Designed by renowned Franco-Spanish designer Isabelle Miaja, Sofitel Mumbai BKC features 302 rooms, including 31 luxury suites. When designing the hotel, Miaja drew upon references from Indian art, including temples, sculptures, and emblematic monuments, while adding a contemporary flair. Together, the architecture and design have created one of the city’s most modern projects.

The property boasts impressive culinary offerings with six restaurants and bars. Guests can dine on traditional North Indian cuisine at Jyran or enjoy Parisian chocolates or artisanal meats and cheeses at L’Artisan – Epicerie, Patisserie, Chocolaterie. For those desiring a more contemporary atmosphere, the ultramodern Bar Diamantaire features a spacious lounge and India’s first wine tower.

A full service property, Sofitel Mumbai BKC offers So SPA and So FIT for active guests. The state-of-the art designer fitness and health facilities include an open-air swimming pool. In addition, the hotel has nine meeting rooms, including a ballroom, ideal for both conferences and events.

Following the brand’s successful three year repositioning, the opening of Sofitel Mumbai BKC demonstrates the company’s commitment to strategically expanding its presence in cities around the world. Sofitel plans additional locations throughout India in the coming years.

Sofitel, World Class Hotels & French Elegance

Sofitel is the only French luxury hotel brand with a presence on five continents with 120 addresses, in almost 40 countries (more than 30,000 rooms). Sofitel offers contemporary hotels and resorts adapted to today’s more demanding and more versatile consumers who expect and appreciate beauty, quality and excellence. Whether situated in the heart of a major city like Paris, London, New York, Shanghai or Beijing, or nestled away in a country landscape in Morocco, Egypt, French Polynesia or Thailand, each Sofitel property offers a genuine experience of the French “art de vivre”.

You can discover Sofitel at www.sofitel.com

Discover Sofitel’s A|Club, the Accor loyalty programme at www.a-club.com

Public release date: 22-Feb-2012
[

| E-mail

| Share

]

Contact: Bill Chandler
bill.chandler@marine-conservation.org
202-546-5346
Marine Conservation Biology Institute

NOAA and Fish and Wildlife Service now 3 years behind schedule on banning commercial fishing

Washington, DC (February 22, 2012) � Today, Marine Conservation Institute filed a formal petition to the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Commerce, asking them to prohibit commercial fishing in America’s sensitive and pristine Pacific Island marine national monuments, a ban that President George W. Bush declared when he established the monuments over three years ago.

In January 2009, President Bush established three marine monuments in the central Pacific and prohibited commercial fishing in them because they are incredibly rich marine ecosystems that have been damaged by commercial fishing and in the past. Collectively, the monuments cover 193,000 square miles, an area larger than the state of California. These are the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (a collection of isolated coral island possessions), the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument in American Samoa, and the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument. The three monuments wrap around a number of National Wildlife Refuges, most of which existed prior to the creation of the monuments.

William Chandler, Vice President for Government Affairs at Marine Conservation Institute, said, “When President Bush designated these magnificent areas for preservation, he specifically directed that commercial fishing be prohibited in them immediately. But now, over three years later, the fishing ban and associated penalties for illegal fishing within the monuments have yet to be put into place. As a result, and despite evidence of illegal fishing in the monuments, the Coast Guard won’t enforce the ban. This is inexplicable. We’re just trying to get the Administration to do what the presidential designation documents say. There is simply no justification for delay.”

Marine Conservation Institute actively supported the designation of the Pacific Remote Islands National Monument, and remains an advocate for conservation of natural resources within all of the Pacific monuments. Illegal fishing within the monuments threatens these relatively pristine marine ecosystems and their populations of corals, rare reef fish, overfished tuna, sea turtles, whales, and seabirds.

Chandler said, “It is hard to believe a clear directive of the president has gone unimplemented for so long. The responsible federal agencies have had three years to establish fishing rules that ban commercial fishing and leave recreational and indigenous intact, but they have not yet delivered. Without such a ban, these unique ecosystems with their sensitive populations could be damaged by fishermen or their vessels. The world’s largest population of giant clams, nesting sea turtles, and areas of tremendous biological diversity are all at risk.”

###

The full text of the Marine Conservation Institute petition to the Secretaries of the Interior and Commerce is available at: www.marine-conservation.org

About Marine Conservation Institute
“Saving wild ocean places, for us and future generations”

Marine Conservation Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving our living oceans. We work with scientists, politicians, government officials and other organizations around the world to protect essential ocean places and the wild species in them. We use the latest science to identify important marine ecosystems around the world, and then advocate for their protection, for us and future generations.

Find Marine Conservation Institute online at www.marine-conservation.org, Twitter, Facebook and on the blog Marine Conservation News.

About the Pacific Islands Monuments

On January 6, 2009, President George W. Bush proclaimed the Pacific Remote Islands (PRIM), Rose Atoll, and Marianas Trench to be Marine National Monuments with Presidential Proclamations 8335, 8336 and 8337 (collectively, “the Proclamations”). This designation of the three Pacific Monuments extended protection to nearly 200,000 square miles of unique natural resources and was the largest act of marine conservation in history. The President’s designation of the Pacific Monuments recognized their ecological, scientific and cultural importance, biological diversity and other unique characteristics, and the need to protect them.

