BLACK HOLES IN ASTRONOMY ---WHAT ARE THEY.

Our Sun is an average star in the Universe. Each star has a life cycle and all the stars evolve with time.

Stars are generating enormous amounts of energy by the fusion reactions taking place at their core. Once the material needed for fusion gets exhausted at the center, the star becomes unstable and explodes. This is called a NOVA or a SUPERNOVA depending on the intensity of the explosion.

Whether a star turns into a Nova or a Supernova depends on the mass of the star. The Indian Nobel laureate Subramanian Chandrasekhar has postulated that for a star to turn into a Supernova it has to have a mass that is more than 1.4 times that of our Sun. This is known as the “Chandrasekhar’s Limit”.

This was later modified by the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit to over 3 times the Sun's mass.

Black holes are formed by stars with masses that are 10 to 15 times more massive than the Sun. When the star totally burns itself out slowly the gravitational forces take over and it starts contracting and finally implodes on itself. This finally collapses to what is known as singularity which has zero volume and infinite density. At this point, the gravitational attraction is so strong that even light cannot escape from it. As light cannot come out of it we cannot see a Black hole.

When a Black hole passes through interstellar matter that is present all over the Universe, it starts attracting the matter towards it. As that matter nears the Black hole it moves faster and faster and this heats it up to a point where the matter starts emitting X rays. We can identify a Black hole by these x ray emissions.

CHE GUEVARA-----A DOCTOR WHO TURNED INTO A GUERRILLA LEADER.

Hitherto I had known that Che Guevara was a South American Marxist revolutionary. That is about all. One of my nephews posted a picture of Che in Facebook and said he is a good role model. I had then thought that it is my responsibility to know more about him. What I read about him surprised me.

He became a symbol of revolution in the world. Despite his leanings towards Marxism he had a multifaceted personality and is certainly worth knowing about.

His has embraced the cult of socialism and remained bound to it till his death. He may be wrong but he never wavered on his path and went ahead with single mindedness.

I thought perhaps some of my friends on FB who did not know about him would be benefited if I wrote a short summary of his life and that is what I am doing below.

Che was born in 1928 in Argentina. His family is a mixture of Spanish and Irish and had leftist leanings. Due to this even when he was a boy he came into contact with a wide variety of political perspectives.

Despite suffering from acute Asthma, he excelled in swimming, football, golf, shooting and cycling. He was good at Chess and poetry too. His home contained 3000 books which made him read extensively, his favorite authors being NEHRU, KAFKA, CAMUS, LENIN, SARTRE, ENGELS and H G WELLS. He made notes which included analytical sketches of Buddha and Aristotle, he examined Bertrand Russel on love and patriotism and Sigmund Freud’s ideas as well. Even the CIA acknowledged him as an intellectual.

Che joined the University of Buenos Aires to study medicine in 1948.

While studying this course he took permission to break studies and travel all over North America. He used a motor mounted bicycle for his first expedition in which he travelled 4500 KM in the rural provinces of Argentina in 1950.

Again in 1951 he embarked on a 9 month long trip on a journey of 8000 KM, this time all over South America on a motorcycle.

He received his medical degree in 1953 and became Dr Guevara. In 1953, he again traveled to most of the remaining countries of South America which he has not covered in his earlier trip of 1951.

Che attempted to take up medical internship initially but without success. This made his economic condition rather precarious. He joined the allergy section of the Mexico City hospital in 1954. He also gave lectures on Medicine at the national autonomous university of Mexico and also worked as a photographer for a news agency.

He married Hilda Gadea Acosta, a Peruvian economist who was well connected politically with leftists.

In 1955 he came into contact with Fidel Castro and joined the Cuban movement. This movement turned him from a doctor into a revolutionary combatant. He then became a leader in the movement and was feared for his brutality and ruthlessness. He got anyone who is against the movement to be executed. Fidel Castro described Che as intelligent, daring and an exemplary leader who had great moral authority over his troops.

