AC Buses from Navi Mumbai made life lot easier

BEST AC Bus chineese made

NMMT AC bus - Volvo

NMMT and BEST have started many AC buses from Navi Mumbai to Mumbai, which has made life lot easier for some people

NMMT AC buses are much better than BEST AC buses and fair is also cheaper (around 20-25% cheaper)

NMMT major bus routes
1. Bus No 105 from Belapur to Bandra Stn and Bandra Stn to Belapur
great thing about this Bus is that it starts from Bandra Stn gate (At west) itself. So if you are coming out of the station you don't need to go far to catch the Bus, you might find the Bus standing outside station waiting for you.

2. Bus No 123 from Belapur to Borwali Station via seepz

BEST Major Bus routes

1. Bus No AC-505 - same route of 105

2. Bus No AC-523 - from Vashi to Dindoshi via seepz

3. Bus No AC-525 - from MIDC Mahape to Boriwali stn via seepz - This bus starts from Mahape and normally goes very less crowded. Special thing about this Bus is that it goes via Eastern Express Highway and over Kanjur Marg bridge and L&T bridge, so it goes much faster. From Ghansoli station to seepz in morning it takes hardly 45-50 mins. Till airoli the seats are vacant in the Bus

To check the timing of NMMT and Best Buses and various route detail, check the following link

http://sites.google.com/site/indiabus

The above site is maintained by my friend Rajan Methew

Plants exhibition in Vashi on 23rd - 24th Jan 2010

Today I visited plants exhibition at Vashi along with family. They have very nice collections of flowers and plants. It is very good initiative to create awareness about greenery and global warming

Aman with deer
Monkeys family behind Aman and Aryan

With Sale sahab and monkey famliy

Nice snap think I should become a photographer now

Some initiatives to control global warming

Use of solar energy

Aman's usual pose

Taking care of younger brother

Again my great photograph

Nice collection of flowers

Very nice collections

Why kids are killing themselve, who is responsible - part2

This is in continuty of my previous blog Why kids are killing themselve, who is responsible

One of my British friends read my blog “Why kids are killing themselves” and told me that even in UK number suicide cases among teens have increased and given me a link to read.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3399528.ece
As in my previous blog I was discussing about my observations on kids behavior, not going to far my own 5 & 2.5 year old sons know name of as many animals that I was not knowing most of them when I was doing my secondary schooling. May be level of education has grown and our kids now are much smarter. I gave few more thoughts over it and figured out; they know more animals as they see them on television, they have got many colored and attractive pictures of them, while at my time these sources were not there I learned about animals mostly by actually seeing them around. We may all agree that electronics media has become major source of learning for our kids, which should not be a problem as finally our kids are learning faster than us.
But when I explored more and observed few grown up kids in surrounding I found kids knowing name of many animals but when you talk about behavior of animals their knowledge is much lesser as they hardly get opportunity to observe and experience it.

I might be confusing you here. Take simple example of things taught to Pre-primary student A,B,C,D,E,F,G very good, child is bright quickly learn that like a poem. Then what we start teaching him P for Postbox, I for Inkpot, N for Nib, W for Well, child find it difficult to learn as he has not seen any of this thing anywhere around, when he asks we either show him a picture or do a favor on him give him a nice definition. When no option is left for child, he memories it and his first step of memorizing theory start, which continues in all over his education. If we really realize will find how confident our kid is when he says D for Dog or C-Cat but how confused he is about telling I for Inkpot.
Nobody has Inkpot at home, nobody uses Nib pen now, nobody goes to fetch water from a Well then why we are teaching history to Preprimary school child, why don’t we teach him M for mobile phone, T for TV, V for Videogame?

