Windows 7 fix for slow copy speeds from USB

I was recently copying over about 1.5 GB of data from my USB stick to Windows 7 (32bit) and was surprised to see that it took over 25 minutes to do the copy. I researched a little bit and this is what helped me fix it.

1) Run these commands to turn off TCP autotuning. (http://www.speedguide.net/articles/windows-7-vista-2008-tweaks-2574)

netsh int tcp set heuristics disabled
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled

Effect: good increase in speed

2) Turn off Quick Heal antivirus during copy
Effect: good increase in speed

3) In Device Manager, right-click the USB drive in Disk drives folder, then select Properties, switch to Policies tab, and choose "Better Performance". Click OK to keep it. (http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistahardware/thread/60a7b507-9bda-4e66-8693-b85498cd860c/)
Effect: good increase in speed

Overall the copy time came down to about about 4 minutes (From stable speed of 500KB/s prior to changes, to 5.4 MB/s)

Note for the smart asses: before one starts inferring more than is necessary, let me clarify that Win7 and Quick Heal are both great products and serve my purpose very well.

GTAC 2010

After having been denied participation initially, I did get to attend the second day of GTAC thanks to Simon Stewart helping me get in. I met a lot of interesting people, and spoke at length to the WebDriver folks, comparing notes, discussing road-map and about possible use of WebDriver underneath Sahi. It is going to take us a little while to do an honest appraisal and see whether that is the right direction to take.

GTAC was good over all, in the quality of crowd. The talks were interesting. James Whittaker definitely lost my vote when he said something like "Honestly I was not thrilled when I heard GTAC was in India. I did not expect much, <pause>, and I must say, I am not disappointed". Seriously man, next time think before you say something like that, or be dishonest. Btw, some morons clapped at this.

There was one other instance where I thought I need to add my comments. During a discussion, where I mentioned that going back to the web developer to add ids increases turn-around time, Simon jumped to say that it is wrong to have teams separate, they should be sitting next to each other and should get it fixed immediately. This may be the ideal situation (I strongly question that too), but it is definitely not what is practised or feasible in the industry. While interactions are good, minimizing the testers dependence on the developer is required. They may wish to discuss business logic, but really why should they know the internal ids that need to be added to the view. It is just a waste of time. Adding ids is also not always possible when using off the shelf javascript UI frameworks. Why burden everyone with ids when tools like Sahi can do without the ids? I wish the discussion had stuck to testability and not gone off to project management.

Those aside, I think GTAC was good. Thanks GTAC for letting me be there at least for the second day!

Syntax Highlighting for Sahi Code

I have added syntax highlighting to my blogs now. Used Alex Gorbatchev's SyntaxHighlighter 2.0 which is awesome. I added a Sahi brush to SyntaxHighlighter so that keywords in Sahi would also be highlighted.

This is what shBrushSahi.js looks like:

SyntaxHighlighter.brushes.SahiScript = function()
{
 var keywords = 'abstract boolean break byte case catch char class const continue debugger ' +
     'default delete do double else enum export extends false final finally float ' +
     'for function goto if implements import in instanceof int interface long native ' +
     'new null package private protected public return short static super switch ' +
     'synchronized this throw throws transient true try typeof var void volatile while with';

 var schedulerFns = '_alert _assertEqual _assertNotEqual _assertNotNull _assertNull _assertTrue _assert _assertNotTrue _assertFalse _assertExists _assertNotExists _callServer _click _clickLinkByAccessor _dragDrop _resetSavedRandom _setSelected _setValue _simulateEvent _call _eval _setGlobal _wait _popup _highlight _log _navigateTo _callServer _doubleClick _rightClick _addMock _removeMock _expectConfirm _setFile _expectPrompt _debug _debugToErr _debugToFile _mouseOver _keyPress _focus _keyDown _keyUp _mockImage _execute _assertContainsText _enableKeepAlive _disableKeepAlive _dragDropXY _deleteCookie _createCookie _clearPrintCalled _saveDownloadedAs _clearLastDownloadedFileName _rteWrite';
 
