Capital set to celebrate Navratri with Garbas and Dhoklas

NEW DELHI: The capital is set for a colourful and lively Navratri with garbas, dhoklas and traditional Gujarati dresses expected to dominate the festivities in the first year of Narendra Modi's rule.

Gujarati organisers of Navratri festivals in Delhi expect high footfall of revellers and audience to watch the traditional garba dance and dandiya performances and to feast on Gujarati delicacies such as khaman, dhokla, khakhra and fafda as curiosity about Gujarati culture has increased significantly after Modi became the prime minister.

Photo by India times

"It's a proud moment for Gujaratis," said Mohit Parikh, president of Shree Delhi Gujarati Samaj, which organises Navratri celebrations at Delhi's Civil Lines. "Definitely, there will be an increased participation this year and we should have anywhere between 600 and 1,000 people every day to participate in the garba and dandiya," he said.

There will be more than 22 places, including Dwarka, Gujarat Vihar, Kirti Nagar, Civil Lines, Jehangirpuri and Paschim Vihar, where Delhiites can celebrate Navratri the Gujarati way.

Some of the organisers have allocated space for sellers of traditional Gujarati dresses and jewellery for garba, which is traditionally performed during Navratri to honour goddess Durga.

Jagdip Rana, president of Gujarat Education Society that runs Sardar Patel Vidyalaya and organises a month-long training workshop for garba and dandiya, said interest amongst non-Gujarati people to learn traditional Guajarati folk dance is on the rise. "This year we had 500 people who came in the workshop to learn Gujarati dance compared to 300 a year ago," he said.

Rana and Parikh are among organisers who have invited Modi, the first prime minister from Gujarat in 35 years, to visit their event. "We want to felicitate Modi since he became Prime Minister and Navratri is the right occasion for the same," Parikh said.

But, with the prime minister away in the US in the first half of the nine-day festival, BJP president Amit Shah, Union HRD minister Smriti Irani and other BJP leaders have been invited for 'aarti' by many organisers.

Organisers said they have been getting calls from general public and expats for passes and short training classes for dances. "This year the phone calls have not stopped since we printed the invite. Daily over 1,500 people can participate in the festivities," said Neeraj Sheth, general secretary at Gujarat Vihar in East Delhi.

Among garba organisers in the capital is Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit whose wife Mona hails from Gujarat. They will organise a two-day festival at Pandara Road on September 26 and 27 along with the Gujarat Education Society. "This is one festival which cuts across caste, class and creed and you are like one big family on the ground," said Mona Dikshit.

It is for the first time that Garba is expected to attract revellers in large numbers in the capital where the Gujarati population is about 1.25 lakh. But the crowd here will be nothing in comparison to some venues in Gujarat where over 35,000 revellers dancing before audience of more than 70,000.

Industrial houses like Reliance, Essar, Adani and Torrent formed Gujarat Industries Navratri Festival Society (GINFS) to organise Gujarat's largest garba shows that Modi used to inaugurate every year. This year, Chief Minister Anandiben Patel will do the honour.

By India times

9 Special Colours For 9 Days Of Navratri

Navratri is a festival that last nine days during which we worship Goddess Durga in nine different forms. Each of the Navdurga avatars have their own significance and style of worshipping. Also, the colours for Navratri are designated to each of these nine devis of Navratri. 

Maa Durga  ( pic by Gold Sky  )

The colours for goddess Durga are very special and each of these colours must be worn on the stipulated day. Navdurga avatars are all parts of Goddess Durga. However, these Devis are worshipped separately because each of them has a particular significance and 'vidhi' or procedure for their puja is different. 

 There are nine colours assigned to the nine devis who are part of Navdurga. The Goddess is dressed in a particular colour but it is not necessary that her devotees must be dressed in the same colour.  For example, Goddess Chandraghanta wears orange but her devotees must wear white on the third day of Navratri.

These are the nine colours for nine days of Navratri. If you want to please the Goddess Durga, then wear the right colours on the respective days. 

First Day:  Yellow Colour The first day of Navratri is called the 'pratipada'. On this day, devi Shailapurti Mata who is the first Devi of the Navdurga is worshipped. You must wear yellow on this day when 'ghatasthapana' for the puja is done. 

Second Day:  Green Colour The second day of the Navratri is called the Dwitiya. Green is the colour of nature and Devi Bramhacharini commands that her devotees be decked up in green.


