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Denis Giles

16 March 2017

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By Arun Bapat

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The Andaman and Nicobar Island area along with neighboring Indonesia, Thailand and a number of south Asian countries have tremendously suffered due to 26 December earthquake (of magnitude around 9.3) and associated tsunami. The event could be described as most unprecedented natural hydraulic disasters. The Nicobar Island has suffered maximum as compared to the Andaman Island.

Statistically, the occurrence of tsunami is extremely rare event which could once in few decades or century. The transient event gives rise to spurt of violent and frenzied disgust resulting in some immediate populist but non-scientific and improbable suggestions. After the December 2004 Tsunami the then Chief Minister of Tamilnadu requested to provide sufficient financial aid to build a 700 km long wall in Arabian Sea opposite Tamil Coast. This was to protect the Tamilnadu coast.  The then Prime Minister immediately granted the funds. Subsequently the whole thing was forgotten by people and Government. It could be said that we sink as we rise, through sympathy.

There have been several conferences, seminars, congress, debates etc after the event. But these were mostly confined to scientific, engineering or some administrative fields. As a matter of fact some of the findings, observations and results etc should be helpful in planning future plans to avoid and suitably mitigate the tsunami disaster.

Some significant observations during pre-, co- and post-seismic event of 26 December 2004 have been used extensively in various scientific disciplines. These would definitely be useful and be used in future. The most important scientific findings are extremely useful to aviation.  About four to five weeks before the 26 December 2004 event, there was an interesting scientific observations. Australia is located at the southern corner of the southern hemisphere. All planes from Europe, India and other locations mostly pass through or over Singapore.  The long distance planes have a system known as ‘auto pilot system’ for navigation. Here the pilot gives the co-ordinates of the destination and then the auto pilot system takes over the flying of the aero plane. It was observed that all planes while passing over a particular location, the auto pilot system of the planes were getting disengaged. This means that there is something wrong (Garbar) in the system and the flying has to be taken over by manual system. During subsequent several flights the disengaging of auto pilot system was found, recorded and confirmed. At that time the scientific reason was not clear. After the occurrence, it was found that the location was the epicenter of the large earthquake. Before the occurrence of an earthquake the magnetic field at that location gets reduces. The reduction in magnetic field was affecting the auto pilot system.  Now some airlines have instructed pilots to keep a log of such events. I have tried to request the some Indian airline companies but I am awaiting their response. Now the Himalayan region is said to be heading for a very large magnitude earthquake. It would be better if airlines instruct their pilots to keep watch for such incidences.

During the tsunami it was observed that Thailand and Tamilnadu coast, especially Nagapattanam had suffered maximum damages and the tsunami heights at these locations were of the order of about 7.0 to 7.5 meters.  My self and my friend Dr Thiruvenkataswamy from Chennai mathematically examined the observation and come to very interesting observation. We have given a mathematical equation for this purpose. The tsunamigenic vulnerability of east coast of the country is not uniform. The reason is that the waves travelling in the direction of rupture have minimum energy. While the waves travelling at right angles to the direction have maximum energy. The rupture of about 1100 km during the earthquake was near Sumatera and it started from this place in SSE direction and went to NNW direction. From this location there is a Cocos Island in south direction at about 1450 km.  At the NNW end lies Kolkata and Dhaka which are more or less at the same distance of about 1450 km. At these locations the tsunami height was hardly 42 cms. This is very important from various angles.  Few years back the Bangladesh had requested an UN agency for couple of Million Dollars for organizing Tsunami protection. This is not required. Similarly the GOI should also change the uniform tsunamigenic disaster index for the entire east coast.

It well known that about ten hours before the earthquake the reception on television gets disturbed. There are audio, visual and spectral disturbances. The number of disturbances goes on increasing till earthquake time. Similarly all mobile telephone stop functioning about 100 to 120 minutes before earthquake.  These are mostly known as reliable seismic precursors.