 var browserFns = '_accessor _button _check _checkbox _image _imageSubmitButton _link _password _radio _select _submit _textarea _textbox _event _getGlobal _random _savedRandom _cell _table _containsText _containsHTML _byId _row _getText _getCellText _div _span _spandiv _option _lastConfirm _reset _file _lastPrompt _lastAlert _get _style _byText _cookie _position _print _printCalled _label _lastDownloadedFileName _rteHTML _rteText _re _prompt _getCellText _getSelectedText _scriptName _isVisible _listItem _parentNode _parentCell _parentRow _parentTable _in';
 
 var otherFns = '_getDB _readFile _logException _logExceptionAsFailure _stopOnError _continueOnError _include';
 
 schedulerFns += (' ' + otherFns);


 this.regexList = [
  { regex: SyntaxHighlighter.regexLib.singleLineCComments, css: 'comments' },   // one line comments
  { regex: SyntaxHighlighter.regexLib.multiLineCComments,  css: 'comments' },   // multiline comments
  { regex: SyntaxHighlighter.regexLib.doubleQuotedString,  css: 'string' },   // double quoted strings
  { regex: SyntaxHighlighter.regexLib.singleQuotedString,  css: 'string' },   // single quoted strings
  { regex: /\s*#.*/gm,          css: 'preprocessor' },  // preprocessor tags like #region and #endregion
  { regex: new RegExp(this.getKeywords(schedulerFns), 'gm'), css: 'color4' },    // operators and such
  { regex: new RegExp(this.getKeywords(browserFns), 'gm'), css: 'color5' },    // operators and such
  { regex: new RegExp(this.getKeywords(keywords), 'gm'),  css: 'keyword' }   // keywords
  ];
 
 this.forHtmlScript(SyntaxHighlighter.regexLib.scriptScriptTags);
};

SyntaxHighlighter.brushes.SahiScript.prototype = new SyntaxHighlighter.Highlighter();
SyntaxHighlighter.brushes.SahiScript.aliases = ['sahi', 'sahiscript'];

And this is what I added to my blogger template:

<script src='http://sahi.co.in/static/syntaxhighlighter/scripts/shCore.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script src='http://sahi.co.in/static/syntaxhighlighter/scripts/shBrushJScript.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script src='http://sahi.co.in/static/syntaxhighlighter/scripts/shBrushSahi.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<link href='http://sahi.co.in/static/syntaxhighlighter/styles/shCore.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/>
<link href='http://sahi.co.in/static/syntaxhighlighter/styles/shThemeDefault.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/>
<style>
.syntaxhighlighter .color4, .syntaxhighlighter .color4 a{color: #000A7F !important;}
.syntaxhighlighter .color5,.syntaxhighlighter .color5 a{color: brown !important;}
</style>
<script type='text/javascript'>
    SyntaxHighlighter.config.clipboardSwf = 'http://sahi.co.in/static/syntaxhighlighter/scripts/clipboard.swf';
    SyntaxHighlighter.config.bloggerMode = true;
    SyntaxHighlighter.all();
</script>

Note that, in blogger, <br> tags will be visible in the code in place of new lines if you do not add

SyntaxHighlighter.config.bloggerMode = true;

So now Sahi scripts on the blog will look like this:

function search(){
    _setValue(_textbox("q"), "sahi");
    _click(_submit("Google Search"));
    _assertExists(_link("Sahi"));
}
function goToForums(){
    _click(_link("Sahi"));
    _click(_link("Forums"));
}
function logout(){
    if (_condition(_link("Logout"))){
        _click(_link("Logout"));
    }
}
function login($username, $password){
    _click(_link("Login"));
    _setValue(_textbox("req_username"), $username);
    _setValue(_password("req_password"), $password);
    _click(_submit("Login"));
    _assertExists(_listItem("Logged in as "+$username));
}

search();
goToForums();
logout();
login("sahitest" "khuljasimsim");

Chrome rocks!

Chrome rocks absolutely!

It is blazingly fast, and feels ultra light weight. After using it for a few weeks now, I am totally addicted.

