HISTORICAL EVENT OF THE MONTH

 Fall of Bastille

     On July 14, 1789, a group of revolutionaries stormed and captured the Bastille, a medieval fortress in Paris that was used as a French state prison. The Bastille was a symbol of the tyranny of the reigning Bourbon monarchy and held an important place in the ideology of the French revolution, which in turn changed the face of modern politics across Europe and the world.

     In 1880, the French government passed a law declaring July 14 a public holiday. Since then, the day has been commemorated as La Fete Nationale, or Bastille Day in English, across France and French-speaking areas.

INDIAN SPACE RESEARCH ORGANISATION'S

 Chandrayan-3

     The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has launched the Chandrayaan-3 to the Moon as per schedule at 2:35 p.m today at Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.   Chandrayaan-3, India's third lunar          exploration mission, will make India the fourth country to land its spacecraft on the surface of the moon and demonstrate the country's abilities for safe and soft landings on lunar surfaces. 

     This will be the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) follow-up attempt after the Chandrayaan-2 mission faced challenges during its soft landing in 2019. 

     The 'Launch Rehearsal', simulating the entire launch preparation and process, has been concluded by the ISRO. 

     The mission will propel the lunar spacecraft towards a trajectory to the Moon. The mission readiness review committee of ISRO had given its clearance for liftoff, as all the necessary parameters for a successful launch had been met. Following the committee's approval, the launch authorisation board had also granted permission for the Chandrayaan-3 mission to proceed. If all goes according to plan, the 43.5-meter LVM-3 launch rocket will send the spacecraft into an elliptical Earth orbit before it begins its journey towards the Moon. The scheduled landing near the lunar south pole is expected to occur around August 23. 

     The LVM-3 is a heavy-lift launch vehicle renowned for its ability to carry a substantial payload into space. It is the most powerful rocket developed by ISRO and stands unrivaled in its class. Known as the 'Bahubali' of rockets, the LVM-3 is a three-stage rocket equipped with two solid-fuel boosters and a liquid-fuel core stage. The solid-fuel boosters provide the initial thrust, while the liquid-fuel core stage ensures sustained thrust to propel the rocket into orbit. 

     The mission involves a 2-meter tall lander designed to deploy a rover near the lunar south pole region. The rover is expected to operate for approximately two weeks, conducting a series of experiments. 

     ISRO's previous mission, Chandrayaan-2, successfully deployed an orbiter in 2020. However, its lander and rover were unfortunately destroyed in a crash near the intended touchdown site of Chandrayaan-3. 

     To date, only the Soviet Union, the United States, and China have achieved successful soft landings on the Moon. This launch by ISRO marks the country's first major mission following the Centre's announcement of policies aimed at promoting investment in private space launches and satellite-based businesses.

THE MUD FESTIVAL OF GOA

  Chikal Kalo

     The Marcel Devaki Krishna temple hosts the Chikal Kalo, or mud festival, in the rainy season. Wet mud is referred to as chikal. The villagers celebrate Lord Krishna's joyful nature by dancing and engaging in activities in the muddy, rainy monsoon muck. 

     Men congregate at the temple to worship while dousing their bodies with oil. Chikal Kalo (or Chikhalkala) is a monsoon celebration. It is observed in the premises of the Devki-Krishna temple in Marcel, a village in North Goa's Ponda Taluka. The celebration of Chikhal Kalo is distinctive to the village of Marcel; here, everyone unites despite their differences to sing devotional songs and engage in a variety of sports to mark the occasion. 

     It is thought that it was historically commemorated in Marcel as a representation of the young Lord Krishna, who adored playing with his pals in Vrindavan. The Devaki-Krishna temple in Marcel serves as the backdrop for the entire action.

How is Chikal Kalo celebrated?

Village men start the festivities by applying oil to themselves. Then enjoyable games and pastimes are performed, evoking the games that Lord Krishna and his companions used to play when they were kids. Music played on traditional Goan instruments enhances the joyful mood. Sweets, particularly puran poli, are given out to everyone on the occasion. The playing of dahi handi marks the festival's conclusion. The village's younger residents get together to create a human pyramid. Later, they break the clay butter pot that is fastened to a at a height. This celebratory event is a vibrant and young demonstration of youth. All participants leave their everyday concerns and join in the joyful celebration, savoring the moment whole-heartedly.

DO YOU KNOW

 Where are the ghost mountains?

     In Antarctica. It is the nickname for the 1,200km-long Gamburtsev mountain range on the icy continent. It is named so because it is buried under four kilometres of snow. It was discovered when ice penetrating radar equipment was used.

     It was discovered in 1958 by Soviet geophysicist Grigoriy A. Gamburtsev. In 2008-2009, a multinational team of experts embarked on a mission called the AGAP (Antarctica's Gamburtsev Province) to map the sub-glacial range. Aircraft loaded with remote-sensing equipment criss-crossed the area, flying 120,000km, that is about three trips around the globe! It collected data about the ice thickness and radar images of the rock bed and conducted gravity and magnetic surveys. The findings revealed a jagged landscape not unlike the Alps of Europe. The project explored 20% of the East Antarctic ice sheet.

     It is yet not known how the mountain was formed, but it is estimated to be several million years old.

SNAKES AND LADDERS IN HINDU PHILOSOPHY

Mokshapatam

     The game was associated with traditional Hindu philosophy  contrasting karma and kama, or destiny and desire. It emphasized destiny, as opposed to games such as pachisi, which focused on life as a mixture of skill and luck.

     The ladders represented virtues such as generosity, faith and humility while the snakes represented vices such as lust, anger, murder and theft.

      In the original game the squares of virtue are: Faith(12), Reliability (51), Generosity (57), Knowledge (76) & Asceticism (78).

