This blog has become a sort of personal-cum-public diary. As for its contents, some are meant for me and my friends and relatives; others are for the public. This blog will have only positive, ennobling, elevating, encouraging and uplifting thoughts/ideas/materials. Whoever visits should feel happy and should be able to pick up some good ideas/thoughts/links. In short, "NOTHING NEGATIVE" is my motto.(Grateful thanks to Jon Sullivan and Public-Domain-Photos.com for the background photo)
Happy New Year 2021
WISH YOU ALL A HAPPY, HEALTHY,
PROSPEROUS AND PURPOSEFUL
NEW YEAR 2020
Please Also
Watch: "TEJAS EXPRESS coaches with AMRITSAR SHATABDI EXPRESS / 2nd Trial
Run "
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSbd4...
--~--
From the
Himalayas in the north to the Nilgiris in the south - for a hundred years these
little trains have climbed through the clouds and into the wonderful world of
Indian Hill Railways.
The Nilgiri
Mountain Railway is a romantic line, popular with honeymooners and driven by
love and devotion as well as steam. It chugs through the south Indian jungle up
to a hill station, once known as Snooty Ooty.
The current
guard is Ivan. Married for twenty years, he is concerned about his friend
Jenni, the ticket inspector, because he's still a bachelor - but Jenni has a
secret.
In the
engine shed, Shivani, the railway's first female diesel engineer, is working on
a steam loco. She has to make it look its best, as in the year of filming,
1999, the railway celebrated its centenary. The high point is the Black Beauty
competition to pick the best engine on the line, but rains and landslides
threaten the proceedings and the tourist business. Will love win out in the
end?
Grateful
thanks to BBC FOUR, TRAINS UNLIMITED !!! and YouTube and all the others who
made this video possible
There was a
major discovery in Egypt this week, as researchers unearthed 30 ancient coffins
-- their vibrant paintings still intact. Archaeologists opened the coffins on
Saturday and found perfectly preserved mummies inside.» Subscribe to NBC News:
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NBC video: http://bit.ly/MoreNBCNews
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Digital is a collection of innovative and powerful news brands that deliver
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NBCNews.com, MSNBC.com, TODAY.com, Nightly News, Meet the Press, Dateline, and
the existing apps and digital extensions of these respective properties. We deliver the best in breaking news, live
video coverage, original journalism and segments from your favorite NBC News
Shows.
In this
must-see clip, a River of Lava originating from the Hawaiian volcano Kilauea
snakes it's way over land before meeting the sea and exploding below the waves
in a dramatic battle of the elements. Subscribe: http://bit.ly/BBCEarthSub
🎮Support
our channel by downloading Dragon Champions from
http://www.patron.me/kingsandgeneralsDC and get 500 dracoins, 250.000 gold, 500
energy, 100 autobattle tickets or 10 shards of Korkrim!
In our new
animated historical documentary, we will cover the battle of Plassey of 1757
between the British East India Company and the Nawab of Bengal. This battle
happened within the Seven Years' War and during the fall of the Mughal Empire,
and was decisive in terms of the British conquest of India.
Now that we
have started to work on the second season of our animated historical
documentary series on the Mongol Empire, we decided to make this video to
refresh the memory of what happened during the rise of the Mongols. In this
video we are covering the conquests of China, Central Asia, Iran, Caucasus,
Eastern Europe via the battles of Yehuling, Parwan, Indus River, Kalka, Mohi,
Legnica, Ain Jalut, Yamen and others, featuring Genghis Khan, Ogedei, Batu,
Kublia, Chagatai, Subutai, Jebe, Tolui, Jalal-ad-din, Baibars, Qutuz and
others.
Grateful
thanks to KINGS AND GENERALS and YouTube and all the others who made this video
possible
5 most
incredible science discoveries already made in 2020. Today, we take a look at
these 5 incredible science discoveries that's been made in 2020.
The year
2020 has ushered in some revolutionary advances and discoveries, some of which
sound like they are just out of a science fiction book, though they are very
real and likely to immensely change the world.