The landing page which shows snapshots of all pages recently viewed, is very convenient to start off and I feel great to just be able to click on a thumbnail and get to the site with out examining the url on my url bar or clicking on a bookmark. In fact the landing page is something that has really made a lot of difference in my browsing experience. I don't get lost as often as I used to and it saves me a lot of time and effort.

I love the incognito mode which allows me to login simultaneously as different users, even into web applications which use permanent cookies. This is great for developers testing web applications.

I like the ability to drag a tab and create its own window and vice versa.

Space usage on chrome is very efficient and the concept of getting rid of the windows title bar is a very good one. The concept of showing page popups as part of the same tab but hidden down below is also quite useful.

Honestly speaking I don't care much about being able to type the search terms or url into a single box. Surprising that Google talks about that more than the other features.

My default browser was Firefox, but now I am converted.

Sahi V2 20080831 Released

After close to a month of development, Sahi V2 20080831 has been released today. (http://sahi.co.in/w/)

This release uses Rhino as the scripting engine, thus moving most of the script execution to the proxy. This should go a long way in simplifying Sahi scripts. Scripts now execute on the proxy, and only stuff that needs to execute on the browser is sent to the browser. Thus scheduler functions are sent to the browser for execution. One change which has come in is that custom functions which may have been added for identification of browser elements, now need to be wrapped in a <browser></browser> tag so that they are also sent to the browser.

This build also has some important changes to the SocketPool which will fix issues related to too many sockets being used and errors due to BindExceptions. Suite execution has been changed such that even if the browser crashes, the suite will continue with the next script and thus not hold up a build. DB methods now close connections properly.

There will still be a few rough edges and I hope users will report bugs so that they are easily fixed. Meanwhile, help spread the message through your blogs or email forums.

Sahi V2 20080831 Released

After close to a month of development, Sahi V2 20080831 has been released today. (http://sahi.co.in/w/)

This release uses Rhino as the scripting engine, thus moving most of the script execution to the proxy. This should go a long way in simplifying Sahi scripts. Scripts now execute on the proxy, and only stuff that needs to execute on the browser are sent to the browser. Thus scheduler functions are sent to the browser for execution. One change which has come in is that custom functions which may have been added for identification of browser elements, now need to be wrapped in a tag so that they are also sent to the browser.

This build also has some important changes to the SocketPool which will fix issues related to too many sockets being used and errors due to BindExceptions. Suite execution has been changed such that even if the browser crashes, the suite will continue with the next script and thus not hold up a build. DB methods now close connections properly.

There will still be a few rough edges and I hope users will report bugs so that they are easily fixed. Meanwhile, help spread the message through your blogs or email forums.

Sahi - Latest developments

Copy of post on forum: http://sahi.co.in/forums/viewtopic.php?id=261

I had not been active on the Sahi forums (http://sahi.co.in/forums) for sometime. Thanks a ton to StringyLow, tinchie8, lepierrot, pankaj.nith and others for keeping this forum active, and replying to posts.

Meanwhile I have been working on a version of Sahi which attacks one of the basic problems with Sahi.
Scopes of variables, scheduler and normal functions and the the way steps are queued and executed and the way their integrity needs to be maintained across page loads.

The problem had been that the scripts (after parsing) were executed on the browser itself, and when a page unloads, the state of the script's execution needed to be persisted on the proxy and then resurrected when the next page loaded. While this allowed the ease of using javascript for scripting, when scripts became bigger, the browsers and the proxy had to do a lot more persisting and resurrecting.

As the logical next step, I wanted to move this script execution to the proxy. I now use Rhino, an excellent javascript engine, to execute the scripts on the proxy. Only steps that need to be executed on the browser are sent to the browser. Javascript can still be used for Sahi scripting. Even though the script still is parsed, it is much simpler to understand script execution than it was before. Rhino also comes with a debugger which can prove useful to Sahi script debugging.

