What was Watergate?

(1972–75), U.S. political scandal surrounding the revelation of illegal activities on the part of the incumbent Republican administration of President Richard M. Nixon during and after the 1972 presidential election campaign.

The matter was first brought to public attention by the arrest of five men who, on June 17, 1972, broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate, an office–apartment–hotel complex in Washington, D.C. Within a few days of their arrest at the Watergate, charges of burglary and wiretapping were brought against the five and against E. Howard Hunt, Jr., a former White House ...

"Watergate" is a general term used to describe a complex web of political scandals between 1972 and 1974.

The word refers to the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. In addition to the hotel, the Watergate complex houses many business offices. It was here that the office of the Democratic National Committee was burgled on June 17th, 1972.

The burglary and subsequent cover-up eventually led to moves to impeach President Richard Nixon. Nixon resigned the presidency on 8 August 1974.

"Watergate" is now an all-encompassing term used to refer to:

• political burglary
• bribery
• extortion
• phonetapping
• conspiracy
• obstruction of justice
• destruction of evidence
• tax fraud
• illegal use of government agencies such as the CIA and the FBI
• illegal campaign contributions
• use of public money for private purposes.

Most of all, "Watergate" is synonymous with abuse of power.

Source--
Britannica Encyclopedia

Elasticity

An important property of many structural materials is their ability to regain their original shape after a load is removed. These materials are called elastic.

Steel, glass and rubber are elastic; putty or modeling clay are not elastic. Each of these materials is elastic to varying degrees; steel and glass are both more elastic than rubber. The degree of elasticity, or "stiffness" of a material is called its Modulus of Elasticity (E). Given the modulus of elasticity, possible deformations can be calculated for any material and loading.

All materials are assumed to be elastic except when indicated otherwise in this course.

Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703), a great English scientist, experimented with springs, clocks and watches. During his investigation of the spring he discovered that in elastic materials, stress and strain are proportional. He first presented this in a lecture in 1678 and it is known today simply as Hooke's Law.

Hooke's Law applies as long as the material stress does not pass a certain point known as its proportional limit. This is the point at which the physical properties of the material actually change. Any time an elastic material is loaded between zero and the proportional limit, the stress and strain are directly proportional and if the load is released the material will regain its initial dimensions. If the stress is doubled the strain is doubled; if the stress is tripled the deformation is three times as great, etc.

The English physician and physicist Thomas Young (1773 - 1829) noted that if stress is proportional to strain, then for any given material, stress divided by strain would be a constant. This constant is known today as Young's Modulus or the Modulus of Elasticity.

The Modulus of Elasticity is represented by E = Stress / Strain.

This relationship is found as the slope of the curve of the stress-strain curve from initial loading to the proportional limit. A higher value of the modulus indicates a more brittle material (i.e. glass, ceramics). A very low value represents a ductile material (i.e. rubber).

Modulus of Elasticity

The values of the modulus of elasticity for structural materials have been determined by tests and are readily available in references such as the AISC manual. Some of the more common values are:

* Steel: E=29,000 KSI (sometimes rounded to 30,000 KSI)
* Aluminum: E=10,000 KSI
* Wood: E=1,000 - 2,000 KSI (usual range)
* Concrete E=2,500 - 5,000 KSI (usual range)

It is often necessary to be able to determine the deformation of a structural member once the loads and physical properties of the structural member are known. This is simply derived and is developed from the stress/strain relationships that have already been established.

Countries Having NO trains!!!!!

No railways

• Andorra - planned 2009
• Bahamas - island
• Bahrain - planned 2008
• Belize - planned 2007
• Bhutan - rail link is expected to come up under Nehru Golden Jubilee project
• Burundi - planned 2008
• Cape Verde - island
• Central African Republic
• Chad
• Cyprus - island
• East Timor - island
• Equatorial Guinea
• Guinea-Bissau
• Iceland (see Rail transport in Iceland)
• Kiribati - island
• Kuwait - planned 2008
• Libya (network under construction, see Libyan Railways)
• Maldives - island
• Malta - island
• Mauritius - island
• Micronesia - island
• Niger
• Oman - planned 2008
• Papua New Guinea - planned 2007
• Rwanda - planned - 2008
• Qatar - planned 2008
• San Marino - railways Rimini-San Marino until 1944 link Italy to San Marino
• São Tomé and Príncipe - island
• Seychelles - island
• Somalia - Mogadishu-Villabruzzi Railway existed from 1914 to 1941
• The Gambia
• Trinidad and Tobago - Trinidad Government Railway from 1876 until 1968; Trinidad Rapid Railway now planned
• Tuvalu - island
• Vanuatu - island
• Yemen - planned 2008

TKDL( Traditional Knowledge Digital Library)

Recently India and the US have signed two inter-governmental agreements during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's first state visit to the US. One of them is TKDL Access between Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) and US Patent and Trademark Office(USPTO).

Introduction

Since time immemorial, India has possessed a rich traditional knowledge of ways and means practiced to treat diseases afflicting people. This knowledge has generally been passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. A part of this knowledge has been described in ancient classical and other literature, often inaccessible to the common man and even when accessible rarely understood. Documentation of this existing knowledge, available in public domain, on various traditional systems of medicine has become imperative to safeguard the sovereignty of this traditional knowledge and to protect it from being misappropriated in the form of patents on non-original innovations, and which has been a matter of national concern. India fought successfully for the revocation of turmeric and basmati patents granted by United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and neem patent granted by European Patent Office (EPO). As a sequel to this, in 1999, the Department of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy-(AYUSH), erstwhile Department of Indian System of Medicine and Homoeopathy (ISM&H) constituted an inter-disciplinary Task Force, for creating an approach paper on establishing a Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL). The project TKDL was initiated in the year 2001.

