Mumbai Winter: Blowing Hot and Cold!

Mumbai winter and chills that started in late December, 2011 is still continuing with unpredictable and extreme variations past February, 2012 now.  We first shared the city’s chills with you on January 10 when the minimum temperatures threatened to plummet below 10 degree Celsius which indeed happened in parts of Maharashtra. On the New Year Day the minimum rose to over 19.

The fluctuations continued throughout January and February. The minimum temperature used to dip and rise with at least 4-5 degree variations. The difference between maximum and minimum has been in extremes going over even 20 degree mark which makes the human body unable to bear it naturally.

On February 9, 2012 the minimum temperature dipped below 10 and it was 8.8 degree Celsius—the coldest ever February day in the city’s history. And then, just about 12 days after the maximum temperature rose to 39.1—the hottest February day in 44 years. The difference has to be noted on that day—the minimum being recorded at 18 giving a 21 degree variation! And just when we were getting ready to welcome an early and unusually hot summer the minimum plummeted again to around 13! We are still enjoying chills and sweat in good measure through first week of March. At the moment the maximum is between 28-30 and the minimum 14-18.

Experts opine that though global warming contributes to rising temperatures it can also cause extreme cold conditions or extreme variations in both. Indian weather specialists say that the northerly cool winds caused by Western Disturbances are prolonging the spell of winter or coolness. La Nina that normally favors Indian Monsoon in contrast to El Nino has been cited as another possible reason because it can contribute to western disturbances. Severe cold conditions in Europe are also being taken note of. And, global warming is the basic player in all these complex interactions. In between chills we shiver at the thought of the highs that may torment us during summer starting April.

Maybe the diehards who never accept Mumbai winter are having the last laugh. Though in light of the rampant sore throats all around, they can at best only croak it out! But hark! The issues involved here are not at all laughable.  
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Starting A Blog!

Starting a blog is termed as the smartest and also the easiest of jobs nowadays. It’s the smartest because you can establish yourself effectively in the international community and easiest, because you don’t need to be a computer expert or software programmer for that. Step-by-step guide easily available on the net and the user friendly interface on the blogging services make you start immediately and improve upon it continuously.

You can either host a blog on numerous hosting sites that charge a monthly or annual amount or have it ready instantly on free blogging sites like Blogger and Wordpress. Even in free blogging services you can buy a custom domain for a nominal annual charge which makes it apparently your own without having to bother about the technicalities.

The smartest and easiest way of starting a blog brings us to the basic question—why you need a blog. This need varies from individual to individual and here you must be the boss in deciding. Your needs could be entirely personal or family oriented; it could be for business purposes and it could be for professional purposes. We will take an example below why a writer needs a blog.

A professional writer would greatly benefit from his/her own blog.  S/he may be a prolific writer on the net submitting articles to e-zines or directories regularly, but s/he is constrained by some requirements that ask for the articles to be stand-alone, impersonal and independent of any time-frame and based on good informative content. All these constraints are not there in a blog. If you are interested in news-related developments that go stale the next day you can publish it on a blog using a dateline with the freedom of mentioning ‘today’ or ‘yesterday’ or ‘tomorrow’. This makes your blog like a newspaper or a live personal journal. Unless you are a reporter in a daily newspaper you cannot enjoy this luxury anywhere else other than your own blog. Sometimes of course, you can create ‘articles’ of your ‘posts’ and also‘post’ your ‘articles’ published elsewhere in your blog. This brings us to the next important point—what is your blog about.

You must decide what you want to write about. You should choose subjects where you have an expertise and not too many. If you are a writer and choose subjects of your interest and expertise then it takes full care of the ‘content’ part of your blog.  Now you must ask yourself—who will read your blog.

While writing your ‘posts’ or ‘articles’, you must take the global reader into active consideration.  Once your blog is on the net it’s international instantly. You must make your posts interesting, thought provoking and without too much use of the local flavor and specific terminologies. If you want to make a local-interest story an international attention you must take the pains of explaining short and sweet in writing without straining the reader too much. Putting up regular posts—best if you can manage daily—is also a must in attracting new readers and making your other readers to return. You cannot afford to make your blog extremely personal, because in that case nobody would be interested in reading except your family and friends. For family and friends social networking sites would always be better.

So you can be on the way of starting a blog anytime and the issues like traffic generation, networking, creating quality back-links, affiliate marketing and so on will come to you as you go on updating your blog.

Team India: Balanced Team or Balanced Selection?

The Indian cricket team for Asia Cup one-day international tournament starting in Bangladesh from March 11, 2012 had been selected yesterday. Considering the dismal phase the team had been going through overseas combined with the dissent and ego-clash within it the job of selection seemed to be a tough proposition. But the cash-rich Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) along with its ‘seasoned’ selectors always managed to find an easy way out. Instead of ensuring a balanced team they saw to it that the selection was perfectly balanced.

Something had to be done about the alleged division within the team. So, vice-captain of the team, Virender Sehwag who was in the forefront showing his dissent and disagreement with skipper Dhoni, came under the axe. ‘Senior’ Gautam Gambhir was not chosen for the vacant vice-captain post, but the hero of the miracle match Virat Kohli got appointed. This served a double purpose—first Gautam was also to some extent vocal about the team’s tension and second ‘youngster interest’ was served by making Kohli the future leader of Team India.

The miracle match made a huge impact for the ‘youngsters’ as all of them who figured in  the Australian tour were retained. When Irfan Pathan comes back, how can his brother be left behind! So huge-hitter Yusuf Pathan is back in the team despite having a disastrous World Cup performance. Good pace prospect Ashok Dinda was one more new face and that was all for ushering in young blood. Dhoni seemed to be very busy preparing for the World Cup-2015 with his ‘rotation’ policy in the Australian tour, but the wise BCCI put its sight correctly the on short-term goals with its trump-cricket IPL following close behind!

Past records and legendary work are never ignored in this grateful country. So Sachin Tendulkar got another chance to achieve his hundredth hundred. To the little maestro’s true defense we can add two factors though—the rotation policy disturbed his performance and he played masterfully in the miracle match. The hugely balancing subcontinent pitch-factor comes in here gloriously. Seniors and youngsters are both suspects in bouncy pitches overseas, but they are terrific prospects in subcontinent conditions and dry-flat pitches. Thus it justifies all the retained subcontinent superstars including addition of Yusuf Pathan, and of course, Tendulkar who has now a tremendous opportunity to accomplish his feat.

The crux of the balancing act came with chief selector Kris Srikkanth’s magnanimous submission that nobody was axed, but only rested due to medical advice and conditions! That included Sehwag too who reportedly retorted the submission saying he was perfectly fit and fighting and that he would prove it from here onwards. Well, how can the BCCI afford to offend either its superstars or the cricket-crazy public at a time when the biggest ‘cricket’ extravaganza is just round the corner!

The miracle match already provided a huge boost to the IPL stakes. If Australia help India enter the finals tomorrow IPL would fully cease to be BCCI’s worry as far as the big potential revenues are concerned!