One day I was attending a session on robotic a new concept of education in India, they say our kids are very smart now they are very good in using electronics devices, which are nothing but kind of robot for us. We should start giving him education about robot functioning from very early age. But my opinion here is different our kids who are using high end technology and accessories don’t try to explore simple mechanical thing, which could give them experience about basic physics and environment. At my time we had very less options of toys and resources to play with, which used to give us opportunity to create something for ourselves so that we can play with it. Whenever we had few peace of papers we made airplane, boat and various other things, it may be a very normal thing but here we got the learning of inventing something using basic sense of physics and mechanics. I still remember I had a small toy boat which had a small lamp.
If we fill the lamp with little oil and lit a fire on it, water stored in upper compartment of boat used to start boiling and steam used to out from rear pipes of the boat and boat used to float in the water with the pressure of releasing steam from it. It was very good example of steam and pressure. Even there are n numbers of example I have when we used toys made on mechanical concept but kids now are living in the age of battery operated toys which has small electronic circuit inside that it is just impossible for a normal human to under its logic of functioning.

So what I find problem here is the basic concept is getting weak as kids are learning more of the theory and fiction. As I earlier mentioned it’s not only the education system bit it’s the surrounding also. What I believe you get very few percentage of your total knowledge from your school and education but maximum learning happens from surrounding and the learning which happens from surrounding is very strong and make us confident. A simple example is that what would be the difference in learning if you read few books on village culture, look at few pictures and video of them or you actually go in village stay there few weeks. Or just think of first language you learnt without getting instructed and going to school but from your surrounding, see how comfirtable you are with that.

As our kids are spending most of their time with electronics and find it much more entertaining than spending time with nature/surrounding/friends/society, the image about world created in their brain is actually very different from ground realities.

I will continue to write - keep reading and give me your suggetions. I am not very good in using impressive words in writing - but I assume you will be able to understand, what I am trying to mention here

sons trying to fly kite on Makar Sankranti (Festival of Kites in Mumbai)

Very nice co-ordination and role clarity here.

They don't know I tried it many years, torn thousands of kites and finally given up :). It is easy to manage messy project in IT than flying a kite

Why kids are killing themself - who is responsible

Mumbai Jan 19 - Suicide sprees continued with 5 more persons including two students allegedly killing themselves in mumbai and Thane district.
Over 20 suicide cases, maximum by students, were reported in Mumbai and neighboring city just in last three weeks.
This kind of news is nowadays taking highlight on various news channel and print media. I read somewhere that as per WHO average Suicide ratio in Mumbai city is 110-120 persons per 1 million and out of which mostly are students. Few days back it was assumed that suicide cases increased after release of Indian bollywood movie 'Three Idiot', I am not sure if it’s true.

But it can easily be observed that have increased much more from 15 years back.
This is the time when some organization or government should take initiative to do a proper analysis to find real root cause of this problem. Normally it is assumed that our education system is putting major pressure on our kids, which is a major cause of this issue. I don't think this is only the education load as I think in most of recent suicide cases kids were not following any such competition and extra burden of study. I knew the time I was student and pressure of study and find the pressure is much higher when I am living a professional life and carrying bigger personal and professional responsibilities. But these pressures never brings a single feel inside me that I should get away from this pressure by ending my life. I can not at all buy the pressure is problem.
Problem is somewhere else.... something has drastically changed in past few years. It need to be studied better and cause need not to be find only in recent years but it has to be analyzed for past also. If a 20 year old kid kills his self, someone needs to find out what happened with him in last 10-12 years. In which environment he grown himself, what was his behavior and how it was differ from normal, when he started feeling low, what was his liking, disliking and hobbies, who were his friends etc etc.
I grown up in a small town in environment, where there was a good competition of education. As I belonged to middle class family, I saw money crunch and various problems. After completing my education when I came out there was much bigger competition of jobs and earning bread butter. After trying various options I moved to Mumbai in search of some job opportunity, so I could support my family. The struggling period was hard but slowly things got settled down. Now for last 13 years I am in Mumbai and loving with my family happily with God grace.
When I compare my living style when I was student and the living style kids have now find major differences, also that bring various differences and behaviors students were having at my time and now are different.
I tried to do some study and will share with you in this blog
I will continue writing this as and when I get time, keep reading