The version is slated to be released soon. I am looking for volunteers to test and give me feedback about the new version. If you have existing scripts, the scripts may need to be modified a little to make it work with the new version.
If you are interested, please post back or email me at narayan at sahi.co.in.

Viewing cookies in IE

There are times during development when you wish to see the cookies of a particular site, but do not know how to view them. You can use this simple solution to view cookies.

Drag this link to the Bookmarks toolbar on firefox. (Enable the toolbar by: View -> Toolbars -> Bookmarks Toolbar)
Show Cookies

On IE, right click on link, "Add to Favorites", Create In -> "Links". (Enable toolbar via Tools -> Toolbars -> Links)

Once you have this link on the toolbar, you can navigate to any site and click it to see the cookies.

Of course there are plenty of cookie viewing techniques and tools around, but this is a very easy and handy way of checking cookies quickly.

The html of the link above looks like this:
<a href="javascript:alert(document.cookie)">Show Cookies</a>

Bookmarlets like these can be really useful at times. For example in my newly launched http://www.househunt.in website, I have a bookmarklet which helps me gather relevant links from a builder's site. All I need to do is navigate to the builder's website, click a bookmarklet on my browser and it injects javascript into the page to collect all relevant links and display a popup page. I then just add some more information and submit. This ease has helped more than 400 projects in Pune to be added within a short span of time.

Launching HouseHunt.in

While looking for houses I needed an easy way of searching and shortlisting properties in Pune. So wrote this web application over the past few weeks. It is ready for use now.

The url is http://www.househunt.in

For the geekily oriented, this app is built and deployed on the Google App Engine platform (http://code.google.com/appengine/).

It is written in python using some features of the django framework and uses Google's BigTable instead of a regular database.

Unicode encode decode error in python email

Been bothered with these on and off errors in our application while sending email via python:
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/email/Generator.py", line 182, in handletext self._fp.write(payload)
UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\u2014' in position 4986: ordinal not in range(128)

The reason is that Python's email module needs some information about charset used when a MIMEText object is created.

Here is a link which explians how to solve this:
http://mg.pov.lt/blog/unicode-emails-in-python


Links to understand unicode in Python:

http://effbot.org/zone/unicode-objects.htm
http://www.amk.ca/python/howto/unicode

Enduro3

So we competed in and completed the Enduro3 race. Sujoy, Sunil and I cycled some 45 kms over mud tracks and hilly roads, trekked another 50, and eventually survived the adventure race unhurt, and still friends. We started around 10:30 am on Friday and finished around 6:30 pm on Saturday, having slept some 4 hrs in between.

The race:
Cycling:
From Paud Road to NDA.
On some muddy terrain inside NDA. Was good fun.
Back on the road, up and down, up and down and up up - ending at Panshet Water Sports Center.
(One of us and his cycle have since been divorced.)

Trekking:
Start from Panshet, walk along the ridge, get totally lost for a couple of hours, reach one end of the lake. (9:30pm)
Stop for the night.
Do river crossing. Only one in the team had to and Sujoy, you rocked then!
Sleep till 2 am. Trussed up in a dryfit t-shirt, the poncho, a full cotton t-shirt, a nice jacket, a monkey cap and inside a sleeping bag. felt good.
Wake and start trekking around 3 am.
Sleep again from 5 to 6 am because we got lost.
Wake (6 am) and trek trek around the lake, on the road, up koshimgarh and trek trek along the ridge till we reached Panshet WSC. (6.30 pm)

The lake and mountains were beautiful. The morning trek was quite refreshing and we saw a lot of birds. The sudden burst of wings from a group of quails from under my feet took me totally by surprise. So close were they, our bodies could feel the drumming vibrations of the frantic wing beats. Also saw a hovering black shouldered kite, a grey jungle fowl, a large green barbet(?), loads of red whiskered/vented bulbuls, purple sunbirds, some flowerpeckers, puff throated, jungle babblers, magpie robins, and rufous backed shrikes.

The race was tiring, and we lost our way more than once. But it was a lot of fun and it definitely tested our endurance and it feels good to have completed the race and be writing this blog.


