Rice price rise may lead to rice riots!

Though the title mentions rice, this post is all about the rise in prices of staples (rice tops the list of staples) that has caused serious unrest in several parts of the world. Haiti’s government was thrown out and there were food riots in several parts of Africa and sporadic violence in other parts of the world. Even supermarkets in developed countries have begun rationing rice to their customers. Click on the link to read the post I wrote a few days ago about a looming disaster for many of our planetizens.

Paella is a very popular rice dish in Spain . . .

Image: Tony & Lisa Sierra(taken from about.com)

World leaders have woken up to this serious threat to the well-being of all Earthlings. The issue has become so serious that the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon has said that the U.N. and its affiliated organisations will set up a task force that will be headed by the Secretary-General himself. For more information, read this article on the site of Associated Press.

The U.N. has realised that rising food prices are a serious threat to growth and security and world peace itself. Development would be set back by seven years if this situation is not tackled immediately. Even a person like the World Bank President has warned that rising food prices would push 100 million into poverty and those who are already poor will suffer terribly. Read more about the threat to development goals in this article from Reuters.

The most heartening fact is that the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development feels that farm aid and fair trade is the key to solving this extremely urgent problem. I am delighted that someone has finally managed to call a spade a spade! Read more in this article.

I am shocked by the double standards of the ill-informed guys in the so-called ‘mainstream’ media who think that farm aid and small loan waivers for small and marginal farmers are ‘election sops’ while waiving multi-million dollar loans for corporate entities that are facing a crisis due to the deliberate mismanagement by the top brass is an act of ‘offering incentives’ for growth. Despicable double standards!

I think the time has come for the whole world to unite and put an end to the notorious ‘free market capitalism’ that has led the world to the present situation. ‘Free trade’ that is neither free nor fair should be replaced by fair trade! ‘Free market capitalism’ must be replaced by an economic system that is harmony with the universal ethical principles of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and Human Rights!

May all concepts that are opposed to those four principles perish! May such concepts be completely annihilated as humankind searches for ways to solve the present food crisis!

My previous article on the food crisis:

Here comes the horseman riding the black horse!

Indian scientists set a world record!

India’s advanced space program has come of age! Indian space scientists, engineers and technologists set a new world record today with the launch of India’s 230 metric tonne Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle(PSLV-C9) that successfully placed ten satellites in orbit. It is the first time that ten satellites were launched in a single mission. The earlier record was held by Russia which launched eight satellites together in a single mission.

The PSLV-C9 that set a world record lifts off from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh . . .

Photo: The Hindu Photo Gallery

The ten satellites that were launched by the PSLV-C9 are (not necessarily in the order they were put into orbit):

1. The 690 kg remote sensing satellite CARTOSAT-2A (India)
2. The 83 kg Indian Mini Satellite IMS-1 (India)
3. CUTE 1.7 (Japan)
4. SEEDS (Japan)
5. CAN-X2 (Canada)
6. AAUSAT-II (Denmark)
7. COMPASS-1 (Germany)
8. Delphi-C3 (the Netherlands)
9. NLS-5 (Canada)
10. Rubin-8 (Germany)

Apart from the two Indian satellites, all the rest are nano satellites. CUTE 1.7, SEEDS, CAN-X2, AAUSAT-II, COMPASS-1 and Delphi-C3 were clustered together by the University of Toronto, Canada and were collectively named NLS-4. The NLS-5 was also developed by the University of Toronto.

Terming the launch “satisfactory”, ISRO(Indian Space Research Organisation) Chairman G. Madhavan Nair said “all parameters worked wonderfully well.”

Congratulations, folks! Well done!

Having visited some of India’s space, nuclear and defence research facilities and having been acquainted with some of the brilliant scientists and technologists who work there, I am shocked by the bias of the notorious Indian ‘mainstream’ media who always question the contribution of India’s scientists. Despite facing a shortage of resources and despite being denied access to the latest technologies by the governments of some countries, Indian scientists have managed to make every truly patriotic Indian proud of their achievements in the fields of space, nuclear and defence technologies. But some sections of the Indian ‘mainstream’ media think that purchasing outdated technology at hugely inflated prices after signing deals that compromise the sovereignty of the country is the way forward.

Shame on those notorious scoundrels in the Indian ‘mainstream’ media who mislead the people of the country with their pathetic and biased reporting! I can only request my fellow citizens to look at the truth without being mislead by the notorious sections of the media.

I hope the brilliant and hardworking Indian scientists led by people like Anil Kakodkar, Madhavan Nair, Sivanthu Pillai and others are not disheartened by the actions of their pseudo-patriotic countrymen whose actions can make one believe that they(the pseudo-patriots) are in the pay of foreign governments and corporations. People who know the truth are always with the Indian scientists!

India can advance only by taking up science (and allied fields), engineering, technology, modern art and modern literature in a big manner! India’s true soft power is in the hands of those who are associated with the above fields!

Ooh . . . ooh . . . Ubuntu . . . Ubuntu . . . Ubuntu!

This is a small test report about Ubuntu 8.04 LTS.

Unlike the last time, I had absolutely no problems whatsoever in installing Ubuntu. I tried the live CD version first(you can boot Ubuntu 8.04 from the CD itself without installing it on your hard drive) and loved it so much that I installed it immediately. The installation is quite simple. You can boot into Windows, insert the CD and run the installation from within Windows. Once you reboot the computer, you can boot into either Windows or Linux. It is that simple!

Here are a few simple screenshots . . . Click on the images for a bigger picture . . .

Desktop with a minimised browser window . . .

Scientific calculator, sudoku, dictionary . . .

Tetravex, documents to be printed, OpenOffice.org Writer . . .

I did not explore it completely but there are so many applications . . . entire volumes can be written about Ubuntu 8.04! And it is blazingly fast! Everything seems to work faster . . . the desktop, the applications, the internet, even WordPress!

I am completely bowled over by the latest penguin from Ubuntu! To the developers, you have done a great job, folks! Ubuntu 8.04 is the perfect Linux for anyone who wants to make the switch to Linux! To others, do try Ubuntu 8.04, folks! Believe me, you will be hooked!

Okay, I did notice one bug, which I shall send to the developers to fix. But if I have to sum up the experience, all I can say is:

OOH . . . OOH . . . UBUNTU!

Please click on the link if you want to download Ubuntu 8.04 LTS.

My other articles about Ubuntu:

Ooh . . . ooh . . . Ubuntu!
A great future for Ubuntu?