The Hindu : New Delhi News : Inside delhi

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Tuesday, May 13, 2008
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New Delhi

Inside delhi

For better roads

Delhiites tired of complaining about the city’s damage-prone roads may well heave a sigh of relief as a new road-coating technology that claims to reduce maintenance cost by half and lasts twice as long might soon become a reality.

The Managing Director of the US-based company Penn Woods Corporation, Ashok Sudhakar, organised a presentation in the Capital this past week, providing a glimpse of this technology to be commercially launched as “Z-products”. The products introduced included Z-course, Z-base and Z-fill.

According to Mr. Sudhakar, the Delhi Government has expressed interest in the technology and is keen to learn more about it. “India’s roads do not have a wearing surface and only consist of a base that depends on conventional asphalt maintenance. But depending on local conditions, the Z-course maintenance programme costs half as much and lasts two times longer than conventional asphalt maintenance,” he claimed. “Moreover, roads that are Z-coursed can be opened to traffic in four to six hours as opposed to the conventional method.”

Other advantages of this technology include no need to mill existing damaged and cracked surface, a self-levelling process for crack filling and no waste generation.

“This technology is not new to India. However, it has not been implemented here because of lack of equipment and their application. Instead of adopting the old technology we have improved it and made it into a state-of-the-art technology,” said Mr Sudhakar.

“In contrast to information technology, roads do not sound that interesting. It is basically just regarded as dirt, rocks and asphalt. But in actuality roads are impacting the future of India and they will continue to do so as India grows,” he added.

Mr. Sudhakar said: “We are looking forward to use this technology to aesthetically and structurally improve existing roads in and around New Delhi ahead of the Commonwealth Games in 2010.”

Manisha Jha

A bitter experience

Apart from the attraction of savouring a rich slice of history and a taste of the famous Old Delhi hospitality, exploring the labyrinthine by-lanes of Chandni Chowk can be quite an unforgettable experience in more ways than one as a friend discovered recently.

Making her way to Khari Baoli to buy her monthly quota of groceries, the friend soon got engrossed in checking out the numerous shops to get the best deal. Finally she stopped at a particularly crowded grocery store and managed to push forth her groceries list amid a melee of outstretched hands and impatient voices. Having survived much jostling and pushing around with her purse firmly in hand, she finally readied herself to leave the counter after collecting her order.

Heaving a huge sigh of relief at having completed the chore, she decided to call up a friend. But a shock awaited her as she found that her mobile phone was missing with the zip of the purse still intact.

Taking advantage of the crowd at the store, the thief had not only managed to unzip her purse and steal the cell phone but surprisingly also managed to zip it back!

Long after having recovered from that indefinable feeling of disgust and helplessness, the friend could only marvel at the ingenuity of the thief’s modus operandi.

Staff Reporter

An astronomical treat

The much awaited Lunar Occultation of Mars was viewed by a large number of enthusiastic star-gazers in the Capital this past Saturday. The evening sky presented a visual treat to all budding astronomers at Nehru Planetarium where the eight-inch computerised tracking telescope helped visitors see and comprehend the event.

According to Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators president C.B. Devgun, Mars was witnessed going behind the Moon, as if shying away from everyone, to emerge from behind the Moon after about an hour. The observation was conducted by SPACE at Tagore International School here and near its Janakpuri office.

A large number of visitors were present at the observatory, including students from various schools of Delhi and the National Capital Region, their teachers, parents and family members, besides astronomers.

Prior to the celestial event, SPACE conducted a workshop on occultation in which the students viewed and measured the scientific values of occultations in the past.

Mr. Devgun noted that the weather turned out to be absolutely clear on the eve of the occultation. “We had placed 40 telescopes -- 70 mm or above aperture Newtonian reflectors -- and some binoculars for the viewing of the event so that the student and telescope ratio was 2:1. There were several separate large telescopes placed for parents and teachers to view the event.”

The students were able to spot Mars through the telescope, lurking near the Moon even before the twilight faded.

Madhur Tankha

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