Pujo, Mishti ar Bangla

Kali pujo(diwali ) marks the end of festivals in Bengal but as we bongs say “the feast must go on”. Bengal is known for it's knack for food and hospitality- two essential part of festivity. There's a whole variety of delicacies prepared during this time- both veg and non-veg. But its the sweets which are arguably the soul of the festive season. Bengal has its share of passions- Football, Politics, Poetry, Music, Fish, adda. But “Bengali” sweets surpasses the pleasure of all those taken together. Every state has it's variety of sweets but arguably bengal boasts the largest and most incredible variety of sweets. Every city in bengal has its famous sweet shops, every neighborhood has a moira that locals are proud of. Occasion or no occasion bongs eat sweets- many eat it daily as part of breakfast and certainly a sondesh or two after dinner (kinda happens in my home). I don't think any study has been done but am pretty sure that the annual consumption of sweets in bengal are way too high compared to rest of the states.

Bijoya just went by and I really like it in here. I actually like the concept- I mean besides the good wins the bad funda – people go visiting friends and relatives, do a bit of hugging, the mandatory touching of feets and then we get down to business. Plates of sweets and savouries are laid out on the dinner table- then visit someone else and eat “little” more. I have often wondered why we bongs are so fond of sweets. I suppose it has something to do with the arrival of portuguese in bengal in the 17^th century. It was some Portuguese colonist who introduced bengal to cottage cheese and then the moiras took over.

The most famous sweet maker of all time was Nobin Chandra Das. In the 1868 he famously created rossogolla, as we bongs fondly call it. Some 50 years after that his son K C Das created rossomalai or rasmalai. But while chhana may be the mainstay of bengali sweets , there are lot many sweets prepared from flour, rice powder(aatop chal), pressed rice, puffed rice, coconut, semolina, lentils and so on. Poush Parbon for instance is a festival dedicated to pithey , which are prepared with rice and its derivatives, flour, coconut, thickened milk and jaggery. Then of course there is the wonderful called notun gur – or date molasses. This is used to produce some of the best sweets I have ever had- sondesh, rossogolla and payesh and lets not forget the mishti doi, the much loved creamy and thickened sweet yoghurt that no celebration is complete without. As far as sweets are concerned innovation truly is rubbing shoulders with tradition. I love to eat jholbhora at Oh Calcutta – it has a hollow middle that's filled with molasses or rose essence. Most of the bengali sweets are prepared with cow's milk which is kinda easy on the stomach. In winters , eating a hot rossogolla out of kadhai is something close to nirvana.

The great thing about bengali sweets is that quite a few of the best known varieties are now available elsewhere in the country.

Angels And Demons: First Look

I enjoyed this sunday...Mostly because i watched the "much awaited " Ron Howard's Angels And Demons. Well first thing first , the movie didn't  justify with the original storyline. Many important scenes and incidents have been altered or removed. But the most imprtant thing is that this time the movie doesnot go head on head with catholic faiths and beliefs. Instead it's trilling stroy with huge entanglement of Papal History. Sacrilegious debunking of the New Testament is one thing which has been inherited from Dan Brown’s last novel. "Ah yes, Pope Pius IX's great castration," notes Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) as he's escorted through a gallery of officially mutilated statues. So begins the plot, which has this art-history boffin summoned by Vatican envoys in the midst of a grave succession crisis aka the Papal Conclave. The old pope is dead (murdered actually), and his four most likely replacements have been kidnapped and locked up somewhere underground. Meanwhile, a member of the Illuminati – feared age-old devotees of scientific truth – has gone to the considerable trouble of stealing a canister of explosive anti-matter from CERN in Geneva-Franco Border. Wherever it's been stashed, this will blow up at midnight, and take the Vatican with it. He is quickly embroiled in a race against time to find the four missing clerics before they are each branded with one of the elements – Earth, Air, Fire, Water – and subjected to a bespoke demise: the first corpse turns up stuffed with soil…the second one dies on St Peter’s Basil coz of puncture in the lungs…The third one is burned alive inside Bernini’s Chapel….But heroically Langdon  saves the fourth cardinal. Now i won’t disclose the Climax of the story – which is rather sudden and action filled.