Information for the next time (IT category):
Water was available at a lot of places and was not a problem.
Even though the race director laughs at you in the briefing session when you ask him about carrying sleeping bags, know that they are absolutely needed.
Do NOT expect flags where you need them.
Finish cycling as fast as possible so that you can navigate properly in daylight on the trek. On a moonless night like we had, it was impossible to look at the lake's shape and find our bearings from the map.
The river crossing is in a deep part of the lake and you have to swim (and not wade) across. You get a life-vest so you won't drown and there are ropes at water level to pull yourself along. The water is placid and does not have a current. The distance is around 100m I think.
The river crossing and rifle shooting timings are only useful when you have a tie. So really don't bother much with these.
The rifle shooting was dropped for our event because of time constraints(?).
Glucose is the best. Food may be taken but you would be better off with chocolate bars and energy bars.
Carry a couple of 1L water bottles per person.
Practise with your own cycle, and from well in advance. Don't fatigue your muscles just a day or two before the race.

Javascript sleep() or wait() in Sahi

My previous post on 'Javascript sleep() or wait()' is visited a lot of times and I think I should write how the problem was eventually solved in Sahi.

Sahi needs to playback scripts written in javascript on the browser.
Let us consider a small example:

We are trying to automate an AJAXy mail client application which has an Inbox button, which when clicked, loads a part of the page, and this newly loaded content has a link 'Unread'.

_click(_button('Inbox'));
_click(_link('Unread'));

When the first line is executed, the Inbox button gets clicked and the script has to wait till the relevant portions of the page load, before it can click 'Unread'.

To solve this, Sahi has a script parser which modifies this script to look something like this:

steps = new Array();
steps[steps.length]  = "_click(_button('Inbox'));";
steps[steps.length]  = "_click(_link('Unread'));";

And to execute these steps, it does:

var currentStep = 0;
function execute(){
    if (currentStep == steps.length) return;
    window.eval(steps[currentStep]);
    currentStep++;
    window.setTimeout('execute()', 1000);
}

execute();

Hope this helps people who are looking for a solution for javascript sleep.

java -cp does not work?

Was trying to get Sahi's batch and shell scripts to work properly since I get a lot of queries regarding database drivers not being found instpite of adding to the classpath.

The problem is this. I need to add a mysql driver to Sahi's classpath so that the scripts can access the driver to do some data driven testing.

So I had to add the mysql driver to this:

java -jar ../lib/sahi.jar

Trivially, I added a -cp option so the command looks like this:

java -cp ../extlib/mysql-connector-java-5.0.4-bin.jar -jar ../lib/sahi.jar

But this does NOT work. Why? Because an executable jar should have its classpath in its manifest file and not outside.

The way to solve this is to use:

java -cp ../extlib/mysql-connector-java-5.0.4-bin.jar;../lib/sahi.jar net.sf.sahi.Proxy

So I made these changes on my windows machine, and it worked. Then logged on to my newly installed ubuntu to check if the shell script works with the same changes.

Made the necessary semi-colon to colon conversion in the classpath, so it looks like this.

java -cp ../extlib/mysql-connector-java-5.0.4-bin.jar:../lib/sahi.jar net.sf.sahi.Proxy

The sahi.sh file has a few other lines too.

When I ran sahi.sh, it gave me a NoClassDefFound error for net/sf/sahi/Proxy! After hunting around quite a bit on the net to see if there was such a problem on linux, I realized that nobody on the forums seems to understand the problem even when somebody reported it.

Eventually I realized that since I had edited the file in windows, it was adding ^M characters at the newlines which was not being recognized by the shell. So I used another editor and got rid of them by deleting and reentering the newlines. (I could also have used dos2unix, but did not have it installed on my machine)

I also realized why the people in the forums did not understand the problem. Most of the replies were from people using linux all the time and the question posters would have mostly been using windows but since the problem was on a linux machine would have posted the question on linux forums!

Anyway, now things work properly :)

Sahi at FOSS.in

I will be presenting on the internal workings of Sahi at FOSS.in at Bangalore. This is not a demo level session but will involve a deep dive into the internals of the proxy, the script, extending the proxy, adding new APIs and other unmentionables. Hope to meet some interested and interesting people there.

