80 INSCRIPTIONS TO DISAPPEAR PERMANENTLY

Gold coat to hide Tirumala carvings

Tirupati: The glorious history of the reigning deity of Tirumala, Lord Venkateswara, and of the richest shrine is known to the world, thanks to hundreds of inscriptions engraved on the walls of Tirumala as well as in other TTD-run temples here. But blame it on TTD’s mega Ananda Nilayam Anantha Swarnamayam (gold coating) project of the temple, about 80 inscriptions are going to disappear permanently from the public view.
It was Mahant Prayagdas who started it all by doing a thorough research on the inscriptions in 1920. Later, epigraphist and archaeologist Sadhu Subramanya Shastri took over the mantle as he did research for a period of 11 years from 1922 to 1933 by translating hundreds of Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada inscriptions to English, using the ‘eye copy’ technique. Shastri brought to light several inscriptions engraved on temple walls, pillars and gopurams. About 640 inscriptions in Tirumala shrine, 340 in Sri Govindaraja Swamy temple, 170 in almost half a dozen temples of TTD located in and around Tirupati saw the light of the day.
All these 1,150 inscriptions were later brought out in the form of books by Shastri, which is considered one of the greatest works done on the Tirumala inscriptions as yet. Of these, 236 belonged to the Pallava, Chola and Pandya dynasties, while
169 belonged to the age of Saluva dynasty. While 251 belonged to Achutaraya period, 130 to Sadasivaraya period and another 135 originated in Aravidu dynasty.
A majority of these inscriptions are in Tamil, followed by Kannada and a few in Telugu. The inscription belonging to 830 AD during the time of Pallava king Vijayadanti Verman is considered the oldest one. With the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) launching the gold coating work last year, doubts cropped up over the safety of the inscriptions. However, the TTD took care to digitise all the inscriptions present inside the walls of sanctum of first prakaram and handed over the estampage works to the Archaeological Survey of India, Mysore.
S e n i o r epigraphist K Muniratnam Reddy said 80 inscriptions engraved on the north, south and west walls of first prakara inside the sanctorum have been estampaged (taking the imprints of the inscriptions before gold malam works are done) for the purpose. “We have done the process on 80 inscriptions. Of which, 43 measured over 16 ft in length so that the letters engraved on them would not be destroyed. Of the 80 inscriptions, 55 are in Tamil, 15 in Kannada and 10 in Telugu, which include the enumerable and precious donations by Pallava Samavai (9 AD), Pridhivi Mahendra Verman, Cholas of Tamil Nadu, Vijayanagara rulers of Andhra and Karnataka,” Muniratnam said.

Drive for organ donor clause in licences

Chennai: In a novel attempt to create large-scale awareness on organ donation, members of Mohan (Multi Organ Harvesting Aid Network) Foundation has received 2,500 signatures in a campaign to push for the inclusion of an organ donor clause in driving licenses.
Speaking at a function here on Sunday, Dr Sunil Shroff, managing trustee, Mohan Foundation, said, “Today, there are 1 million people in India who suffer from diabetes and 8 million from hypertension. Endstage kidney failure is the next big epidemic that is waiting to happen in the country. At this point, the requirement for organs will be huge,” he said. Dr Shroff said that there were only 0.08 donors per million population in India. Though the state government passed a GO last year (for doctors to compulsorily declare cases of brain death), there is a need to create large scale awareness on the issue. We thought the best way to do this would be to include a clause: ‘I wish to donate my organs after my death. Yes/No’ in documents like driving licenses or PAN cards. We are meeting a representative from the central government later this week to see if we can introduce this in the national ID cards as well,” he said.
Tamil Nadu’s additional chief secretary Syed Munir Hooda said, “Since no religion prohibits the concept of organ donation, Mohan Foundation could organise a conference of all the religious heads to take the message across to members of their community.” Principal secretary and Transport Commissioner S Machendranathan said the campaign was well-timed as the state was on the brink of implementing a ‘smart card’ system for driving licenses. “The government will take note of this initiative,” he added.
Actor Revathy, who was the first registered organ donor with Mohan Foundation in 1997, said it was important for family members accept an individual’s intention to donate organs. Six rallyists, who covered a distance of 2,000 km on their motorbikes to create awareness about organ donation, were felicitated at the event.

SUPPORTING A CAUSE: Actor Revathy shows her Organ Donor card at a function organised to campaign for the inclusion of ‘Organ Donation Clause’ in driving licences

rural stud lag behind?

Urban school kids in India hooked online

As per a survey of Indian school children conducted by TCS, majority of school kids in ubran areas are pretty active online.

Some highlights from the survey:

* 63% of urban students spend over an hour online daily
* 93% are aware of social networking
* Orkut and Facebook are most popular online destinations
* 46% use online sources to access news; TV, Newspaper users at 25%
* 62% have a personal computer at home
* 1 in 4 students own lap-tops in metros; 2 of 3 own music players
* IT and engineering remain overwhelming popular career choices
* Media & Entertainment, Travel and Tourism are emerging careers
* USA, UK top list of international destinations for higher studies


The survey was conducted across 14000 high school kids between the ages of 12-18 in 12 cities across India during 2008-2009. This is by far, one of the largest surveys in this age demographic that I’ve personally seen.

Amongst other things, one additional intesting highlight is the fact that 80% of the kids surveyed said that they have access to mobile phones.

Another interesting highlight: 41% of the kids cite Google as their most preferred source of information — print (26%) and TV(25%) came in 2nd and 3rd.