But Talking about the historical facts and conclusions spread throughout the story – one thing is very clearly laid out – the involvement of renaissance artists in building the elegance of “Baroque” Vatican city,The center of Christendom and also conspiring against monopoly of Roman Catholic Church. I don’t remember any movie giving so detailed analysis of renaissance artists like Bernini, Michelangelo ,Galileo . While it’s important that most of these great minds used to work exclusively for the holy Church but they were also part of the secret organizations to promote their modern manifesto which challenges the atrocity,old beliefs and rules of the church. I think, controversies apart, the movie is kind of building awareness about that golden era of renaissance which started the propulsion of modern science and modern culture and society as whole.

River Retreat

Ganges river and Bay of Bengal are really important to my people.My home is at the southernmost point of Calcutta.This is the place where river meets the ocean.The terrain is mostly plain and moist hugged by lots of coconut and “supari” trees.It’s a beautiful place. Though Calcutta is a modern metropolis which is bustling with people my place , being the southern tip is relatively calm and restful. Today i would be sharing a wonderful travel destination which is around 1 hour drive from my home. The place is called Raichak and it’s where Ganga starts final leg of her grand journey. The river starts from the mountains of north india and spans the whole indian plain before meeting bay of bengal at the outskirts of calcutta.Ganga becomes so wide in raichak that big cargo ships and passenger ships use it as a transition route.If you start your journey from kolkata central try follwing the signboards for Ffort Radisson hotel, which meant taking a right turn at sarisa off the Diamond Harbour Road and then a left again onto the Raipur-Nurpur connector. The ffort radisson nestles behind a huge black gate to the left, some five minutes along.Just drive few more minutes and you will see the entrance for Gangakutir- Ambuja Realty’s Upmarket resort at raichak. The first thing you will notice as you enter the gate is a vista of the river over lily pond in full bloom. You look left and see a succession of tiled building connected to each other. As you will cross the centerway you will be able to see the infinity pool of constantly flowing water, which by a cunning trick of design appears to be seamlessly integrated with the river.You will find it hard to look away from this, but if you do you will be able to see the gracious buildings in wood and tiles with slopping roofs and wide varendas.The resort has been designed by some sri lankan designer and executed by both sri lankan and bengali workers.The tiny resort has been perfectly proportined- it has just 16 rooms in total and a suite. They used rural idioms and artifacts to decorate the rooms.That is really appreciable and it looks quite sophisticated. As i said the river is very wide at this point and this inlet chanel is the route for sea going ships. Small wooden boats try to catch fish throughout the day- somehow watching these activities throughout the day and evening, lying low in the pool with a drink is very relaxing. The small boats belong to fishermen who live in a nearby village. You can see small boats- both with sails and diesel powered engines with small lanterns on the bamboo sticks. If you wish you can hire one of these boats and can enjoy the river waves, although sometimes the river becomes violent during high tides.

Ganga Kutir positions itselfs as a place to rest and unwind and it lives up to that promise , beautifully.As it is the part of the same setup as that of radisson u can use it’s facilities like the radisson’s spa. If you have time and energy u can explore further and can visit bakkali,sunderbans,henry island and jambudwipa.

The food at ganga kutir is extremely good.The menu is short but well chosen and carefully prepared. There’s one problem though – the resto is open for fixed hours. So that means if you have spent too much time in pool and are late for lunch or dinner you will have to skip that altogether.However the resort staff is courteous enough to prepare and rustle up some light snacks for you.The rooms are quite spacious and as i mentioned tastefully done.Somehow i feel that they designed all the rooms to showcase the river- Big Bay windows(i plan to steal the idea for my own home), verandas with deck chairs overlooking the ganga from every room. Make sure you are sharing the room with someone you are pretty comfortable with , as the glassed-in bathrooms are  a little intimate(you can do lot of naughty things in there..trust me!).It’s more like a romatic gateway- take your loved one out and “bond” in a peaceful seclusion.- a rare commodity in our society of nosy people. Walk by the river at night or sit in the gazebo and count the stars and sip fine single malts.However don’t forget the insect repellent as the lap of nature in rural bengal usually includes a few creepy crawlies.Also wear covered shoes if you are walking by the river during night time.Ganga kutir’s best features are it’s ambience and setting, two things produced by intelligence and taste, and well worth the money.