Cycling trip to god knows where

The cycle had been well over hauled. Had to replace the fork, both tyres and tubes. But the result was good. A very smooth, no hassles ride. The gear shifts were working well and the rolling was good. Except for the loose pedal shaft which had worn out and kept shaking and threatened to come off anytime. Saturday morning I set out from home at around 9, got the pedal shaft replaced and was on my way by 9.25. Was to meet Shrik near my office which was a good 17 kms away. Reached the office by 10.10. 45 minutes was a decent time and made me feel that I could go the office on cycle at least once a week. Had a vada pav and lime juice.

Shrik's Hero Octane looked good, and we started at 10.30 towards Hinjewadi. Past Hinjewadi, towards Paud, and we were in the villages and we kept going uphill and then eventually had a long long descent. Rested at the end of it. Had a limca and decided where to go next. Turned right on some local advice and went on a really bumpy bad road for quite a distance. The scenery around was good though it was all villages. Suddenly we were pleasantly surprised to see three woolly necked storks on the side on an inundated field. Took a few snaps and moved on in search of some hotel to eat.



We saw a lot of sugar cane laden tractors and got a sugarcane from one of them. Had some of it and washed ourselves in a nallah. Eventually found a hotel, but we could not get any meals there. Just had vada sambar, pav and a tea. The hotel guy suggested we go a little ahead and go to a Satya Sai temple nearby if we wanted to have a nap. So off we went to the temple, but it turned out to be one steep climb. Half way through we came across a short cement platform and we parked right there and went off to doze in the shade. Half an hour later, a little refreshed, we proceeded and came across Tikona on the right and a lovely lake on the left. It was beautiful. Ahead, after a friendly water break with some locals, we hit a steep long ghat road which was quite a challenge to go up. At the top, rested for a while with tea and a cream roll. Moved on from there down a lovely steep winding road, and then climbed again all the way to the Kamshet Dam and then downhill again to Pavana nagar village. At a fork where Kamshet was 10 kms to the left, we decided to go right because we were told that the highway was closer in that direction. Was that a mistake! We cycled for a long long distance with no sign of a highway. Twilight became night and we were either guided by the less than half moon, or blinded by the oncoming vehicles. Had a very needed halt where we hogged five bananas each and to wash off the sweet taste I had a tomato too! Tried to hitch a ride back with a few vehicles but no luck. So we kept going and eventually, we went over the Bombay Pune expressway, and down further to join the NH4. We went to the nearest dhaba, which was quite comfortable with beds to rest, had a beer and some not so great food, and chilled out for a while.

Around 8.30 we started cycling towards the nearest railway station, Begadewadi, which was hardly a km away from the dhaba thankfully. Got on the Lonavla-Pune local at 9.20 and after getting a few excited and curious glances and comments about our cycles, Shrik got down at Khadki and I at Pune. Pedalled back from the station to home and reached around 10.30, by when Shrik had also reached home. Had a bath and crashed.

Sahi no longer needs waiting for AJAX calls

A new version of Sahi has been released. Download from https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=151639

More details on the release are here: http://sahitest.blogspot.com/

0=="" is true

Debugging something on Sahi, came across this interesting equality in javascript:

0 == "" is true!

So are:

1 == "1" etc.

An easy way to test these out (and any other single line javascript) is to type

javascript:0==""

on the browser url navigation bar.
Yes, it works on IE and firefox.

