My attempts at writing a blog have stretched too long. Now that I remember I must have written scores of maiden articles to get a jump-start. Well I can't say if anything that follows is a jump-start but indeed it is something that can bring me back smiling every time I read it.
I'd been on a long trip to Karwar about a week ago. It is much on the West Coast and temperatures here are dramatically high. Statistically it is covered by forests by a good 75% and there are many beaches adjoining the Arabian Sea. I had been to one such beach named the Rabindranath Tagore beach. Its beautiful in the evenings when the rays of the sun bear a subtle resemblance to the patterns of the sand. Its very serene and surprisingly clean, seldom do you find such a soothing combination. But what stands out as the most enthralling gift was my visit to two ver
y intriguing places. One of which , called the Sea Bird Project, houses Naval warships - INS Shardul and INS Jalashwa. I was lucky enough to get on INS Shardul which is of indigenous make and can hold 16 tanks. I believe it was launched in 2004. The other warship, the INS Jalashwa formerly called USS Trenton is apparently the second largest ship of the Navy. It also has a flight deck wherefrom aircrafts can be operated which is why its also called an amphibious ship. The Naval Base in Karwar is looking to become really huge, perhaps the biggest in Asia in the years to come. I was certainly more than lucky to be able to stand in the midst of uniformed men on the INS Shardul and click photographs of Jalashwa.
y intriguing places. One of which , called the Sea Bird Project, houses Naval warships - INS Shardul and INS Jalashwa. I was lucky enough to get on INS Shardul which is of indigenous make and can hold 16 tanks. I believe it was launched in 2004. The other warship, the INS Jalashwa formerly called USS Trenton is apparently the second largest ship of the Navy. It also has a flight deck wherefrom aircrafts can be operated which is why its also called an amphibious ship. The Naval Base in Karwar is looking to become really huge, perhaps the biggest in Asia in the years to come. I was certainly more than lucky to be able to stand in the midst of uniformed men on the INS Shardul and click photographs of Jalashwa. The other interesting story is about my visit to the Kaiga nuclear power station. Kaiga is about 60 kms from Karwar towards the east and is surrounded by forests all over. I could barely believe of my presence there, while just a few days ago I was a particpant in a Debate competition on the Indo-U.S nuclear deal. I was certainly against the deal rooting for the fact that it involves exorbitant expenditure, little did i need to go there to reaffirm my belief.
Setting aside my opinions, what was indisputable was the dedication of the officers towards setting up state-of-the-art nuclear reactors. Indeed we have nuclear fuel constraints, therefore at the moment there are only 2 reactors which are operational, capable of producing 220 MW each, while the other two are completely built and awaiting fuel. In fact the injecting of fuel through pressure tubes into what is called Calandria, the interior of the PHWR, is a very meticulous process done with great care. The steam that results after the fission process and cooling is made to run on turbines which subsequently results in generation of electricity. Needless to say I couldn't take any photographs but the one you see above nearly covers two of the nuclear reactors at Kaiga.
Well those were the two big stories, besides I had also been to the GMR Sugar factory in Haliyal, which is about 90 kms from Karwar. GMR, I discovered was also into Agri Business and their sugar factory was impressive. It provides local employment to a lot workers as the only other industries around are the West Coast Paper Mills and Shreya Paper Mills in Dandeli. In fact I was vying to go for river rafting in Jungle lodges, but I guess I was out of luck by then. The Kali river flows downstream into many dams including one of the biggest in Karnataka, the Supa Dam which has a height of about 100 metres. I made a trip to the Kadra Dam which has 10 gates and is a peak-hour station. It's for hydro-electric power genertion and has 3 units producing 50 MW of power each. Sadly, I was there at an odd timing when the gates were closed, so strolled around the place looking at electric poles connecting electric lines to the city. I'm actually hard-pressed to think that despite having so many dams, thermal power stations and nuclear power stations all over Karnataka how are we subject to an electricity drought?
All in all, I think it was a great trip, I stayed very close to the sea so I was constantly savouring the sea smell. I also managed to visit an aquarium and concluded that it was funny for people to eat lobsters, what really are those things sticking out of them? But I guess what topped it all was, when I was returning, i made a bus pal who happened to be a student from NIFT. She sounded so full of her travelling activities that I almost conciously dodged the idea of when i shall make such an enthusiastic travel again.