 Third Day:  Grey Colour Devi Chandraghanta is the Goddess of peace and serenity. She is dressed in white for the Gowri Vrata that is done on this day. The devotees should wear grey on the tritiya of Navratri. 

Fourth Day:  Orange Colour On the Chaturthi of Navratri, the Goddess Kushmunda is worshipped. She is dressed in red and is the creator of the universe. In her honour, her devotees must wear read. 

Fifth Day:  White Colour The fifth day of Navratri is called Panchami and Skandamata is the avatar of the Goddess that is worshipped on this day. She slays all demons and you must wear white to please this goddess. 

Sixth Day:  Red Colour Shashti is day when all mothers pray for the well-being of their children. On this day, Katyayani is worshipped, you must wear red coloured clothes in her honour.

 Seventh Day:  Blue Colour On the day of Saptami, the Utsav puja happens. Mata Kaalratri is worshipped on this day. Her devotee must wear blue coloured clothes so that she protects them from evil. 

Eighth Day:  Pink Colour On the day of Durga Ashtami, Maha Gauri Puja is done. It the day when Mata Saraswati is worshipped by the devout. One must wear pink on this special day of the Navratri. 

Ninth Day:  Purple Colour On the last day of the Navratri, Diddhidatri Mata is commemorated. Her devotees must be dressed in purple to attain 'siddhi' on this holy day.

By Gold Sky 

New Formula Could Cut Pollution from Concrete

Concrete is the most-used construction material in the world and a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. But by using a different chemical formula to make the material, new research suggests it's possible to significantly reduce concrete's carbon footprint.

photo by scientific american

Concrete has a complex molecular structure made of a mixture of sand, gravel, water and cement. The cement is made by heating a calcium-rich material, typically limestone, with a silica-rich material, typically clay, at temperatures of around 1,500 degrees Celsius. This process, usually fueled by coal, produces a hard mass that's then ground into a powder. Making cement accounts for a significant portion of concrete's overall greenhouse gas emissions.

More than 20 billion tons of concrete are produced each year and contribute up to 10 percent of global anthropogenic carbon dioxide production. A report released yesterday by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests that reducing the ratio of calcium to silicate in cement would enhance the strength of the material, reduce material volume and cut the emissions associated with concrete by more than half.

At present rates, concrete usage is estimated to be three times that of steel, according to Roland Pellenq, MIT senior scientist and author on the report. "There's no other solution to sheltering mankind in a durable way—turning liquid into stone in 10 hours, easily, at room temperature. That's the magic of cement," he said.

Stronger and glassier
The ratio of calcium to silica in conventional cements ranges from 1.2 to 2.2, with 1.7 as the accepted standard. By creating a database of all possible chemical formulations, the MIT research team found 1.5 parts calcium to every 1 part silica to be the "magical ratio," according to Pellenq.

With this mixture the material can achieve "two times the resistance of normal cement, in mechanical resistance to fracture, with some molecular-scale design," he said.

Since concrete production is highly greenhouse gas-intensive, any reduction in calcium content in the cement will have a positive impact on emissions. According to Pellenq, reductions could be as much as 60 percent.

Using this formula would also improve the mechanical strength of concrete and give the material a glassier and less crystalline structure, which would make it more fracture-resistant. The oil and gas industry has a particular interest in using stronger concrete around well casings to prevent leakages and blowouts.

Researchers will now carry out further testing on the new formula to prove their findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, translate from the molecular scale to the engineering scale for applications such as infrastructure and buildings.

Water on Earth predates the solar system, and even the sun

Some of the water molecules in your drinking glass were created more than 4.5 billion years ago, according to new research.

That makes them older than the Earth, older than the solar system — even older than the sun itself.

In a study published Thursday in Science, researchers say the distinct chemical signature of the water on Earth and throughout the solar system could occur only if some of that water formed before the swirling disk of dust and gas gave birth to the planets, moons, comets and asteroids.

This primordial water makes up 30% to 50% of the water on Earth, the researchers estimate.

“It’s pretty amazing that a significant fraction of water on Earth predates the sun and the solar system,” said study leader Ilse Cleeves, an astronomer at the University of Michigan.

This finding suggests that water, a key ingredient of life, may be common in young planetary systems across the universe, Cleeves and her colleagues say.