Vote for Sahi on SourceForge Community Choice Awards 2007

If you like Sahi, nominate and vote for it in the SourceForge Community Choice Awards 2007.
Ask your friends, colleagues and other bloggers to express support too. Thanks :)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/sahi

Trip to BR Hills

Rashmi and I had been to this place called BR Hills near Mysore. It was early April and it was supposed to be a good time for sighting animals. But we were disappointed to know that a forest fire had burnt very large tracts of the forest and since there was no vegetation for the deer and other grazers, they had all moved away.
But luck was on our side. On the second night, we saw a bear in the moonlight, quite close to our log hut. It was scratching the ground and lazily moving around, making a lot of rustling noises among the fallen dry leaves.
The next day evening, as we were coming back from the safari, we saw a couple of deer, right by our side, totally ignoring us, and staring at something right ahead of us. They called twice, the sharp and loud "cow", the alarm call of the spotted deer. And then, from the grasses to the left, something came out on the road. In a second it vanished around the bend in the road. In a frenzy of excitement we urged the driver to drive down. He had not seen the animal come onto the road, but started driving down slowly to the bend. But the animal was gone.
We looked around, excited, frustrated and expectant. Someone saw a movement on the raised bank on the right. There it was, a full grown leopard, moving stealthily towards cover. A few more moves and the vegetation consumed the cat.
The now very excited driver guessed it must come out again a bit further and he started moving. And then we spotted it again. A magnificent animal, sitting right there, a few feet away, at a height on the raised bank which let us look at it straight in the eyes. I clicked away shaking with excitement. The leopard was just beautiful. I had never seen one so close and for so long. It just sat and looked at us. And slowly moved back, while still sitting, so that it was covered by some undergrowth. This is exactly how a tiger had behaved a few months back in Bandipur. Slowly creep backwards in imperceptible movements but soon be hidden from view behind some neighbouring undergrowth.

And then the leopard started moving. It came down the embankment and walked across the road and then down the curvy road which bent in a U to be parallel with us again. And man, was it brilliant. The leopard moved effortlessly, purposefully, silently, stealthily and man, so beautifully. And it was in full view of us all the time!
15 minutes had gone by and it was still around! Perfect sighting!
And then we started moving towards it, as we had to return to camp, and by then the leopard decided to vanish. And vanish he did. We could not figure out where he went.


We were again rewarded th next day with a bear sighting while we trekked nearby! Quite an eventful and satisfying three days!

Inter-linking of rivers in India is a bad idea

I think inter-linking of rivers in India is a bad idea.
Whenever any friend of mine sounds impressed with this grandiose idea, I have felt frustrated and disturbed. We tend to overlook smaller more effective solutions and go for more romantic and glamorous 'solutions'. So I had been hunting around to gather information on this and make a case of it to people who want to understand what the pros and cons of this effort are. Following are a few links which spell out the danger of going ahead with this plan which does not have enough scientific evidence or prior experience to back it.


The Interlinking of Indian Rivers

Some Questions on the Scientific, Economic and Environmental Dimensions of the Proposal

Paper presented at Seminar on Interlinking Indian Rivers: Bane or Boon?
at IISWBM, Kolkata
17 June 2002

The conclusion of the above goes thus: "At the end of the above review and analysis made on the basis of whatever open information is available on the project for interlinking the rivers in India, there appears a great inconsistency in the declared claims of the project, and their feasibility"


This link, by Shailendra Nath Ghosh, talks about what is wrong with the concept, and what questions need to be answered, to make a proper assessment of this project

More articles and opinions. Quite insightful.

Bangladesh's views on India's inter-linking of rivers (They too oppose this)

Narmada Bachao Aandolan's views in "Dams, Rivers and People": This talks about rehabilitation failures and need for local management and conservation than an imposed, top down solution. They may appear biased because of their image in the press but they are people who have seen and fought unselfishly for rehabilitation of displaced people.

"The proposal is even more dangerous as attempting to link up veins of different persons without trying to find out the blood groups of the individuals. He said consequences will be disastrous." from National Citizens’ Meeting in Delhi concludes: River Link Proposals ill conceived, not in national Interest

More:
ILR in Supreme Court

Bahuguna opposes interlinking of rivers

I have not included any links which talk about the environmental aspects of this inter-linking. While the impact will be enormously destructive, talking about it seems to turn off people because they cannot see how economic growth and environmental conservation can co-exist. (May these lesser mortals exit soon)

So next time you hear of the inter-linking of rivers , doubt it, question it and take the side of what then comes out as true and right.