The GOI had established an INCOIS (Indian National Committee for Ocean Information System) at Hyderabad. This does the work of observing earthquake and issue tsunami warning when required.  This is a watch and ward type organization. However, there is no institute undertaking basic studies in tsunami. Such studies would be useful to Navy, Ocean Engineering, Coastal development and Port expansion, Ocean Mining etc. I would like to request the GOI and A & N Administration to establish such an institute in Port Blair. At present there no national level institute in A & N. Most of the national institutes such as NPL, NCL etc are located on mainland. Establishment of Indian Tsunami Research Institute in Port Blair would be the first national level institute.

Dr Arun Bapat is a Research Seismologist and visited A & N after tsunami

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Denis Giles

14 March 2017

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By Dr. Dinesh

World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD), is on 15th March it is  an annual occasion for celebration and solidarity within the international consumer movement. It marks the date in 1962 President John F Kennedy first outlined the definition of consumer  rights.WCRD is an opportunity to promote the basic rights of all consumers, for demanding that those rights are respected and protected, and for protesting the market abuses and social injustices which undermine them. WCRD was first observed on 15th March 1983, and has since become an important occasion for mobilising citizens.

 The theme for World Consumer Rights Day 2017 is ‘Building a digital world consumers can trust’.

Well over 3 billion, or 40% of the world’s population is online now, compared with just 1% in 1995, with all projections suggesting this number will continue to rise. Although this still leaves many consumers who are struggling to access these technologies, the rapid growth of the internet, mobile phones and other digital technologies has created opportunities and challenges for millions of consumers around the world. Whilst consumers undoubtedly benefit from the increased access, choice and convenience that these technologies deliver, questions remain about how to improve the quality of services, which online services consumers can trust, what happens to the data they share online and what consumers’ rights are in relation to digital products. The sheer pace of change is also a challenge. Whereas the telephone took 75 years to reach an audience of 50 million, Facebook took one year, and Instagram took just 6 months.

Digital technology has created unprecedented new opportunities for consumers to communicate, access information and choose from a range of products and services. yet, in increasingly internationalised markets, consumers face a number of challenges which, without action, could undermine confidence and trust. The consumer in today's digital world depends on communications networks such as the Internet, and the ability to access and share knowledge across those networks. The consumer movement has an important role in ensuring that such networks and the works exchanged across them are accessible, affordable, reliable and safe.

Many multinational platforms and digital companies have become indispensable to contemporary life, offering high quality, convenient digital interactions. The data monetisation model behind some, where people ‘exchange’ information about themselves for the service with no upfront financial cost, makes for a tantalising offer.   They are the default by which consumers experience and interact with digital - the gateway to the internet if you like: we don’t search, we Google, we don’t make videocalls, we Skype.  The dominance of a small number of firms is significant because people’s choice over whether to engage or not in the digital world is becoming increasingly limited. If a few large companies effectively become gateways to all the internet has to offer, then we have to ask questions about how their size and dominance impact consumer choice, power and protection? Large established players already marking out territory in the internet of things will have to gather and connect data to as many objects and people as possible to make their connected services thrive. The more data points connected, the more potentially valuable the insights, so drawing in and retaining as many customers as possible will be top of companies’ agenda.  Exercising choice could get harder for consumers, as they lean towards contracting with one company as an easy way of bringing together multiple services. In practice, switching provider by exiting contracts will be time consuming or inconvenient.  These limitations on choosing between providers are really important for the digital age.  If competition can no longer effectively deliver consumer protection through providing choice, then we need to approach things differently.   In fact there is the real opportunity to forge a positive consumer agenda for the digital age that addresses areas of consumer concern and offers real choice over how to participate.  A complex, integral and dominating set of relationships should not put us off arguing for a fairer and more accountable digital system for consumers. Widespread digital technology is here.  There is real potential for consumers to benefit but also a flip side presenting widespread negative consumer outcomes.  It is up to us to work together to ensure that the practices and delivery of large digital companies stand up to the scrutiny and expectations of the people whose lives are so entwined with them.

