Interesting Story of Mother Nature and Father Time

• Though not proven, it is often found that people pair Father Time with Mother Nature as a married couple because of their parental nature. Father Time has been a prevalent part of many cultures throughout the ages.  
• Chronos (also known as Chronus) is the personification of time itself. Indeed, the word means "time" and is the root of "chronology" and other modern words. 
• It was, however, originally employed in a purely poetic sense. There is no God or Goddess directly associated with time per se in the annals of Greek mythology, but there may have been a Titan of Time.
• Saturn (referred to by the Greeks as Cronus or Kronos) was the Roman Deity of Time and an ancient Italian Corn God known as the Sower. Saturn's weapon was a scythe or sickle. 
• Since ancient history, time has been identified with Saturn. 
• In India, the concept of time is  not associated with any deity .
• In India, the time schedule is considered as follows :
• The smallest unit of time is a kaashta which is 18 times the amount of time it takes to blink an eyelid. 
• 10 kaashtas make a kshanam and 12 kshanams constitute a muhoortam. 60 of these muhoortams constitute a day.
• 30 days constitute a month and 3 months make up a ritu. 12 months of course constitue a human year.
• We now move on from the human plane to the world of the departed souls - the pitrus. Here, a human month equals the length of a day.
• The brighter half of a lunar month constitutes the pitru's day time and the darker half their night. 
• In the realm of the Devas or the Gods, a human year constitutes a single day.
• The brighter half of the year Uttarayanam makes up the day time hours of the Devas while the darker half Dakshinayanam makes up the night time hours.
• An epoch or a yuga is the next higher level of measurement. 
• a single day in Bhrahma's life spans 2000 * 4,320,000 ie. 8,640,000,000 human years.
• Scientifically Time is represented through change, such as the circular motion of the moon around the earth. The passing of time is indeed closely connected to the concept of space. 
• Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects.
• Time is one of the seven fundamental physical quantities in the International System of Units.
• Two contrasting viewpoints on time divide many prominent philosophers. 
• One view is that time is part of the fundamental structure of the universe, a dimension in which events occur in sequence. Sir Isaac Newton subscribed to this realist view, and hence it is sometimes referred to as Newtonian time.
• The opposing view is that time does not refer to any kind of "container" that events and objects "move through", nor to any entity that "flows", but that it is instead part of a fundamental intellectual structure (together with space and number) within which humans sequence and compare events. This second view holds that time is neither an event nor a thing, and thus is not itself measurable nor can it be traveled. 

   so , as we know time and tide waits for none ... so, along with conservation of mother nature, conservation of time is also equally important. ..have a  good time ...

International Year of Forests-2011

 

The year 2011 was declared the International Year of Forests by the United Nations.
Forests are an integral part of global sustainable development. According to World Bank estimates, more than 1.6 billion people depend on forests for their livelihoods with some 300 million living in them. The forest product industry is a source of economic growth and employment, with global forest products traded internationally is estimated at $327 billion.According to the World Bank, deforestation accounts for up to 20 percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. FAO data estimates that the world's forests and forest soil store more than one trillion tons of carbon – twice the amount found in the atmosphere. The World Bank estimates that forests provide habitats to about two-thirds of all species on earth, and that deforestation of closed tropical rainforests could account for biodiversity loss of as many as 100 species a day.


Objectives :

The short-term objectives :
(i) to focus world attention on the need for forest conservation and protection.
(ii) to raise the political and public awareness of forest resources.
(iii) to identify and draw attention to the factors threatening these forest resources.

(iv) to mobilize people, and especially youth, to participate in forest-oriented activities during 1985.


The long-term objectives :
(i) to strengthen national and international commitments to safeguarding the productive and protective: capacity of each nation's forest resources in support of national, social, economic and environmental goals.
(ii) to address with greater determination resources and skill the threats to forest resources.
(iii) to promote better planning and implementation of forestry programmes, and to give them due importance in national economic planning, on a sustained basis.


Overall theme:Forestry and food security.

Supporting themes: Conserving the forest. Forestry and people: Appropriate industries.
The fuel wood crisis.

