Pictures and Photo graphs: 2008

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Mumbai, India - Gateway peace March - Dec 3rd

Mumbai was recently "ransacked" (literally!) by a few terrorists on November 26. Actually, they had planned to replicate JW Marriott of Pakistan bomb-blasts in Mumbai... even worse, they were determined to do another 9/11 in Mumbai! However India's brave commandos and men in uniform fought rigorously against these terrorists and destroyed their plans... In the process, some of these men in uniform had to sacrifice their precious life so that all Indians are safe.

To remember these "shaheeds" and to salute to their bravery and to protest against the corrupt "old" politicians of "young" India, a whole lot of Mumbai turned out today night at the Gateway of India. The call to join hands was sent through SMS & social bookmarking sites like Facebook and Orkut. People turned out like anything... The response was beyond imagination. People are extremely upset about the Indian Government's apathy towards the overall security and well being of the citizens, and the increasing corruption among all the ladders. Here are some of the pictures which depicted very clearly the sentiments of the common Indian.

Refer to the glossary below for explanation about people, events, terms shown in the pictures.

Glossary

Raj: Raj Thackeray is the founder and president of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (Maharashtra Renaissance Army), which is a regional party in the state of Maharashtra in India.
Mr. Deshmukh: Vilasrao Deshmukh is, now former, chief minister of the state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the capital of Maharashtra. He was widely criticized for taking Ram Gopal Varma to the Taj Mahal Hotel in the aftermath of the terror acts.
Achuthanandan: V.S. Achuthanandan, Kerala’s Chief Minister, who remarked that even a “dog” would not visit the house of NSG commando Sandeep Unnikrishnan after being denied entry into his home by the late commando’s father.
Ram Gopal Varma: A famous Bollywood film maker fell from grace lately after his lame attempt of remaking one of India’s cult classics - “Sholay”. The remake is called “Ram Gopal Varma ki aag” and has been widely lampooned by media and the public at large.
Sena: A reference to “Shiv Sena” - a regional political party of India. Sena is the Hindi word for army.
Deshmurkh: A purposeful misspelling of the former chief minister’s last name. The 2 parts - “Desh” is Hindi for country and “murkh” is Hindi for unwise , or dim-witted.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Top Ten Most Amazing Pictures Taken By Hubble Space

Hubble Telescope's top ten greatest space photographs. Awesome!!!

The Sombrero Galaxy - 28 million light years from Earth - was voted best picture taken by the Hubble telescope. The dimensions of the galaxy, officially called M104, are as spectacular as its appearance. It has 800 billion suns and is 50,000 light years across.

The Ant Nebula, a cloud of dust and gas whose technical name is Mz3, resembles an ant when observed using ground-based telescopes... The nebula lies within our galaxy between 3,000 and 6,000 light years from Earth.

In third place is Nebula NGC 2392, called 'Eskimo' because it looks like a face surrounded by a furry hood. The hood is, in fact, a ring of comet-shaped objects flying away from a dying star. Eskimo is 5,000 light years from Earth.

At four is the Cat's Eye Nebula.

The Hourglass Nebula, 8,000 light years away, has a 'pinched-in-the-middle' look because the winds that shape it are weaker at the centre.

In sixth place is the Cone Nebula. The part pictured here is 2.5 light years in length (the equivalent of 23 million return trips to the Moon).

The Perfect Storm, a small region in the Swan Nebula, 5,500 light years away, described as 'a bubbly ocean of hydrogen and small amounts of oxygen, sulphur and other elements'.

Starry Night, so named because it reminded astronomers of the Van Gogh painting. It is a halo of light around a star in the Milky Way.

The glowering eyes from 114 million light years away are the swirling cores of two merging galaxies called NGC 2207 and IC 2163 in the distant Canis Major constellation.