Scientists are still not entirely sure how water arrived on Earth. The part of the protoplanetary disk in which our planet formed was too hot for liquid or ice water to exist, and so the planet was born dry. Most experts believe the Earth’s water came from ice in comets and asteroids that formed in a cooler environment, and later collided with our planet.

But this theory leads to more questions. Among them: Where did the water preserved in the comets and asteroids come from?

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To find out, scientists turned to chemistry. Here on Earth, about one in every 3,000 molecules of water is made with a deuterium atom instead of a hydrogen atom.

A deuterium atom is similar to a hydrogen atom except that its nucleus contains a proton and a neutron, instead of a lone proton. (Both atoms also contain a single electron.) That makes deuterium twice as heavy as hydrogen, which is why water molecules made with deuterium atoms (HDO) are known as “heavy water.”

At the time that our sun was born, the ratio of deuterium to hydrogen throughout the universe was about 1 deuterium molecule to every 100,000 hydrogen molecules. But for water in the solar system, the proportion is significantly higher.

Water with a high deuterium content can only form under specific conditions. The environment needs to be very cold, and there needs to be enough energy to power the reaction that binds hydrogen, deuterium and oxygen. Over the past several decades, researchers have come up with two possible — and competing  — explanations of how this heavy water took up residence in our solar system.

The first is that it came from interstellar water ice that formed in the huge cloud of gas that gave birth to our sun and the solar system. Stellar nurseries can be found throughout the universe, and they are rich in both heavy water and regular water (H20), the researchers said.

The second possibility is that the violence and energy of star birth ripped apart that interstellar water, and its building blocks got reprocessed within the protoplanetary disk that would eventually coalesce into the planets and other heavenly bodies.

For the past several years, Cleeves has been trying to determine just how much energy was able to penetrate the cold, dense region of the planet-forming disks around stars.

“This study was kind of a side project,” she said. “We realized that if the amount of energy in the disk is as low as we think, that means the water in our solar system couldn’t have formed here, and it had to come from somewhere else.”

Using computer models, she and her colleagues concluded that the disk was certainly cold enough for heavy water to form. But the gas would have been too dense to allow X-rays to enter, and the solar winds and magnetic fields would have had no trouble deflecting cosmic rays.

Without these energy sources, Cleeves said, deuterium and oxygen couldn’t have formed heavy water.

But it would have been easy for cosmic rays to penetrate the gas cloud before it collapsed into the protoplanetary disk, she said. There, those rays could have helped heavy water get made.

“People have wondered for a while how much of the water in comets is inherited and how much was made in the proto-planetary nebula,” said Geoff Blake, a professor of cosmochemistry and planetary science at Caltech who was not involved in the study.

He said the paper successfully demonstrates that the young solar wind would have kept cosmic rays out of the disk entirely, making the chemistry inside too slow to produce heavy water.

“And if that’s true, much of the water in the solar system today had to be inherited,” he said. 

Ted Bergin, an astronomer at the University of Michigan and co-author of the Science study, said the results suggest there may be an abundance of ancient water in young planetary systems throughout the universe.

Most stars and their solar systems are formed in water heavy stellar nurseries similar to the one that birthed our sun. If interstellar water can survive the trauma of our sun’s birth, it is likely it can survive the birth of other stars as well.

“They are all made out of very cold material, with water, and that is being provided to planets as they are being born,” he said.

Asian Games 2014: Indian men flatter in volleyball, but women advance to quarter-finals

Photo by cricket country

Indian volleyball teams had a mixed day with the women spikers entering the quarter-finals but their male counterparts losing their final preliminary group encounter at the 17th Asian Games here Friday.

The women’s team recorded a comprehensive 3-0 victory over Maldives in the last-eight qualification match, winning 25-12, 25-7, 25-11 in 54 minutes at the Ansan Sangroksu Gymnasium.

The Indian team raced away to a comfortable lead right from the start. Tiji Raju top scored with 16 points. India take on China in the last-eight clash Saturday. But at the Songnim Gymnasium centre, India’s male spikers went down fighting 0-3 against Iran in their last Group C match, losing 22-25, 22-25, 18-25 in one hour 11 minutes.