RIVER LINKING PROJECTS AND THEIR IMPACTS IN INDIA

River Linking is project linking two or more rivers by creating a network of manually created canals, and providing land areas that otherwise does not have river water access and reducing the flow of water to sea using this means. It is based on the assumptions that surplus water in some rivers can be diverted to deficit rivers by creating a network of canals to interconnect the rivers.

 


RIVER LINKING PROJECTS ( MAP)

In India the National River Linking Project (NRLP) is designed to ease water shortages in western and southern India while mitigating the impacts of recurrent floods in the eastern parts of the Ganga basin. The NRLP, if and when implemented, will be one of the
biggest inter basin water transfer projects in the world.

Some of the proposed river links in India are as follows:

Mahanadi - Godavari Link

Inchampalli - Nagarjunasagar Link

Inchampalli - Pulichintala Link

Polavaram - Vijayawada Link

Almatti - Pennar Link

Srisailam - Pennar Link

Nagarjunasagar - Somasila Link

Somasila - Grand Anicut Link

Kattalai – Vaigai - Gundar Link

Ken - Betwa Link

Parbati - Kalisindh - Chambal Link

Par - Tapi - Narmada Link

Damanganga - Pinjal Link

Bedti - Varada Link

Netravati - Hemavati Link

Pamba – Anchankovil - Vaippar Link

Kosi - Mechi link

                                    Kosi - Ghaghara link

Gandak - Ganga link

Ghaghara - Yamuna link

Sarda - Yamuna link

Yamuna - Rajasthan link

Rajasthan - Sabarmati link

Chunar - Sone Barrage link

Sone dam - Southern tributaries of Ganga link

Manas - Sankosh - Tista - Ganga link

Jogighopa - Tista - Farakka link

Farakka - Sunderbans link

Ganga - Damodar - Subernarekha link

Subernarekha - Mahanadi link

Positive points associated with the linking of rivers are as follows

• Interlinking would lead to a permanent drought proofing of the country .
• Raising the irrigation potential to equal the current net sown area of about 150 million hectares.
• Mitigate the annual floods in Ganga and Brahamputra Add 34,000 MW of hydropower to the national pool.
• The movement claims that Ganga-Bramaputra are not really water abundant and site the examples of other failed water projects in the world.

 

Negative points associated with the linking of rivers are as follows:

•  Loss of habitat: River interlinking might affect fish feeding and breeding habitats in the rivers and lakes in the water donor zones due to lowering of water volume and enhanced siltation load. The flood plains and wetlands connected with donor rivers would also be affected. River run-offs provide energy for a number of vital processes in downstream estuaries, delta and coastal areas. Reduced river discharge could result in loss of coastal habitats such as mangroves, coral reefs, sea grasses, estuarine and delta regions. 
• Water quality changes: Significant changes in water quality of rivers, lakes, estuaries and coastal waters could occur due to changes in sediment load, nutrients and contaminant levels. The levels of toxicants and contaminants in donor rivers may go up owing to reduction in self-purifying functions subject to changes in flow regimes.

• Loss of biodiversity: Each river system has distinct groups of biota different from other water bodies. When environment is altered, they are affected, with particular threat to endangered and endemic species. The linkage of rivers could also lead to loss and homogenisation of genetic diversity of fishes.
• Changes in land-ocean interactions: River is a critical component of the delta estuary-coastal sea ecosystem. Un-impounded rivers provide energy for a number of vital processes in downstream estuaries, delta and coastal areas, upon which healthy fisheries are dependent. The linkage of rivers could alter the timing and quantity of river discharge into the sea, which may alter the river-mediated land ocean interactions and coastal fisheries.
• The reductionist view of engineering is unable to recognise the ecological significance of the unhindered flows in the river as critical to drainage, transportation of sediments, recharge of groundwater, maintenance of the delta and highly productive estuarine ecosystems and related biodiversity. Hence, it finds little difficulty in locating ‘surplus’ river basins! (Jayanta Bandyopadhyay and Shama Perveen of IIM Kolkata, India, 2004).

  SO, NOW IT IS OUR DUTY TO THINK WHETHER IT  WILL BE  GOOD OR NOT.. IF POSSIBLE LETS HAVE A DISCUSSION.....