Interesting Web and Other Links

Here are a few links that I consider worthwhile including.

The first is about the work initiated by Sister Cyril, the former Vice-Principal of Loreto House, Calcutta, when I studied there. Her efforts have led to the education of thousands of street children in Calcutta. The following is a link to the story that appeared on the PBS Lehrer News Hour in May 2009:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/may-1-2009/sister-cyril/2869/

Then there is a marvelous TED lecture on demography given by Hans Rosling – a lively presentation showing some unexpected trends in world population:

Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen

The amount of disposable plastics consumed by our rather wasteful lifestyle and its accumulation as a huge garbage patch in the Pacific is highlighted in another TED lecture by Capt. Charles Moore:

Capt. Charles Moore on the seas of plastic

And another TED lecture by a guy Willie Smits who has re-created a tropical rainforest:

Willie Smits: A 20-year tale of hope: How we re-grew a rainforest

Then there are books that are an invaluable source of information for issues of environmental concern – on the impact of humans on the planet, the biotechnology era, etc. Some are listed below:

Alan Weisman, The World Without Us, St Martin’s Press, 2007.

Peter Pringle, Food, Inc.: Mendel to Monsanto – The Promises and Perils of the Biotech Harvest, Simon and Schuster, 2003.

Recently I heard another TED lecture that I found enormously interesting by a young Nigerian woman and writer named Chimamanda Adichie entitled: The danger of a single story. She illustrates beautifully how important it is that people get to tell their own stories (a continuation of the Chinua Achebe tradition). Although the majority of my students and acquaintances are engineers, I would really like for everyone to learn about other people through their own writings, and here’s a hats off to Ms Adichie!