He was recklessly brave and once ran with a pistol in the middle of battle to protect his young lieutenant who has fallen despite bullets flying all over the place. He showed exemplary results in the Cuban war and entered Havana even before Castro. In 1959 while resting after the war at Tarara, he started writing his book “Guerilla Warfare”.

He divorced Hilda and married a Cuban revolutionary Aleida March in June 1959. He became all powerful in the Cuban Government after Castro and was in charge of finance, industries and the National Bank as well.

It was Guevara's desire to see the complete elimination of money, interest, commodity production, the market economy, and "mercantile relationships". The Soviets did not opt for this so he preferred the Chinese type of socialism instead which made Castro uneasy.

Che finally resigned all his positions with Cuba due to his differences with Castro and went to Africa in 1965. He tried to aid the guerrillas in Congo but later left as he felt their leaders were corrupt and there was no will to fight.

He then went to Bolivia in 1966 but could not get reconciled with the rebel leaders there.

He was finally captured by the Bolivian troops in October 2007.He was executed on 9th October 1967 by the Bolivian troops.

Till his last he did not despair and calmly invited death retaining his single minded devotion to socialism. Today he is seen as a symbol for revolution by the world.

GIST OF EACH OF THE UPANISHADS IN A FEW SENTENCES.

I am a non believer who does not believe in a Soul. Nevertheless I find that the Upanishads enunciate a great philosophical system and are certainly worth studying with analysis.

The Upanishads are the essence of Hindu Philosophy. There are supposed to be 108 Upanishads in all, but of them, 10 which were commented upon by Sankaracharya are considered important. The rest are considered to be a repetition of what is already contained in the 10 principal Upanishads.

The Bhagavad Gita in turn contains the essence of the Upanishads.

Very few of us would have the time to read the entire Upanishads and perhaps even the Gita, but each of the Principal Upanishads can be condensed to project their meaning in a few sentences. I am giving the gist of the first principal Upanishad below.

ISHAVYASOPANISHAD.

Life in the world and life in the spirit are not incompatible.

Work or action is not contrary to knowledge of God, but indeed, if performed without attachment, is a means to it.

Renunciation is the renunciation of the ego, of selfishness—not of life.

The end, both of work and of renunciation, is to know the Self within and the Brahman without, and to realize their identity.

The Self is Brahman and the Brahman is Self.

I will give the gist of the other Upanishads later as all of them given together would make themselves incomprehensible to a layman of philosophy.

BUDGET--WHAT ARE ITS COMPONENTS.

A budget as we all know is a document projecting the likely future incomes accruing in a country and the likely future expenditures in a period of 1 year.

A Budget allocates funds to various sectors of the economy as per the priorities of the Government and also deals with taxation and market/external borrowings to bridge the gap that arises out of shortage of Income over expenditure.

Despite resorting to additional taxation, as well as other measures like market and other borrowings, the budgetary gap in India remains unfilled and this is left uncovered. This is known as the fiscal deficit. The government would have to print additional currency notes to fill in this uncovered deficit and this leads to inflation as the money supply in the country expands.

It is normal for countries to have a budgetary deficit, but it should be ensured that the deficit does not get out of hand. If Greece is in distress today it is because of indiscriminate spending without bothering about fiscal deficit. So it went in for more and more borrowings till the time the loan burden became unserviceable.

There are two components in the union budget and they are:

1.Revenue Budget: It includes

a) Revenue Receipts of the Government received by way of taxation as well as other receipts

b) Revenue expenditure of the Government which is all expenditure incurred in running the government and all other expenditure spent on the public. This includes all the expenditure made by the government except capital expenditure.

2.Capital Budget: It includes

a) The Capital Receipts of the Government received by way of loans, small savings and recoveries of loans given to state governments

b)Capital Expenditure which is all the expenditure made in creation of a capital assets like buildings, machinery etc.