Researchers
have made remarkable steps towards understanding the planet, human physiology,
medicine, geography, and surroundings.
Grateful
thanks to UNEXPLAINED MYSTERIES and YouTube and all the others who made this
video possible
National
Geographic VR takes you flying in 360° to the rim of a spectacular erupting
volcano. Over 15,500 feet tall, Klyuchevskoy is one of the tallest and most
active volcanoes on the planet.
Grateful
thanks to NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC and YouTube and all the others who made this
video possible
"Even
near the highest peak in the world, life manages to thrive. Follow a global
team of scientists on the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet
Everest Expedition as they measure the biodiversity in Nepal’s Khumbu Valley
and investigate how high alpine species are adapting to global climate
change."
Grateful
thanks to NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC and YouTube and all the others who made this
video possible
Dam collapse
in China could point to a 'black swan' disaster.
The dam at a
small reservoir in China’s Guangxi region gave way last month after days of
heavy rain in a collapse that could be a harbinger of sterner tests for many of
the country’s 94,000 aging dams as the weather gets more extreme.
Located in
Yangshuo county, famed for its otherworldly karst landscape, the dam collapsed
at around midday on June 7, inundating roads, orchards and fields in Shazixi
village, residents told Reuters.
“I’ve never
seen such flooding,” said villager Luo Qiyuan, 81, who helped build the dam
decades ago.
“The water
levels were never so high in previous years, and the dam had never collapsed.”
Completed in
1965, the dam, made of compacted earth, was designed to hold 195,000 cubic
metres of water, enough to fill 78 Olympic-size swimming pools and meet the
irrigation needs of Shazixi’s farmers.
On a visit
to the reservoir in mid-July, Reuters found the length of the dam, of about 100
metres, had largely vanished. It was reinforced 25 years ago.
The water
went over the dam, which then collapsed, said a member of a survey crew at the
reservoir, declining to be identified as he was not authorised to speak to
media.
Shazixi
residents said there were no deaths.
But the
collapse, which was not reported by domestic media, suggests big storms might
be enough to overwhelm reservoirs, especially if the design is inferior and
maintenance has been patchy.
That raises
the prospect of disaster in river valleys and flood plains that are much more
densely populated than they were when the dams were built.
Environmental
groups say climate change is bringing heavier and more frequent rain. Massive
flooding could trigger unforeseen “black swan” events, the government says,
with extreme consequences.
EXTREME
EVENTS.
Thousands of
dams were built in the 1950s and 1960s in a rush led by Mao Zedong to fend off
drought in a largely agrarian China.
In 2006, the
Ministry of Water Resources said, between 1954 and 2005, dykes had collapsed at
3,486 reservoirs due to sub-standard quality and poor management.
It was
unclear if record-breaking rains were to blame for the Shazixi collapse or if
the dam’s emergency spillway had been blocked by silt or if it was a design
problem.
The water
resources department in the area declined to comment. The county government did
not respond to a request for comment.
In Guangxi,
in southwestern China, rainfall and temperatures were on average significantly
higher in 1990-2018 compared with the previous 29 years, official data shows.
It’s the
extreme events that put dams at risk, said David Shankman, a geographer at the
University of Alabama who studies Chinese floods.
“But a dam
should be able to withstand extreme events even if they become regular, and
when the flood is over, it should be exactly of the same quality as before the
event, if the dam was properly designed and built,” Shankman said.
According to
a notice at the Shazixi reservoir’s monitoring station, the 151.2 metre-tall
dam was built with a once-every-two-century worst-case scenario in mind in
which water was expected to reach 149.48 metres. Last month, it overflowed.
In the
county seat of Yangshuo in June, more rain fell in three hours than usually
falls in two months.
The Ministry
of Water Resources did not respond to a request for comment.
In what
could be another sign of trouble to come, water behind a dam on a tributary of
the Yangtze river rose so sharply that authorities on Sunday were forced to
blow up part of the dam to lower the level.
