The SINPO report

The SINPO report

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The SINPO report (Signal, Interference, Noise, Propagation, Overall) is manly used by SWLs (Short-Wave Listners) and describes the quality of a radio communication with a five digit number.

This report is more accurate than the RST that is very often just 59 and therefore doesn't really reflect the quality of the received signal. SINPO reports are very appreciated by broadcast station for the quality of the feedback information.

In this report all digits are from 1 (worse) to 5 (best) according to the following table:

Signal	Interference	Noise	Propagation	Overall
Strength of the signal received.	Interference from other stations.	Presence of atmospheric or other noise.	Fading characteristics of the signal.	How well the signal is received.
1 Barely audible 2 Poor 3 Fair 4 Good 5 Excellent	1 Extreme 2 Severe 3 Moderate 4 Slight 5 None	1 Extreme 2 Severe 3 Moderate 4 Slight 5 None	1 Extreme 2 Severe 3 Moderate 4 Slight 5 None	1 Barely audible 2 Poor 3 Fair 4 Good 5 Excellent

The SIO report (Signal strength, Interference, Overall quality) is a simplified version of the SINPO report that is sometimes used.

Now let me tell you what is this !.Did you listen to short wave radio,then this can be a new hobby for you..ie.D'Xing .It is a simple hobby of collecting QSL cards from around the world.What you need is a good short wave radio with all the broadcasting bands in it.

Whenever you stumble upon a new radio station, note down the quality of the reception (in numbers grade) per the above chart.. if your points are 4 5 4 3 4, it means your reception is graded good overall..Study the table above and try to grade a station in the relevent numbers to get the SINPO.Dont forget to note the name of the station, the time(GMT),the programme (title/name/host etc.),now with all these details , with your radio model and brand name,place of listening write a post card or a letter to the station.you may think it is a costly affair,but I have an idea to send these letters to foreign lands..Take out the Manorama Year Book or search the net for the Embassy address of that country from where you listened to the station..and send a post card(forgive me ,that is what I have done in the past.Now there is e.mail).After verification of your details with the stations logbook ,they will respond with a QSL card-which means "I acknowledge receipt." (colorful post card).Collecting these cards and listening to shortwave radio stations is called D'xing-a hobby.

Now this hobby lost its charm because most of the stations don't rely on listeners feedback to know their reach, due to the advancement in communication technology.

Anyways, you can give it a try.After all this means of communication is the only reliable mode even today.

now go to: Andamansikkim

OXYMORONS- opposites attract

An Oxymoron is a combination of contradictory or incongruous words, such as 'Tight Slacks'.
'Peace Force' ,'Cruel Kindness' or 'Jumbo Shrimp' (Jumbo means 'large' while Shrimp means 'small'). It is a literary figure of speech in which opposite or contradictory words, terms, phrases or ideas are combined to create a rhetorical effect by paradoxical means.

Here read what Sashi Tharoor(in his Sunday Times of India column) says about India:

It has become a cliché to speak of India as a land of paradoxes. The old joke about our country is that anything you say about India, the opposite is also true. We like to think of ourselves as an ancient civilisation but we are also a young republic; our IT experts stride confidently into the 21st century but much of our population seems to live in each of the other 20 centuries. Quite often the opposites co-exist quite cheerfully.

One of my favourite images of India is from the last Kumbha mela, of a naked sadhu, with matted hair, ash-smeared forehead and scraggly beard, for all the world a picture of timeless other-worldliness, chatting away on a cellphone. I even suggested it to the publishers of my newest book of essays on India as a perfect cover image, but they assured me it was so well-known that it had become a cliché in itself.

And yet, clichés are clichés because they are true, and the paradoxes of India say something painfully real about our society.

How does one come to terms with a country whose population is still nearly 40% illiterate but which has educated the world’s second-largest pool of trained scientists and engineers, many of whom are making a flourishing living in Silicon Valley? How does one explain a land where peasant organisations and suspicious officials once attempted to close down Kentucky Fried Chicken as a threat to the nation, where a former prime minister bitterly criticised the sale of Pepsi-Cola since 250 million of our countrymen and women don’t have access to clean drinking water, and which yet invents more sophisticated software for the world’s computer manufacturers than any other country on the planet? A place where bullock carts are still an indispensable mode of transportation for millions, but whose rocket and satellite programmes are amongst the most advanced on earth?

The paradoxes go well beyond the nature of our entry into the 21st century. Our teeming cities overflow while two out of three Indians still scratch a living from the soil. We have been recognised, for all practical purposes, as a leading nuclear power, but 600 million Indians still have no access to electricity and there are daily power cuts even in the nation’s capital.

Ours is a culture which elevated non-violence to an effective moral principle, but whose freedom was born in blood and whose independence still soaks in it. We are the world’s leading manufacturers of generic medication for illnesses such as AIDS, but we have three million of our own citizens without access to AIDS medication, another two million with TB, and tens of millions with no health centre or clinic within 10 kilometres of their places of residence.

Bollywood makes four times as many movies as Hollywood, but 150 million Indians cannot see them, because they are blind. India holds the world record for the number of cellphones sold (8.5 million last month), but also for the number of farmer suicides (4000 in the Vidarbha district of Maharashtra alone last year).

This month, in mid-November, the prestigious Forbes magazine list of the world’s top billionaires made room for 10 new Indian names. The four richest Indians in the world are collectively worth a staggering $180 billion, greater than the GDP of a majority of member states of the United Nations. Indian papers have reported with undisguised glee that these four (Lakshmi Mittal, the two Ambani brothers, and DLF chief K P Singh) are worth more than the 40 richest Chinese combined.