The Indians put a brave fight but lacked the edge as they were narrowly defeated in all the three sets. Lavmeet Katariya top-scored for the team with 11 points but it wasn’t enough. The men’s team is second Iran in the group with two wins out of the three matches. They had earlier beaten Hong Kong 23-25, 25-18, 25-16 and 25-21 and Maldives 25-10, 25-19, 25-17.

By Cricket country 

Indian women save blushes, nail bronze

Incheon :  India’s unheralded women shooters nailed the bronze in team double trap at the faraway Gyeonggido range in the 17th Asian Games on Thursday, the seventh medal in the discipline gained by the country so far.

However, for the second successive day India drew a blank at the nearby Ongnyeon pistol and rifle range where hot shot Gagan Narang made his appearance and flopped individually as well as collectively with his team-mates in 50m rifle prone event.

photo bye free press journal

Pistol shooters Gurpreet Singh, Mahaveer Singh and seasoned Samaresh Jung too disappointed.

Had it not been for the bronze won by the double trap women’s trio of Shagun Chowdhary, Shreyasi Singh and Varsha Varman, the shooting events would have ended for the day without a medal.

Their combined effort fetched them a score of 279, which was far behind gold medal winners and world record setters China’s 315 or silver medal winners Korea’s 324.

Earlier, there was a medal drought at the nearby shooting range. Gagan Narang failed to live up to his reputation after starting off with a bang – two 10.8s in the 50m rifle prone qualification – before going off target and finishing with a disappointing score of 618.4, which could get him only the 14th place out of 52 starters.

Joydeep Karmakar, shot much better and ended up 10th with 621.2 while the third Indian in fray – Hariom Singh – proved out of depth and gained the 29th slot with 613.2.

Karmakar later said that the last five shots proved to be his undoing. “The last few shots made the difference. For 25 years in shooting I was inhaling (when pressing the trigger) and now I am exhaling.

“I am still not fully comfortable, but am sure will feel confident in due course of time. This is the best technique adopted by the world over,” said the 35-year-old Bengal shooter. 

Asian Games 2014: Saina Nehwal runs into her great wall, once again

China’s World No.3 Wang Yihan is deceptive on court because of her crafty wrists. In eight of the previous nine matches between Wang and Sania Nehwal, the former prevailed because she hoodwinked the India No.1 by playing late and changing the direction of her strokes at the very last second. On most of those occasions, Saina was left guessing because of the unpredictable nature of her opponent’s shot-making. 

Saina Nehwal ( By Indian Express )

So the Indian’s plan before her Asian Games quarterfinal against Wang was to play the waiting game by committing late to strokes. Till the first game, the strategy seemed to be working well. Saina watched Wang closely but moved swiftly to produce sharp, uncomfortable returns.

 It was an intriguing tactical duel that lasted 25 minutes. Saina would retrieve from every impossible angle Wang would find. Saina wrapped up the game 21-18.

After the rousing start by the Indian, came the tame surrender. The intensity of the first game had taken its toll on both players. One of the perils of playing long rallies on slow courts, like the one at the Gyeyang Stadium here, is that it can be extremely energy-sapping.

Wang, sensing an opportunity, dug deep into her energy reserves and started doing what she does best — outwitting an opponent with skillful racquet guile. Wang’s sharp half-smashes troubled Saina, who could not muster any resistance. She lost the next game 9-21 and the decider 7-21. It was her second consecutive quarterfinal exit from the Asian Games.

Despite Saina’s inferior head-to-head record against this particular Chinese opponent, what restricted her progress on Friday was poor movement on court. She later said that improving her agility was on top of the agenda when she decided to move to Bangalore — from Hyderabad — and train under Vimal Kumar ahead of the Asian Games. At the World Championships last month, Saina realised her movements, front and back as well as lateral, were getting stiff. She couldn’t move at all, as a result of which she could not retrieve quite a few shots.

The two weeks she spent at Prakash Padukone’s academy in Bangalore, before leaving for Incheon, were dedicated to rectifying this aspect of her game. “Vimal sir made me do that (on-court movement) again and again. And he made me do it fast. It will take time to improve my endurance. Usually it takes around four weeks to do that. But I am trying,” she said.

She will most likely be heading to Bangalore again instead of Hyderabad. The work on her movements is only half done. “I’m happy that I am improving so I would like to spend some more time (with Vimal). We have to discuss again and it is not an easy decision,” she said.

By Indian Express