French Navy in Abu Dhabi

They call it the peace camp but it's a full fledged military base in Abu Dhabi. On 26th may 2009 france officially opened it's first major military base in gulf. The base is a dedicated french navy dock to influence this oil rich part of the world. Ofcourse the occasion was important enough to attract french president Nicholas Sarkozy. Sarkozy says the Abu Dhabi base will be used to counter sea-piracy and security patrolling. But the important thing is that france already has a big base in Djibouti. Approx 500 navy personals will be based along with dedicated fleet of warships and aircrafts. Sarkozy also plans to build 2 nuclear reactors in UAE and to sell 60 Rafale Air Superiority Fighters.

US and UK already have their military bases in middle east. No doubt that france wants to play an important role in this part of the world.The region is close to current conflict zone of Afghanistan-Pakistan and probably iran .It;s also the region which includes the important sea trade routes. These routes account for 40% of the world oil supplies.

IAF Update: MidAir ReFuellers Compitition

Terminating an old stalemate with Russian defence industry, India today rejected IL-78 from IAF's midair refuller competition.IAF has decided that it will not field IL-78 tanker to keep it's fighters airborne for considerably longer timesThis marked the first major shift for indian defence forces.Till now Russia was the biggest weapons vendor to india but now things are changing and they are changing pretty fast.It all started with MiG accidents and india's pateince ran out with Admiral Goshkhov aircraft carrier and T-90 Main battle Tanks. Coming back to the original thread...after using IL-78 for last 6 years, IAF now selected Airbus 330 MRTT. Air force says that IL-78 could not meet the given parameters which are required for any "capable" 21st century air force. IL-78 and A-330 were both competing for the global tender for six mid-air refullers floated 3 years ago by ministry of defence.Air force has sent the recomendation to CCS for approval.

It would be logical to have a look at the A-330 refuller.Structurally it's similar to the normal Airbus-330, which is a popular passenger craft.Design and basic aerodyanamics is pretty much the same.Obviously the diffrences would be in avionics and internal load section.The airtanker is build by EADS- which leads a consortium which includes Thales,VT Aerospace and Rolls-Royce.The same consortium would be responsible for the manufacturing and servicing of the aircraft.It will also deal with the training of the pilots and aircrews. The aircraft has considerably high cruise speed..at around 920-50 km/hr. It can cover 4000km with single refuelling and can refuel six aircrafts. It can also carry 43tons of non-fuel cargo.It has a maximum fuel capacity of 111tons.The engines can either be GE or Rolls-Royce.

IMPORTANT UPDATE !

The commander of coalition troops in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Gen. David McKiernan, is being replaced by Army Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

Defense secretary robert gates says that it would be the start of fresh and new approaches to end the 8 year old conflict.Seems like US goverment is becoming really impatient about the chaos in Afghanistan.Damn! they must be remembering about CIA-ISI-Mujahedeen nexus during cold war. It is the same ground where they saw the beating of Soviet union.

Some background info about this new man is   essential. Gen Stanley is taking charge of the most dangerous place on our planet.And the situation cannot be bad than this.Taliban is re-grouping and Pakistan is on the brinks of becoming a failed “nuclear” state.Allies are leaving this war but the US is about to boost the man power.

 

Sure this is a tough situation.

But there are few suggestions to the new general.

1) “Activate” your CIA sub-station in Islamabad. Tell the station chief to break in the tribes…cut the sleeper cells which are operating deep inside pakistan- offer whatever you can—sex..money..alcohol…anything.

2) Start Pressing into NWFP region right from South Waziristan to Khyber region. this will divide the NWFP into two parts.Neutalise the southern NWFP(meanwhile itz very important to build a strong defence at the border of Khyber-Peshawar-Nowsehra).Include this region into FATA and reinforce it.Smash any resistance…General U will have to forget human right fundas.

3) Once the southern NWFP is neutralized start pressing into northen part. Buner will be the first stop and it would be tough.Buner is a region which will remind you of vietnam and korea.Once Buner is captured don’t rush into SWAT(that would be a show spoiler).

