CREATIVE CORNER’ for the year 2010-11. This is the 1^st issue for the New Year and comes after a long hiatus of 2 months.

We thank all the students who have contributed to this issue and request the same enthusiastic support and contribution in the ensuing issues.

Watch out for the forthcoming 4^th and 5^th edition dedicated exclusively for poetry and short-stories respectively. Put on your ‘thinking hat’ and get going with those originals!

- PANKAJ A. DESAI                                      - EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

- SRIRAM SHARMA                                      - SUB-EDITOR

- MEGHANA SHASHIDHAR                        - EDITOR

Your contributions are welcome at: ilovecreativecorner@gmail.com

3RD EDITION POSTER

ENLARGE IMAGE

ROOTS-AN ODE

In the misty hills, I had my childhood days,

Observ’d the ever growing change in a thousand ways;

Seen the dawn and the dusk,

Amidst the evergreen pines and the musk;

The falls and the hills do rhythm aloud,

Hidden amidst the enchanting clouds;

With the serene lakes and the silent caves.

The Orchid city does strike a chord-

Every faithful man to his mistress,

Thus, echoes ‘its’ charm in just one accord.

No doubt! Divine mercy crafted thy beauty,

Making every creation reflect its own bounty;

Such tailored composure entwines an odd mystery,

With folklore and vivi culture ceasing souls’ poverty;

Far away from the maddening clang,

Thou do share its own strives and pangs;

As well as filth and deceit might taint thee,

But, thy blessing of grandeur and amity,

Cleanses thy spirit of every grime-

Thus, thy existence chastened and manifestations benign.

Ethereal is thy aura with stirring devotion,

Gifted with the richness and fruits of compassion;

All Lords’ seasons grace my abode,

To my roots-this is an ode.

POEM BY:     PRANJAL KR. BHATTACHARYA

                        B.Com (2^ND SEMESTER)

                        M.S. RAMAIAH DEGREE COLLEGE