Serendipity : Musings of an Islander

Aqueduct at Panighat, South Andaman : Story of a Forgotten Archaeological Legacy By Debkumar Bhadra Panighat, located about 4 km from Bambooflat Jetty in South Andaman at the foothills of Mount Harriet, now known as Mount Manipur, is a small settlement with a layered past. While the site is historically associated with the assassination of Lord Mayo by Sher Ali Khan on 8 February 1872, it holds another, lesser-known yet remarkable legacy - a British-era aqueduct system that defines the area’s identity and utility. The very name Panighat (literally “water point”) owes its origin to the forgotten, gravity-driven water transport system. This article traces the story of this rare water infrastructure, which once sustained maritime activity in the region but now lies in ruins, awaiting attention and conservation in equal measures. A Rare Archaeological/Engineering Legacy and its Decline The aqueduct at Panighat was designed by the British empire to transport freshwater from a...

Vast separation of the A ndaman and N icobar group of islands from mainland India by sea, its unique biological wealth, strategic location and the fact that these islands are home for six Primitive Aboriginal Tribes, instilled awe from all quarters of the world. The islands ecosystem is unique, fragile, biodiversity is rich and endemism is high, hence utilization of the islands natural resources are restricted by various regulatory mechanisms. Owing to limited resources, environmental constraints and obvious compulsions, the islands are depending on mainland India for almost anything to everything from essential commodities such as food, clothing and shelter material to health care facilities and services. Large ships facilitate movement of these essential commodities between mainland and P ort B lair ports. Once the bulk cargo meant for the entire population of A&N I sland lands at Port Blair, small to medium capacity boats ferry these essential commodities by sea rout...

Every one of us had sung the rhyme – twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are ... numerous times during our childhood, isn’t it? Apart from featuring in our nursery rhymes, stars have been important to civilizations throughout the world. They have been part of various religious practices and used for celestial navigation and orientation. Many ancient astronomers believed stars were permanently affixed to a heavenly sphere, and that they were immutable. By convention, astronomers grouped stars into constellations and used them to track the motions of the planets and inferred the position of the Sun. The motion of the Sun against the background stars (and the horizon) was used to create calendars that in turn regulated agricultural practices. The currently used Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar, based on the angle of the Earth's rotational axis relative to its local star, the Sun. Let ...

Summer vacation is on, the sun is shining overhead and the children have declared they are going to make this vacation a memorable one. Everybody is out there on the playground with their cricketing gear chasing the passionate dream of emulating Sachin Tendulkar and nothing is going to stop them from achieving it this summer, not even the scorching sun. Passion fruit vine While dad feels proud seeing his kid shaping in right direction, mom is getting tense for the fear that her child may get dehydrated. She did add a bottle full of nourishing drink fortified with glucose, vitamins and essential salts to the kit bag, but her  Sachin in the making  seldom drinks it because he does not like the same drink everyday. Though he enjoys playing cricket everyday, but would not gulp the same drink daily. At the end of the day her child returns home all exhausted. A refreshing drink would charge him up, but how could mom find a new drink every day! If t...

THIS ARTICLE IS A WORK OF FICTION, WRITTEN IN LIGHTER VEIN, NOT TO HURT OR INVOKE ANYBODY’S SENTIMENTS. THE TITLE, STATEMENTS, SITUATIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS ARE PURELY HYPOTHETICAL IN NATURE Andaman and Nicobar Islands, separated from mainland India by vast stretches of seas on all its sides are a remote place where the population is devoid of entertainment and amusement facilities unlike their mainland counterparts. Those inhabiting these islanders are therefore left to indulge in various activities such as rash driving, playing mobile ringtones at peak volume, chewing pan/gutka/sukka, spitting, littering, smoking, eve teasing, honking pressure/musical horns, visiting bars, playing cards, board games etc in a bid to quench their thirst for entertainment. The recent effort to grant bar license to 17 enterprising individuals vide Press Note No 7-392/LS/2009-10/6440 dated 04/11/2010 published in the Administrations mouthpiece The Daily Telegrams on the festive day of Dee...

Following the 9.0 magnitude undersea earthquake tsunami that hit J apan on M arch 11 th 2011, wide ranging discussions on safety aspects relating to nuclear power has taken centre stage. The earthquake triggered giant tsunami waves washed away almost anything and everything coming in its way, in some of the places upto 10 km inland. The J apanese   N ational P olice A gency   has confirmed over 13000 deaths and many more injured or missing. The multiple disasters further caused extensive and severe damage to over 125000 buildings,   roads, railways as well as fires in many areas. The worst however was the effect on F ukushima D ai-ichi N uclear P ower P lant (NPP). Though the structure could survive the “strong ground motion” and shut down automatically, failure of ancillary system to cool the reactors (necessary to remove  decay heat  after the reactor has been shut down, and to maintain spent fuel pools) resulted in multiple explosions creating a pa...