4) Instead start pressing towards the east into Shangla..Manshera…Naran. Meanwhile your troops can comb the whole Buner area.I would suggest kill everyone there.And in the east, Indian army will load it’s guns to kill the fleeing militants from Shangla and manshera.They will try to sneak into Kashmir..but we would be ready to slaughter them.U will have a completely secure eastern flank.Don’t forget to share the intel with Indian forces.You don’t have to bring india into any ally group.They will kill these bastards into indian territory only.You just have to push them into there.

5) Press Dir and Chitral region from North west. You can easily do that. Most of the part of Chitral are inhospitable.

6) After all these..Press your attack into SWAT from 3 fronts…Southern Flank…Western Flank And Eastern Flank.Demolish SWAT so that it can never rise again.It’s the terrorist factory.Kill everyone there.

USER TRIALS FOR AGNI-II MISSILE

INDIA is preparing for a user's trial of surface-to-surface Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM), Agni-II, from the missile test range off the Orissa coast this week. The indigenously developed missile will be fired from the launching complex-IV at the Wheeler's Island near Dhamra.Preparations are on in full swing. If everything goes as planned, the missile will be testfired between May 12 and May 14 at Chandipur-on-Sea. It also said the test may be deferred by four-five days if there are problems reported during the preparations. Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) scientists are excited because this user trial will pave the way for the maiden test of Agni-IV that is now under development.
The successful tests of Astra missile from the ITR have encouraged the scientists for user trial of Agni-II. They are doing everything to ensure it's a success story. This missile is part of the Integrated Guided Missile Development Program (IGMDP), while the other missiles include Prithvi, Trishul, Akash and Nag. Agni II has appropriate on-board thrusters fitted on the second stage of the missile. Both stages of Agni-II have a solid propulsion system which allows the missile to be mobile and flexible.It also reduces the operational hazard.The Agni-II missile, which is 20 metres long, has a diameter of one meter and weighs 16 tonne, can neutralize a target at over 2,000 km range. It can carry a payload of around 1,000 kg and its range can also be increased to 3,000 km depending upon the payload. The missile will be used by 555 Missile Group of the Indian Army. Agni-II can be fired from a rail-mobile launcher and is also available in road-mobile configuration. This lends flexibility and reduces vulnerability to first strike. It is in fact a ready-to-fire missile with a launch time of about 15 minutes. Agni-II, along with Agni-I and Agni-III form the triad of the country's minimum, credible, nuclear deterrence.

CVN-77 is War ready!!

