One up one to go

After last game's defeat, Vishy managed a draw to split the point in Game 11. This makes him the World Champion once again. Great job!!! Congrats!!! Hurray!!! :) It was easy, all through the game, once Kramnik responded with Sicilian Najdorf variation and Vishy was dominating the game throughout.

Now focus is on Chandrayaan-I. As per today's update, the EBN-4 phase was carried out, the craft has moved even more closer to moon (apogee of 2,67,000 Km). There will be a final push later that would bring it very close to the moon. Let us wait and watch.

Scraped Through

I watched the live webcast of the 9th game of the World Chess Championship 2008, (Bonn) yesterday night. I had feared much worse but Vishy managed to scrape through the match with a draw, thanks to some lapse in concentration on Kramnik's part. Just one more draw is what is required to win the championship.

On the Chandrayaan-I front, as per update by ISRO (dated: 26th October 2008), Chandrayaan has entered the deep space with an apogee of 164,600 Km and a perigee of 348 Km after its on board rockets were fired for the 3rd time. It now takes around 73 hours to rotate the earth once. Though I am not very sure, but the apogee seems to be lower than what was planned in EBN-3 phase by about 34,677 Km. Maybe this is normal.

Got nothing else to do, except wait and watch.

Fingers crossed

I keep my fingers crossed for Vishy and Chandrayaan-I.

I hope and pray everything goes well in the next phase in both the cases.

Courage to ask

I had never followed Harry Potter, until last week. Not having the enthusiasm to pick up those fat volumes of printed material, I turned to the movie versions.

Currently I am watching the fourth in the series, "Goblet of Fire". The entire series is fascinating. Rowling seems to have created a virtual world all by herself. The "magic" and the school-ish environment appeals to the children almost instantly. The depiction of courage, righteousness and a strong sense of family bonding and values makes the adults interested in it too.

My favorite character is Hermione Granger. Genuine intelligence mixed with innocent beauty, draws my attention and admiration. Somehow I view Hermione in that light.

Also would like to reflect upon a dialogue of Hermione in the "Goblet of Fire", which prompted me to choose the title of this post. During the end of the Ball, she remarked to Ron "...pack up the courage and ask before somebody else does... and not as a last resort". Very true words, and the most difficult thing to do in the path towards love.

Not many people have that courage.

TATA good bye to Singur

I watched Ratan Tata on the videopod broadcast of NDTV, announcing the decision to move the "Nano Project" out of Singur. A very well balanaced appearence, exactly letting the media know the reasons why the decision was taken and who is to be blamed for it. He also clearly seggregated this issue with the other investments in West Bengal, and a promise to be a part of the development of the state in the future. The sign of a true entrepreneur and a great visionary.

I believe, it is time for the people of West Bengal to take a decision, as to how they want to progress in the development path. Agreed, rural agricultural development is necessary and it should be fostered and protected by the state government, but industrial development is required urgently too. Once upon a time, West Bengal hosted great many factories and production houses. Today all those are shut down, due to labour issues. Now a fighting attempt is being made by the most progressive left leader of the nation, and he is critised from within his party as well as by the opposition.

It is also time for the people of the West Bengal to rise from the highly philosophical armchairs that they think they are sitting on, to do some hard work on the ground and put their intelligence into some concrete output. The stragety of weekend "bandhs" and "dharnas" is proving to be irritating and damaging for them.

The world has moved a lot ahead outside of West Bengal, than they can even imagine.

By the way, I have always had this wild thought in my mind, to settle down somewhere in this state, in my old age. Let us see!