Twilight In Delhi

[Rolando Kumar]

Twilightin Delhi is Ahmed Ali's first novel, originally published in English by the Hogarth Press in Britain in 1940. The novel addresses India's changing social, political, and cultural climate following colonialism.[1]

The novel is set around 1911 to 1919 in Delhi. Ahmed Ali has vividly drawn the picture of old Delhi and its Muslim inhabitants of that era. He depicts the themes of disintegration, degeneration, alienation, gender and social conflicts, nostalgia, the downfall of the Mughal emperors, and the effects of colonialism and imperialism on Indian Muslims in Delhi.

The novel is shot through with rich symbolic imagery. The palm tree, the henna plant, dogs, cats and pigeons refer not only to the behaviors of characters but also the whole Muslim society. The novel starts at dawn, with "twilight" referring to the rise of the sun as well as the rise of the protagonist Mir Nihal's living standards. By contrast, descriptions of twilight at evening in the closing sentences portray the overall downfall and destruction of not only the family of Mir Nihal but also the Mughal Empire altogether.

This paper measures the illuminance level during the post-twilight darkness on the walking path of a famous public park in New Delhi. The readings, 252 in number, were mapped on a map using Global Positioning System and were measured using a lux meter at regular intervals throughout the pathway. The required illuminance depends upon multiple factors, including visual comfort, safety, security, prevention of light pollution and energy-saving concerns. In a limited scope, this paper has only looked at the measured values and checked whether they fall within the limits of visual comfort derived from literature and security as taken from the Indian lighting standard. The readings show that about one-third of the points on the pathway have zero illuminance levels. Among the rest, 127 of the 252, about half the points were at the level of comfort of 1 to 2 lux. The remaining one-third of the total was over-illuminated from the visual comfort point of view but appropriate from the security approach, which requires readings above 5 lux. It is recommended that instead of the proper focus on lighting levels, uniformly distributed light at an equally distributed spacing throughout the pathway would be more appropriate. Bollard-based lighting focusing on the pathway will be more suitable than the existing high street lamps. This will not only provide lighting for security and comfort but will also prevent light pollution. Such studies must be repeated across parks and streets in India, and more factors like light temperature should be studied further

Book>>Crude World, Twilight of the Oil Economy by Peter Maass Random House Price Rs 800

About 30 per cent of Saudi men are unemployedtoo proud to take low-paying jobs filled by foreigners, and unable to qualify for good jobs because the nations schools are third-rate. Unfortunately, the oil industrythe backbone of the Saudi economyis not labour intensive. National oil concern aramco employs only 50,000 in a nation of 20 million.

That is the paradox of many oil-rich countries; their oil brings trouble rather than prosperity. Norway is the outlier to this statement; other exceptions are tiny nations with large reserves Kuwait, Brunei, and uae.

In Crude World former New York Times journalist Peter Maass visits nations blessed with some degree of oil riches. His first stop is Equatorial Guinea.The hospital Maass visited had no medicine, and there was no medical school to supply it with doctors. Despite billions in foreign investment, the local economy benefited little. He finds a kleptocratic dictator enabled by hear-see-and-speak-no-evil Western oil executives. In Ecuador he witnesses a tragically befouled rainforest and the quixotic effort to call to account the oil company liable for the mess, Chevron.

In Venezuela, Maass finds a populist strongman, Hugo Chavez, who brazenly but unsuccessfully raids the national oil companys coffers to pay for well-meaning, if doomed, welfare projects.

But Maass does not do much justice to the books subtitle, twilight of the oil economy. There are occasional hints at the alternative history that might have beenif only Ronald Reagan had not dismantled the solar panels Jimmy Carter put on the White House roof. Maass does give us an evocative glimpse of one future alternative he would prefera giant wind farm he discovers in California. Set against the blue sky and the brown desert, in rows of rotating white arms that glint in the sun, the turbines have the appearance of futuristic totems waving at us, luring us forward, Maass observes before signing off.

Amitabh Raha teaches political science at Delhi University

3a8082e126