So What are the consumer rights?

• The right to satisfaction of basic needs - To have access to basic, essential goods and services: adequate food, clothing, shelter, health care, education, public utilities, water and sanitation.

• The right to safety - To be protected against products, production processes and services that are hazardous to health or life.

• The right to be informed - To be given the facts needed to make an informed choice, and to be protected against dishonest or misleading advertising and labelling.

• The right to choose - To be able to select from a range of products and services, offered at competitive prices with an assurance of satisfactory quality.

• The right to be heard - To have consumer interests represented in the making and execution of government policy, and in the development of products and services.

• The right to redress - To receive a fair settlement of just claims, including compensation for misrepresentation, shoddy goods or unsatisfactory services.

• The right to consumer education - To acquire knowledge and skills needed to make informed, confident choices about goods and services, while being aware of basic consumer rights and responsibilities and how to act on them.

• The right to a healthy environment -To live and work in an environment that is non-threatening to the well-being of present and future generation

Consumer responsibilities

Consumer responsibilities to compliment consumer rights.

These remain crucial principles for many consumer rights organisations today:

• Critical awareness - consumers must be awakened to be more questioning about the provision of the quality of goods and services.

• Involvement or action - consumers must assert themselves and act to ensure that they get a fair deal.

• Social responsibility - consumers must act with social responsibility, with concern and sensitivity to the impact of their actions on other citizens, in particular, in relation to disadvantaged groups in the community and in relation to the economic and social realties prevailing.

• Ecological responsibility - there must be a heightened sensitivity to the impact of consumer decisions on the physical environment, which must be developed to a harmonious way, promoting conservation as the most critical factor in improving the real quality of life for the present and the future.

• Solidarity - the best and most effective action is through cooperative efforts through the formation of consumer/citizen groups who together can have the strength and influence to ensure that adequate attention is given to the consumer interest.

(Contributed by Dr. Dinesh, Member State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission)

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Denis Giles

15 March 2017

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By Yogi Ashwini

While most arthritis patients take to physiotherapists for treatment, they are unaware of the psychosomatic origins of the disease. Arthritis is essentially a manifestation of emotional congestion that arrest most people by their late twenties. This congestion causes the vital fluids in the joints to dry up slowly. Likewise a lot of friction is produced in the joints, making them brittle in the long run.

Nagging pain in the wrist, pain felt in knees while getting up, or pain in ankle joints , shoulders, pain in finger joints while writing, basically any pain felt in the joints, is the beginning of arthritis. What is the cause of this pain ? As per Ayurveda, this pain is a collection of ama (toxins) in the body which manifests as swelling. If we don’t immediately make amends then arthritis sets in. To remove these symptoms and get rid of arthritis it has to be corrected at the root. Yoga and Ayurveda go to root cause of the problem and the root cause is the emotional centre, the person is emotionally congested.

Clairvoyantly, emotions are seen as small beings/devils flying all around, looking for a weak point to sit on. Wherever they find weakness/instability they go and sit there and keep collecting and form a colony and then start draining the body of the vital prana. Prana, the force that holds the creation together as well as your body. As this prana is constantly being lost from a part of the body it gasps for prana, the same way like you gasp for breath, due to which there is a reaction in the body, somewhat like an allergic reaction which leads to swelling there, that’s arthritis. So simply stop getting emotionally congested, stop being emotional, But then you will ask how is that possible for a normal person? Yes it is definitely possible. You have to lead your life for yourself, for your personal experiences, if you do this there is no question of you being emotionally congested. But if you lead a life to control other people, telling them what they are supposed to do or the other way round people telling you what you are supposed to do then the problem of emotional congestion  starts. So the simplest way to arrest arthritis is stop being emotional. If you think that’s too difficult then let’s take help of yoga and Ayurveda.