We seem to find less space in our papers to note that though we have more dollar billionaires than in any country in Asia - even more than Japan, which has been richer longer - we also have 260 million people living below the poverty line. And it’s not the World Bank’s poverty line of $1 a day, but the Indian poverty line of Rs 360 a month, or 30 cents a day - in other words, a line that’s been drawn just this side of the funeral pyre.

Last month, the Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex crossed 20,000, just 20 months after it had first hit 10,000; but on the same day, some 25,000 landless people marched to Parliament, clamouring for land reform and justice. We have trained world-class scientists and engineers, but 400 million of our compatriots are illiterate, and we also have more children who have not seen the inside of a school than any other country in the world does.

We have a great demographic advantage in 540 million young people under 25 (which means we should have a dynamic, youthful and productive workforce for the next 40 years when the rest of the world, including China, is ageing) but we also have 60 million child labourers, and 72% of the children in our government schools drop out by the eighth standard. We celebrate India’s IT triumphs, but information technology has employed a grand total of 1 million people in the last five years, while 10 million are entering the workforce each year and we don’t have jobs for them.

Many of our urban youth rightly say with confidence that their future will be better than their parents’ past, but there are Maoist insurgencies violently disturbing the peace in 165 of India’s 602 districts, and these are largely made up of unemployed young men.

So yes, we are a land of paradoxes, and amongst those paradoxes is that so many of us speak about India as a great power of the 21st century when we are not yet able to feed, educate and employ our people. And yet, India is more than the sum of its contradictions. It may be a country rife with despair and disrepair, but it nonetheless moved a Mughal Emperor to declaim, ‘‘if on earth there be paradise of bliss, it is this, it is this, it is this...’’ We just have a lot more to do before it can be anything like paradise for the vast majority of our fellow citizens. (source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2568182.cms)

Learn some words of the vanishing tribe:The Jarawas of Andaman

Jarawa-----English
A Ham -Morning
Daag-Coconut
Aale Mama-I will come tomorrow
Eig-Water
Aotal-Bamboo
Ent-Bathe
Antapo-It is good
Ena Jababa-Come
Aot Kohalo-Kill
Enat Thae-Sit
Anodae-Hair
Ekdda-Here
Anae Hpo-Eyes
Euli-Stone
Anna Ho-Teeth
Fara Va Ae-Swim
Anno Tahe-Cheeks
Hakada Enat-Sit here
Anna Aal-Shoulder
Kalag-Roof
Anol-Finger
Katu Paalae-Deer
Ano Paeta-Nail
Kaaya-Mother
Aan-Yes
Kakma D Ekda Aale Mama-You must not come tomorrow?
Boa-Pig
Kkma Me Ekda Aale Ma Nrima-I will not come tomorrow
Chav -It is good
Lee-Third man
Chavaya-Take a walk
Me Ulida-I am ill
D Tangi-Are you getting married to a girl or not?
Motha-Head
D Tangav-Are you getting married to a man or not?
Meta Jil-Friend
D Tomo-You are good
Me Ulaeda-I am ill
D Aat-Sit down
Maaye-My child
D Aalae-Lie down
Maap-Elder brother
D Aomo=Go to sleep
Ma Da m-My wife
D Aata Enat=You sit
Magi=My husband
D Aote=Man who is sitting
Mi Aallema=I will be back
D T Kune=Stand up
Naagi=Your husband
D Chavaya=Let's go
Napu=Fish
D Baro=You are good
Piti piti=Bad
D Chapte=Climb up
Paincha=Me Dead
D Chagi=You Alight
Pil=Bear
D Tale=Night
Tag Utu=Ship
D Vage Aativa=What's your husband's name?
Tuh=Fire
D Vagam Aativa=What's your wife's name?
Tapo=Want
D Ativa=What's your name
Thooye=Girl
D Achaela Aatiba=How many children have you?
Unnu=Come here
D Aeti Oon=All go
Ummu=Father
D Aati Fet=Run away
Vaannaam =His wife
Daa=Son
Vaagi =Her husband
Ya Kota=Elder brother

Centella asiatica

This herb is found abundantly in India . Which is commonly called Godataap in Sikkim because of its appearance resembling the horse foot.When I talked about it with an elderly lady here ,she said it is vidhya dhar-means wisdom bearing .. In West Bengal(Golpatta) and in Tamil Nadu(vallarai) ,Sanskrit Mandooka parani(frog sittingplace),by the Tribals of chota nagpur -mendak baazi -it is eaten as cooked leafy vegetable.It is often mistaken for the original Brahmi.
The medicinal value of this plant is of immense value as it can be used as a general tonic by any one.For Memory boosting,nuerological disorders,stomach ailments,for ageing people it acts like kayakalp(elixir).

Eating a few leaves daily was thought to "strengthen and revitalize worn out bodies and brains." Centella asiatica has also been recommended as a treatment for mental troubles, high blood pressure, abscesses, rheumatism, fever, ulcers, leprosy, skin eruptions, nervous disorders, and jaundice.

This post is from my own experience and observation..Two leaves daily can be taken raw.Be sure to use the right variety of it..there are many varieties of it found here in Sikkim,the smooth and clean one should be used.

see the picture of this plant at www.centralpendamschool.blogspot.com