TKDL provides information on traditional knowledge existing in the country, in languages and format understandable by patent examiners at International Patent Offices (IPOs), so as to prevent the grant of wrong patents. TKDL thus, acts as a bridge between the traditional knowledge information existing in local languages and the patent examiners at IPOs.

TKDL is a collaborative project between Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Ministry of Science and Technology and Department of AYUSH, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and is being implemented at CSIR. An inter-disciplinary team of Traditional Medicine (Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and Yoga) experts, patent examiners, IT experts, scientists and technical officers are involved in creation of TKDL for Indian Systems of Medicine.

The project TKDL involves documentation of the traditional knowledge available in public domain in the form of existing literature related to Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and Yoga, in digitized format in five international languages which are English, German, French, Japanese and Spanish. Traditional Knowledge Resource Classification (TKRC), an innovative structured classification system for the purpose of systematic arrangement, dissemination and retrieval has been evolved for about 25,000 subgroups against few subgroups that was available in earlier version of the International Patent Classification (IPC), related to medicinal plants, minerals, animal resources, effects and diseases, methods of preparations, mode of administration, etc. www.tkdl.res.in/

Burj Dubai

Burj Dubai is the tallest man-made structure in the world, surpassing the KVLY-TV Tower in North Dakota as well as Warszawa Radio Mast, the previous tallest structure ever built.

The triple-lobed footprint of the building is based on an abstracted desert flower native to the region.

A subtle reference to the onion domes of Islamic architecture can be found in the building's silhouette when looking up at the lobes from near the base.

The tower will be situated on a man-made lake which is designed to wrap around the tower and to provide dramatic views of it.

Engineers working on the design considered installing triple-decker elevators, which would have been the first in the world. The realized building will use double-decker elevators.

The top of the building will contain a public observation deck and a private club above that.

Although the building's shape resembles the bundled tube concept of the Willis Tower, it is structurally very different and is technically not a tube structure.

The design by Skidmore Owings & Merrill replaces a plan to reuse the design for Grollo Tower, which was proposed in Melbourne a few years earlier.

"Burj" is Arabic for "Tower" .

The highest residential floor will be level 109.

An observation deck will occupy the 124th floor.

The building was rotated 120 degrees to allow for less stress from the prevailing winds.

The building sits on a concrete and steel podium with 192 piles descending to a depth of more than 50 metres (164 feet).

A total of 45,000 cubic metres of concrete are used in the foundations with a weight in excess of 110,000 tonnes.

The exterior cladding is of reflective glazing with aluminium and textured stainless steel spandrel panels with vertical tubular fins of stainless steel.

The cladding system is designed to withstand Dubai's extreme summer temperatures.

This is the first world's tallest building since prehistoric times to include residential space.

The official height has not been released, and remains secret. The total height of 808/818 meters is subject to change. Courtesy--

dOSE -World Heritage Sites

World Heritage Sites - Elephanta Caves

Elephanta Caves ( 1987), Maharashtra

Location-------The Elephanta Caves (180 56’ 20” N; 720 55’ 50” E), taluka Uran, district Raigad is located on island hills about 11 km north-east of the Apollo Bandar, Mumbai and 7 km from the shore of the mainland, approximately covering an area of 7 km in circumference.

The island is named after a colossal elephant found in the island, which is popularly known as ‘Gharapuri’. At present, the statue of elephant is housed at Jijamata Garden in Mumbai. In ancient period, the place is variously identified as Puri which is mentioned in the Aihole inscription of Pulakesin II. It seems, different dynasties held their sway over this island, namely, the Konkan-Mauryas, Trikutakas, Chalukyas of Badami, Silaharas, Rashtrakutas, Kalyani Chalukyas, Yadavas of Deogiri, Muslim rulers of Ahmedabad and then by the Portuguese. The Marathas also had this island under their control and from them it passed into the control of the British.

There are seven cave excavations in the Elephanta group and these are datable from circa 6th – 7th centuries A.D. Among the cave excavations, the Cave 1 is the most impressive which represents the evolved Brahmanical rock-cut architecture. The cave is also famous for the exquisite and vibrant sculptures. On plan it almost resembles the Dumar Lena (Cave 29) of Ellora. The cave has a main entrance on the north with two other openings on the east and west respectively and a central hall with six rows of pillared columns, six in each row except on the western corner, where a shrine of lingam is provided.

On plan, there are three large square recesses divided off by pilasters each of them bearing a gigantic image of a dvarapala. The panel on the east has a figure of ardhanarisvara, a form of Siva with the combined energies of male and female; and on the west figures of Siva and Parvati playing chausar is carved. The central recess holds the most famous and remarkable sculpture of this period known as the Mahesa-murti. It is a colossal bust of the three forms of Siva, the aghora, turbulent and fearsome; tatpurusha, benign and meditative and vamadeva, mild pleasing and lovable. The other notable panels in the main cave are Andhakasuravada murti; cosmic dance of Nataraja; Kalyanasundara murti; Gangadhara murti; Ravana shaking Kailasa and Siva as Lakulisa. A panel depicting Saptamatrikas near the eastern opening is also remarkable.

Open from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M.

Closed on Monday

Entrance Fee:
Citizens of India and visitors of SAARC (Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Maldives and Afghanistan) and BIMSTEC Countries (Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Myanmar) - Rs. 10 per head.

Others: US $ 5 or Indian Rs. 250/- per head

(children up to 15 years free)

Source---http://asi.nic.in/asi_monu_whs_elephanta.asp