     The squares of vice or evil are: Disobedience (41), Vanity (44), Vulgarity (49), Theft(52), Lying (58), Drunkenness (62), Debt (69), Murder(73), Rage (84), Greed (92), Pride (95) & Lust (99)

     These were the squares where the snake waited with its mouth open. The 100th square represented Nirvana or Moksha. The tops of each ladder depict a God, or one of the various heavens (Kailas, Vaikunth, Brahmalok) and so on.

     The morality lesson of the game was that a person can attain Moksha through doing good, whereas by doing evil one will inherit rebirth to lower forms of life.

     The numbers of ladders was less than the number of snakes as a reminder that a path of good actions is much more difficult to tread than a path of sins.

     Presumably, reaching the last square number 100 represented the attainment of Moksha (liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth). 

TO BECOME PART OF THE DIVINE

Do a good deed

     A wise and successful man bought a beautiful house with a huge orchard. But not all were happy for him. An envious man lived in an old house next to him. He constantly tried to make his fellow neighbour’s stay in the beautiful house as miserable as possible. He also threw garbage under the neighbour’s gate as well as did numerous other nasty things. 

     One fine day the wise man woke up in a good mood and went out onto the porch to notice buckets of garbage thrown there. The man then took a broom and bucket and cleaned his porch without a word of complaint. He later carried another bucket and went to knock on his envious neighbour’s door. The envious neighbour heard a knock at his door and gleefully thought, “I finally got him!”. He answered his door ready to quarrel with his successful neighbour. However the wiseman gave him a bucket of freshly picked apples saying, “The one who is rich in something, shares it with others.”

Moral: If you repay evil with evil, there is no difference between you and the person who has done evil to you. If you choose to repay evil with good deeds, then you become part of the Divine.

JOURNEY INTO LIGHT

Sir Chandrashekhar Venkat Raman

     Sir C. V. Raman, the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize in Science, was foremost among the Indian scientists who contributed to the understanding of light. His discovery known as the Raman effect gave human kind a technique to use light to look into the smallest building block of matter, the molecule. 

Early Life: Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman was born on 7 November, 1888 at Tiruchirappally in the Madras Presidency (Tamil Nadu). He was the second child of Parvati Amma and Chandrasekhar Iyer, a lecturer in Physics and Mathematics. Raman was a brilliant student. He completed his BA from Presidency College, Madras at the age of 15. He graduated with honours, winning a gold medal in Physics. He completed his MA with distinction from the same college when he was hardly 18. Raman topped the Civil Service competitive examination and in 1907, he was posted as Assistant Accountant General in Calcutta. One day, while travelling to his office by tram, he noticed a sign board on a building that said, ‘Indian Association for Cultivation of Science’ (IACS). It was a private science institute established by Mahendralal Sircar. He got down from the tram and obtained permission to work there. The institute later became the springboard for his groundbreaking research.

     The institute had many unused scientific apparatus. Using these instruments, Raman started working on various problems in sound and light without any guidance. He followed a gruelling schedule; he would reach the institute everyday by 5.30 am, work till 9.30 am, go home for a quick meal and then go to his office. He would be back at the institute by 5p.m. and return home only by 10p.m. He would spend the entire Sunday at the laboratory. Soon Raman started to publish high-quality research papers in international journals and became famous in the scientific world. 

     In 1917, Raman resigned from his well paying government job to become the first Palit Professor of Physics (a highly respected teaching post) at the Calcutta University. At the same time, he continued working at IACS. Students flocked to work under him, drawn by his fame and brilliance. 

The Blue Sea: In 1921, he sailed to London to represent his university at the Assembly of Universities. While returning by steamer, Raman was fascinated by the deep blue colour of the Mediterranean Sea. Lord Raleigh (a Physics Nobel laureate) had already established that the blue colour of the sky was due to the scattering of light by air and dust molecules in the atmosphere. The blue component of light gets scattered the most, giving the sky its characteristic blue colour. Scientists explained that the blue colour of the sea was simply the reflection of the blue sky in the water. 

     Raman refused to accept the explanation. He conducted some simple experiments on board using a nicol prism and showed that the blue colour of the sea was caused by the scattering of sunlight by the water molecules. 

Effective discovery: Raman continued his light-scattering studies with different liquids using his home-made equipment in the IACS labs. Using optical filters, Raman passed a strong light beam of a single colour through a liquid and observed the light scattered by the liquid through a spectrograph. His studies yielded an unexpected result. A very small portion of the deflected light actually changed colour from the original light. This phenomenon was later named Raman effect. The change in colour of the scattered light was indicative of the molecule which scattered the light and thus became a tool to understand that molecule. 

     Raman made his discovery on 28 February, 1928.  Two years later, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, making him the first Indian and non-white to receive a Nobel Prize in science. Raman also studied X-Ray scattering and published papers in the field of musical instruments. Many awards and recognitions came his way. He was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society in 1924, knighted in1929 and was awarded the Franklin medal in 1942. Raman joined the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore in 1934 as its first Indian director. In 1949, he established the Raman Research Institute. He continued to teach and mentor students till he passed away in 1970.

A moment that highlights Raman's commitment towards his work: When Raman was invited to Rashtrapati Bhavan to receive the Bharat Ratna on 27January, 1955, he wrote to the then Indian President Dr. Rajendra Prasad, expressing his inability to attend the function. He said he was busy supervising the thesis of his student and he thought that the job of mentoring his student was far more important than being present for the award function!

Facts: 

* India observes National Science Day on 28February to honour Raman’s discovery.

* Dr. G. Venkataraman’s biography of Sir C. V. Raman is aptly titled Journey into Light.