THE WORLD PORTAL

KERALA BOAT TRAGEDY

‘God’s own country’, Kerala had witnessed the worst boat tragedy in its history on Wednesday. The boat tragedy was occurred on Wednesday at 5.15 p.m in the famous tourist spot ‘Thekkady Lake’ in Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary in Idukki district. The tragedy occurred when a boat  “Jalakanyaka”  overturned near Manakkavala in Thekkady lake around eight kilometers away from the boat landing center. The boat contains 76 passengers and most of the passengers were tourists from abroad and north India. In this tragedy, 39 deaths were confirmed till now and the death toll may increase. According to the reports, the accident happened when the people on board moved towards one side of the boat to see elephants and then the boat had overturned. Other boats around them had then moved towards the Jalakanyaka and tried to rescue the people on the boat. State forces and Naval forces started rescue operations. People on the upper deck were mostly rescued and those who have died were traveling on the lower deck. Most of the victims were trapped beneath the seats in the boat and were not able to save themselves. The rescued persons are being treated at various hospitals. The police and the naval divers are still searching for those missing in the lake.  Kerala Government ordered an enquiry into this incident. In this tragedy, boat carrying school children overturned at the Thattekkad Bird Sanctuary in Ernakulam district in which 22 people including primary students were dead. All these tragedies points to the failure of the government to follow basic safety standards while carrying the people through a deep reservoir.

SHAASTRA-2009

Shaastra-2009, 11th annual technical event, held by IIT Madras started on September 30 and will conclude on october 4. This show familiarise the technical products like Techmet, iCar etc. Techmet is a novel helmet is a product from the brain of two B Tech students Mohit Mittal and Rajan Gupta at IIT Madras. The Techmet is similar to the normal helment which comes with a brain. If any force  experienced on Techmet, it will cross the maximum limit and will send text messages to predetermined numbers. The Techmet includes an implanted bluetooth, global positioning system or micro-controllers. This show familiarize other products such as ‘Algiesel’ and ‘Want to Fly-3′.  ‘Algiesel’ is a fuel manufactured from algae and ‘want to fly 3′ is a plane which can fly its own when provided with starting and ending points. Another major attraction in this event is ‘icar’. It has the potential to detect and avoid road destruction. Another product is ‘touch talk’, which can contribute a helping hand for the speech distortion for communicating in an easier way. The visitors also have the opportunity to see a multi-functional robot ‘Be Bot’. The organizers expected to participate about 2000 participants from 200 colleges. About 25000 visitors were attracted by this show. This show gives a platform for the college students to shoe their scientific and engineering talents. It is really a different show. It holds the distinction for the first such as event in the world to be ISO 9001:2000 certified.

ABOUT THE EVENT

Shaastra is an annual technical fest organized by the Indian Institute of technology, Madras. This event is completely opened for college students.It provides a perfect platform for programmers to showcase their abilities by realizing some of the most challenging problems and attempting to solve it faster than some of the best in the business. This show expected to attract 30,000 students from all over the world. The focus of this contest is not just on solving problems from a wide variety of areas, but also on the elegance of the solution. The biggest event this year will be the ‘AeroFest’, being held for the first time in India. This show consists of science and technology based competitions, lectures, demos, video conference & workshops. It is one of the top programming contests held in India. This event is a great place to introduce our new ideas and find the solution for old problems and foresee the problems that yet to come. ‘Shaastra 2009′ aimed to showcase the sustainability of the projects.