Are you Radioactive?

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What do Amitabh Bachchan, Sonia Gandhi, Kamal Hasan's brother and the King of Jordan have in common? Besides being names guaranteed to grab your attention, they're all HAM radio operators. What is "HAM"? You could twist those three letters in almost any way you like, . But the interpretation I liked best reads "HELP ALL MANKIND." HAMs, are often the first and last line of defence during a calamity. When cellphone towers, TV and radio stations, landline networks all crash and burn, when floods, earthquakes and fires destroy every possible means of communication, HAMs power up their little amateur radios and beam SOS messages to the whole world. If that makes them sound like modern day Florence Nightingales, perish the thought. Because HAMs don't fit any stereotype you can think of. Two weeks back, on a freezing, foggy Sunday, I met a whole bunch of them, during....

Great rings of fire

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Last year, everybody crowed about the longest solar eclipse of the 21st century. Now, they're at it again. What's the difference? Well, last year's eclipse was TOTAL, the Sun was completely gobbled up by the moon's shadow. This year, that won't happen. A thin round ring of the Sun will stay visible. The Greeks called that ring an "Annulus" - so such events are called "Annular Eclipses". But you and I can just call it - A Great Ring of Fire. People much smarter than me, calculate that this year, we'll see a total of five eclipses (Lunar and Solar together). Interestingly, two of them are in January itself. (There was a Lunar Eclipse on January 1 - but we were too busy partying to notice ;) ). The one on Friday, January 15 is "extra special". The last time India saw one like it was on Nov....