Northrop Grumman Corporation delivered the newest and most advanced nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, USS George H. W. Bush (CVN 77) for US Navy, today. It is the 10th and final Nimitz-class aircraft carrier and was constructed by the company's Shipbuilding sector in Newport News, Va.I think they made history by delivering 10 Nimitz class aircraft carriers. Those of you who are familiar with Nimitz carrier will know what i am saying. for others lemme’ tell that Nimitz carriers,till date, are the largest warships with a displacement of over 100,000tons. for comparison purpose our own INS Viraat aircraft carrier has a displacement which is somewhere around 29000tons.Huge difference!  CVN 77 represents the culmination of years of hard work,experience of carrier deployment n usage in war zone,craftsmanship and dedication by thousands of shipbuilders, whose work will remain with the fleet for the next 50 years.USS George H.W. Bush is the 10th and final Nimitz-class aircraft carrier constructed by Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding's shipyard in Newport News, Va. At 1,092 feet in length, USS George H. W. Bush is nearly as long as the Empire State Building is tall. It weighs 97,000 tons, can carry more than 80 combat aircraft and its top speed exceeds 30 knots. Powered with two nuclear reactors, it will operate for more than 20 years without refueling.
New design features for the USS George H. W. Bush include new propellers, a new underwater hull-coating system, an updated aviation-fuel distribution system, and modernized aircraft launch and recovery equipment. Environmental upgrades have also been designed into the ship, including a new marine sewage system. It is the second carrier to have a modernized island and a new bulbous bow design that provides more buoyancy to the forw ard end of the ship and improves hull efficiency. The ship's keel was laid Sept. 6, 2003, it was christened Oct. 7, 2006 and was commissioned Jan. 10, 2009. The carrier carries up to 56 fixed-wing aircraft including the Hornet, F/A-18A,C,E and F, the Grumman EA-6B Prowler and the Grumman E-2C Hawkeye, and up to 15 helicopters, Sikorsky SH-60F, HH-60H Seahawk and SH-60B Seahawks.The ship carries a crew of over 6,000. But there would be 3,200 crew with 160 officers and 2,500 aircrew. The ship also accommodates the carrier battle group's flag officer and about 70 flag crew. The flight deck is 332.9m long and 76.8m wide. The angle flight deck is 76.8m long. The angled flight deck allows the landing aircraft the option of accelerating safely away if required, minimising the danger of colliding with stationary aircraft on deck. The carrier can launch aircraft at a rate of one every 20 seconds. The deck has four C13-2 steam catapults and three mk7 mod 3-type arrester wires.The carrier has four deck edge elevators. The deck edge elevators allow large aircraft to project over the side of the ship. Two starboard lifts are forward of the island and one is to the aft of the island, and the port lift is also aft of the island towards the stern. The hangar deck, (7.8m high) has capacity for up to about 30 aircraft, depending on the composition of air wing. The ship carries 8,500t of aviation fuel.Lockheed martin is the primary warfare system integrator for CVN 77. The CVN 77's combat data systems are based on the advanced combat direction system (ACDS) with communications Links 4A, 11, and 16. Weapons control is managed by three mk91 mod 1 MFCS directors for the Sea Sparrow missile.The ship is armed with two Raytheon GMLS mk29 octuple missile launchers and the Nato Sea Sparrow or Evolved Sea Sparrow missiles and two guided-missile launch system mk49 with the RIM-116 rolling airframe missile (RAM). The sensors part include The air search radars which is a ITT SPS-48E three-dimensional radar operating at E/F band, Raytheon SPS-49(Version)5 operating at C/D band, and Raytheon mk 23 TAS operating at D band. The ship's surface search radar is the Northrop Grumman Norden Systems SPS-67V, operating at G band. For countermeasures the ship is equipped with a Raytheon SLQ-32(V)4 interception and jamming electronic support and countermeasures system and a Nixie SLQ-25 towed decoy and signal generator set. The ship is steam powered, the steam being generated by the two General Electric (originally Westinghouse) nuclear pressurized water reactors type PWR A4W/A1G. The steam drives four turbines generating a total of 209MW, which drive four shafts. Four standby 8MW diesel engines are installed for emergency power.

This will surely add some relief to US defense forces as they are fighting a tough battle in Afghanistan.Kyrgyzstan parliament has voted to close the US air base.The incident will put pressure on US naval formations in Indian ocean Region(IOR) and Meditterean Region(MR)The lead ship of Nimitz class which is USS Nimitz (CVN-68) is about to retire. There were reports that this CVN-68 will be offered to Indian Navy minus the PW Nuclear Reactor.Indian navy is facing some tough times as Russia delays the delivery of Admiral Goshkhov re-christened by IN a INS Vikramaditya .If Nimitz is offered to India, it would be a logical and wise step to grab this ship…This will truly be a first step to become a powerful “blue water” navy.As a matter of fact conducting peace operations worldwide is different from having a global offensive-defensive reach.India needs to think this over.

MoonShine Tr@il Launched!!….

 

Aloha!

Sorry…I know it’s been over a month i haven’t posted anything on this blog. actually i was busy with my other blog- MoonShine Tr@il (http://moonshinetrail.blogspot.com/). i am working on this blog for quite some time. I Prepared this blog around 45 days ago but it’s XML framework was giving lotsa problems…Widgets were not working..page layout went haywire…font colors were all wrong..and then somehow it seemed like the “right” coding was not working. but atlast i managed to bring the page under opearable conditional…there are still some features which are nt working but as readers you guys won’t be able to see them and i hope that u won’t face any problems.

Why i came up with another blog?? Oh well Ya …u can say that i show up once in a month on this blog…what justice i will do to that blog! actually m working on my blogging habit :). Hopefully it would get better. Moonshine trail is basically for specific purpose …it’s for politics…economics…society…cooking…May add few more thing(heavy issues…difficult issues;)…But importantly it would be my guinea pig, as i will be experimenting with new xml sheets..javascripts and javafx features.