I'm back, with lots and lots of questions
Before I get back to business, I thank Shruti and Ritwika for taking my place when I was away. I'm trying my best to write everyday and I wanted the blog to chug along even when I'm not around. I thought about writing posts and scheduling them to be posted automatically everyday but well I didn't want to do it and I couldn't write enough posts in advance. So I ended up asking a couple of friends of mine if they could write when I was away. Luckily enough, three of the two people I asked said yes and Yayy! It has worked out wonderfully, in my opinion!
Pretty much all I did during my vacation was ask questions, a few of which are still stuck in my head. One of them is regarding satellites that specifically monitor industrial exhaust for their harmful gases.
Moving on to my next question, religion is a big deal in India. To elaborate, every (big) temple has a trust associated with it that manages all of the donations made to the god at the temple, the sale of tickets and various other religious events at the temple. My question now has two parts. Firstly, how much about the inner workings of such trusts comes under the RTI Act, given that the EO of the trust is appointed by the State (or is it central?) Government. Secondly, there are many ways to enter the inner sanctum and see god (figuratively). By this I mean that one can get free darshan or one can buy a ticket to be put in front of the line directly and not have to wait for as long. I would like to get information on how the ticket's fare is actually decided upon, given that this is not an exchange of goods to be logically arrived at and where the money acquired through sale of such tickets ends up. Also, I would like to know how many free tickets and paid tickets have been issued over the years. Mind you, some temples just have two kinds of tickets, the free kind and the paid kind but then there are temples, like the TTD, which has more than 2. Way way more than two.
On our way back from Shirdi, which is where I was this last week, we visited a temple near Nasik. This region is also where the Godavari river starts. The godavari river, apart from being the source of life to numerous lives in southern India, is also a source of political turmoil. The southern states have been fighting over the how the waters of the river should be distributed, how many dams can be constructed on the river in various states and so on and so forth. I am of the opinion that politicians fuel this turmoil for their own personal interests, especially during election years. I would like to know how frequently such topics are brought up by politicians and the media and what the frequency of such stories is over the years. On a much more grass roots level, it would be interesting to see how such media stories polarize the state and how much of an influence they have on the elections, which could be done by a door-to-door survey.
Finally, I would like to look at the ratio of limb sizes, and in general the ratio of limb to body sizes, in the animal kingdom. Primates for example have limb ratios different from canines or felines or marsupials. I wonder if there is any relation between limb size or limb to body size and the ability to stand erect or have an erect vertebral column. I'm fairly sure there's some scientific literature regarding similar questions.
Most of these questions are probably just a google search away or an hour of crawling around the internet, at the most. I still wanted to document them. I'll update this post with links as I look for answers or write follow-up posts if the I come across something interesting.
All hail Google!
Pretty much all I did during my vacation was ask questions, a few of which are still stuck in my head. One of them is regarding satellites that specifically monitor industrial exhaust for their harmful gases.
Moving on to my next question, religion is a big deal in India. To elaborate, every (big) temple has a trust associated with it that manages all of the donations made to the god at the temple, the sale of tickets and various other religious events at the temple. My question now has two parts. Firstly, how much about the inner workings of such trusts comes under the RTI Act, given that the EO of the trust is appointed by the State (or is it central?) Government. Secondly, there are many ways to enter the inner sanctum and see god (figuratively). By this I mean that one can get free darshan or one can buy a ticket to be put in front of the line directly and not have to wait for as long. I would like to get information on how the ticket's fare is actually decided upon, given that this is not an exchange of goods to be logically arrived at and where the money acquired through sale of such tickets ends up. Also, I would like to know how many free tickets and paid tickets have been issued over the years. Mind you, some temples just have two kinds of tickets, the free kind and the paid kind but then there are temples, like the TTD, which has more than 2. Way way more than two.
On our way back from Shirdi, which is where I was this last week, we visited a temple near Nasik. This region is also where the Godavari river starts. The godavari river, apart from being the source of life to numerous lives in southern India, is also a source of political turmoil. The southern states have been fighting over the how the waters of the river should be distributed, how many dams can be constructed on the river in various states and so on and so forth. I am of the opinion that politicians fuel this turmoil for their own personal interests, especially during election years. I would like to know how frequently such topics are brought up by politicians and the media and what the frequency of such stories is over the years. On a much more grass roots level, it would be interesting to see how such media stories polarize the state and how much of an influence they have on the elections, which could be done by a door-to-door survey.
Finally, I would like to look at the ratio of limb sizes, and in general the ratio of limb to body sizes, in the animal kingdom. Primates for example have limb ratios different from canines or felines or marsupials. I wonder if there is any relation between limb size or limb to body size and the ability to stand erect or have an erect vertebral column. I'm fairly sure there's some scientific literature regarding similar questions.
Most of these questions are probably just a google search away or an hour of crawling around the internet, at the most. I still wanted to document them. I'll update this post with links as I look for answers or write follow-up posts if the I come across something interesting.
All hail Google!