B2B

I used to enjoy the comforts of my car, driving to office within the  confines of an air conditioned environment. But two things changed my mindset towards office commute:

1. One day I was sitting in my car waiting to get out of a massive traffic jam, listening to my favorite music. Then I heard the helpless siren of an ambulence behind me carrying a critical patient. It then struck me hard that probably my yearning for luxury was delaying a medical treatment for that critical patient. Then I thought, what if he dies? Wouldn't I be responsible for it, along with many other drivers around me?!  
2. The picture below (borrowed and modified from a picture created by the NGO Hasiru Usiru). I hope it requires no additional explanation. 

The above two had a profound impact on me and I stopped taking my car to office completely, ever since. Switching to mass transport was not easy for me initially as it required additional walking to the bus stop and the uncertainty of when the bus comes. But I soon realised that it is a very small sacrifice to a city that gave me so much. It has been 2 years since I have been commuting the 18 km, that separates my home from the office, using BMTC and I would prefer the bus to my car any day.....

  

  So want to be the change?

                                                                                  B2B

B2B stands for Bus to Bannerughatta, an initiative to appeal to BMTC to improve the bus service along Bannerughatta Road.

Sounds interesting? Please continue reading….

In spite of having so many companies, educational institutions and hospitals, the bus service along Bannerughatta Road is comparatively poor. While connectivity from Bangalore City Bus Stand to Bannerughatta is good, surprisingly there is no connectivity to the Metro Station at MG Road. Having spent so much on implementing Bangalore Metro, it is ironic that a main station like MG Road has no bus connectivity to an IT corridor like Bannerughatta Road.

A team of people involved in environment related activities in my company CSG, are planning to write to BMTC to improve the bus connectivity to this road, especially from Shivaji Nagar. But we need to show the commuter demand so as to get easier acceptance by BMTC to this  appeal. So if you or any of your friends work in Bannerughatta road and keen to switch to bus, please drop an email to rbsuresh@yahoo.com with your name, telephone number, company name, home location, time of travel and preferred route by 29 May 2012. I do not know how successful we will be in this endeavor, but at least we must try.

By switching to a mass transport service, we can help the cause of:

• A critical patient to reach the hospital in time*
• A traffic constable in managing the traffic
• Your employer, by improving our collective productivity
• The nation by reducing the consumption of petroleum, thereby reducing our Current Account Deficit (and making Rupee stronger)
• The environment, the obvious beneficiary
• Above all, Yourself, as you will reach office/home less tired and less stressed**. Needless to say, you don’t spend on expensive petrol.

*Think about the three main hospitals along this road Sagar Apollo, Jayadeva and Fortis. How many critical patients would have suffered or lost their lives for not reaching the hospitals in time, due to traffic?!

**Study shows that one of the main causes of heart attack among urban dwellers is the stress induced by the traffic.

A rendezvous with Aurora Borealis

When I was a child I always used to be fascinated with the phenomenon called Aurora, that magnificent light show that nature performs in the latitudes closer to the north and south poles. So when I got a chance to visit Alberta in Canada in 2008, I knew it will be once in a lifetime chance to witness this which we are not privileged to watch in the tropics. But odds were heavily stacked against me to watch this because: 1) It is a rare and unpredictable phenomenon, though more regular during winters, 2) It should be a cloudless, moonless night, 3) we should reach the country side, which is an easy 100KM drive away from the city lights to watch this and hence 4) it should happen on that particular night that we rent a car. But I was optimistic.


Many of our local colleagues in Edmonton discouraged us saying it is a gamble and you have to be extremely lucky to sight it. But having crossed the seven seas to reach Canada, me and two other enthusiastic colleagues, Deepak and Saif, were ready to take the gamble. So we hired a car, drove off into the Alberta prairies on a shivering November Saturday night at 9:30pm. After driving for about 30 minutes, just as we hit Trans Canada Highway 16 away from the city lights, we could see the distinct greenish glow on the horizon that is so typical of the impending display of aurora. Initially we thought it is an illusion as we were so desperate to watch it, but as the glow became stronger we knew that nature was setting the stage for a grand performance. We immediately got off the highway onto to a country road heading north. Great thing about the prairies is that it gives great unhindered view of the skies all the way to the low horizon. So the spots for sky watching are yours for picking.

Pic 1: The distinct greenish glow that appears in the low horizon, a sign of an impending aurora.


After about 15 minutes drive, just as we reached a place far away from all city lights the show began. The auroras appeared about 40 degrees azimuth. We stopped the car, hurriedly setup the tripod and camera at -8 degree Celcius with only light coming from the Camera LCD. Yes, we were ill-equipped to work in the dark that night. Since I did not have a remote shutter release, I had to keep the shutter release pressed for 2 minutes in the freezing cold to get these pictures. It is not easy as after few seconds your fingers will start becoming numb due to the cold and it becomes extremely difficult to keep it pressed.  Later I realized that in the excitement of watching the aurora, I had set my camera at ISO 100. Damn, probably with a higher ISO setting of 800 or 1600 I could have got a sharper image, though grainy.

Pic 2 and 3: Auroras at the peak with Ursa Major overseeing the proceedings.


120 seconds exposure at ISO100, f/3.5 on a Canon 450D 18-55mm Kit Lens.


The show went on for nearly 30 minutes before the aurorae slowly vanished. But we were not satisfied. Got back into the car and waited till midnight, but the aurorae never returned. Looking back at that night, I feel nature was too generous for us. It was as though it was a special show arranged just for these three amigos from the tropic!

What is an Aurora?


An aurora is a natural light display high in the Earth’s atmosphere, caused by energetic particles from the Sun, colliding with the Earth’s magnetic field. This glorious show is called the Aurora Borealis in the Northern hemisphere and Aurora Australis in the Southern hemisphere, but are commonly known as the Northern and Southern lights.

Viewing aurora is incredibly simple, but the conditions need to be right for a display to appear.

Normally you can only see aurora near the poles, such as in Canada, Iceland, and Norway or southern Australia and Antarctica, but when the Sun is highly active, more solar material is thrown in Earth’s direction, creating powerful geomagnetic storms. These storms can bring auroral displays further south to areas such as Southern UK and North to mid latitudes of the USA. The intensity scale is known as the Planetary KP index and basically the higher the KP number the further south Aurorae can be seen, KP 8 or higher can be good for observers further south. To find out what current levels are check spaceweather.com or the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks

The best time to spot aurora is around midnight, but this can change depending on viewing conditions and the current intensity of the magnetic storm. Once you are comfortable and your eyes have adjusted to the dark, face north (or south in the Southern Hemisphere). Look low and close to the horizon and look for the faint green/ reddish glow of aurora. It may be quite difficult to see at first, but if it is a powerful display it can be very easy to spot.

There is an aurora alert that has gone out recently due to a high solar activity and a large Sun Spot visible to the naked eye. Those who are in the higher latitudes, this is a great opportunity to watch this grand spectacle.

Pic 4: The real-time view of the range and intensity of the auroras provided by www.spaceweather.com

Pic 5: Aurora intensity scale

Credits

Thank you Andrew Fazekas, a Canadian astronomer, for providing me the timely guidance through email to watch this (his website which has lot of useful real-time details: www.andrewfazekas.com/stargazing/tonight.htm). Also check out his video that graphically explains how auroras form: www.youtube.com/watch?v=x36UcM-aunQ. Details on “What is an Aurora” are borrowed from http://www.universetoday.com/. More details at http://spaceweather.com/