Since the problem finds its roots in something that is beyond physical, the solution too calls for a more holistic approach. In the book ‘Sanatan Kriya, The Ageless Dimension’, I have detailed a technique to get riddance from heavy emotions by cutting connections with heavy prana from the surya chakra. This would remove all the heaviness and the body would feel light instantly.

Ayurvedic Remedy: Triphala , amla, baheda are mixed in equal proportions and pounded dry. This is called Tri-Phala , combination of three fruits. This mixture when taken twice a day- early morning and before sleeping at night with hot water, the pain starts to reduce.

In the next article we will take the help of specific yogic asans for getting rid of arthritis.

Yogi Ashwini is the Guiding Light of Dhyan Foundation and an authority on the Vedic Sciences. His book, 'Sanatan Kriya, The Ageless Dimension' is an acclaimed thesis on anti-ageing. Log onto to www.dhyanfoundation.com for more

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Denis Giles

08 March 2017

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By Yogi Ashwini

When you pick up a newspaper in the morning, what is it that you look for...good news or bad? A normal human mind is programmed to look for bad or negative. That is why negative seems more interesting.

To give you a recent example, I had written an article sometime back detailing facts and facets of subtler worlds and dimensions. The article spoke at length about experiences one has and about the evolution of a being on the path of sadhna. There was also a mention of how ego is a roadblock on the path of yoga and needs to be kept in control. Whether one is the president of chamber of commerce or a basic person, the subject has to be approached with humility for the experiences to happen.

Now, I have a friend who is the president of chamber of commerce. When he read this article, he retorted back saying I was referring to him. I only mentioned the post as an example and there maybe 45 other presidents of chamber of commerce, but of all the insightful things written in that article, this gentleman took back only that. He completely missed out on the gyan of the subject.

The above is a perfect case of how we choose negativity. It is the basic nature of a human being. Ayurveda explains this with the help of the three doshas or defects that make up a human body casting him/here into the whirlpool of diseases, imbalances, emotional congestion and an overall negative approach towards life. If there is dosha (negativity) in the body, the body will remain. That is there is always an aspect of negativity in humans, the level of negativity decides whether you are good or bad. When negativity is more, one is termed as bad, when it is less, he/she is called good. Swami Vivekanand once at a lecture expressed a similar view while speaking of a black dot on a white background that was presented to him. He explained how all our lives we focus on the tiny black dot, missing out on the limitless white expanse. This is in fact is the primary reason why whether someone drives a luxury car or travels by a bus, each one is unhappy and disturbed with the way things are. I get countless mails daily from all over the world, and 99% of them are negative. If only we could change from negative to positive, our health would improve as would the quality of life, and time (both good and bad) which seems to drag at a snail’s pace would seem to be pass away in no time. That is a sign of evolution.

Holi is a perfect time to move from negativity towards positivity. This purnima of the month of Phalgun holds within itself the phenomenal power to burn away negativity. History is proof of how when Holika sat in the lap of fire with the virtuous Prahlad, Prahlad came out unscathed while Holika’s body disintegrated, indicating the end of negativity. In the yogic philosophy, disintegration of body is not viewed as an end, but simply a transformation of elements, fire being the chief agent of change. Even as the body disintegrates, the journey of the spirit, continues. Holika on the purnima of Holi moved from negativity to positivity and so can each one of us, through specific jaaps and yagya under the sanidhya of Guru.

The night of holi is a powerful night, a night of silence and of internalization, a night when the potency of various mantras and jaaps is at its peak as is the transformational effect of fire. It is a night of chanting mantras which have been channelized by one’s Guru and of invocation of positivity through yagya in presence of your Guru. The experiences one gets and their effects on one’s being equals the sadhna of many years together, in just one night.

So the next time you read my article or listen to a lecture, please do not pick out one or two parts which are negative, look for positivity and growth.

Yogi Ashwini is the Guiding Light of Dhyan Ashram and can be reached at www.dhyanfoundation.com