The Proclamations invoke the authority of the Antiquities Act of 1906, which authorizes the President of the United States to designate lands and waters of the United States as National Monuments. Exercising this authority, President Bush established the Pacific Monuments, prohibited commercial fishing, and delegated management authority to the Departments of the Interior and Commerce. Subsequently, FWS and NOAA have affirmed their management authority for the Monuments.

For the PRIM, DOI, through FWS, has responsibility for management of the Monument (including out to 12 nautical miles (“nmi”) from the mean low water lines of Baker, Howland, and Jarvis Islands, Johnston, Palmyra, and Wake Atolls, and Kingman Reef) and the National Wildlife Refuges contained therein, pursuant to the Proclamation, the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act, as amended (16 U.S.C. � 668dd-668ee) (“National Wildlife Refuge System Act”), and other applicable legal authorities. Commerce, acting through NOAA, has primary management responsibility seaward of 12 to 50 nmi with respect to fishery-related activities pursuant to the Proclamation, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (“MSA”), and other applicable legal authorities.

For the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument, management responsibility was assigned to the Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce. NOAA was assigned primary management responsibility for fishery-related activities in the Monument’s marine areas located seaward of the mean low water line of Rose Atoll, pursuant to the MSA and other applicable authority.

For the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument, the Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce, has responsibility for management of the Monument; except that the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the Secretary of the Interior, has primary responsibility for management with respect to fishery-related activities regulated pursuant to the MSA, the Proclamation, and other applicable legal authorities.

[

| E-mail

| Share

]

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

And in that path, it left behind little brass disks set on concrete bases. And on those disks set into the ground are the latitude and longitude of that position.

“That’s a monument,” said Thomas S. Rowe, vice president of Mark W. Whiteley and Associates, a consulting engineering, surveying and planning company in Beaumont.

One of those monuments is on the north side of Washington Boulevard, just west of the Union Pacific railroad tracks and across the street from a small seafood restaurant.

It’s in plain sight, but is probably long overlooked by most area residents. It’s all but invisible to passing motorists, but its location is crucial for industry, Rowe said.

Whiteley uses the monument – and another near the Jack Brooks Regional Airport – to help triangulate the position of the Spindletop salt dome. Computing elevation at Spindletop is important to the developers of natural gas storage caverns at Spindletop, Rowe said.

“The operators have to monitor movement,” Rowe said. “The ground moves up and down at salt domes. We use the monuments for subsidence surveys.”

That little disk at Washington Boulevard was set into the ground in 1931 and the information on it is intact, including the severity of punishment if a person is caught intentionally destroying it. The offender could face a fine of $250,000 or imprisonment.

On Rowe’s desk is an example of a disk that was destroyed, more than likely by a brush hog – a large mower for heavy underbrush.

This particular disk, set in 1959 in China, is bent in the middle. It was broken off its post so that part of it is still set in the ground. Whiteley crews know where it is so they can still use the location and take the readings they need, Rowe said.

“As people build, they get destroyed,” he said of the markers.

But the disks still have enormous value, he said.

“This is how you find out where you are in relation to the rest of the world,” he said.

Mark Whiteley, who founded his surveying and engineering company in 1978, said the position of the Earth changes all the time. In ’78, when he began, the difference between magnetic north – which is where a compass points – and true north, the position of the North Star (the only star that doesn’t move in relation to the Earth), was 8 degrees. That difference, or declination, is now 3 degrees, Whiteley said.

Knowing how to compute a point on Earth from a fixed monument that shows latitude and longitude is essential for a variety of reasons, Whiteley said.

Property boundaries can be determined through the fixed monuments, he said, but other factors also will apply such as local law and history.

Determining the correct physical location through latitude and longitude is used in setting a refinery’s pressure vessel in the right place, making sure it is plumb, Whiteley said.

The global positioning device in one’s vehicle is based on latitude and longitude. Aircraft get where they’re going because of it. Mariners cross oceans because of it, Whiteley said.

The method used for placing the brass monuments is antique, Whiteley said, as out of date as the use of a slide rule for computations. Slide rules, once as common an accessory for an engineer as a plastic pocket protector, helped send Americans to the moon and brought them safely home, Rowe said.

Geodetic positioning, which is the technical way to say where you are in the world, also is crucial in laying water and sewer pipes, telephone and utility poles, or planning streets, he said.

Whiteley said he wants his surveyors to be able to rely on mathematical skills like trigonometry and geometry just in case their modern tools, like battery-powered devices, fail them in the outdoors where his company’s business takes place.

Some of them can, he said, with a little nostalgia for the lack of math skills now taught in schools.

As to the humble little monuments that a person might find at his feet in the weeds off a busy city street, Whiteley quoted a little Scripture from Proverbs:

“Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.”

DWallach@BeaumontEnterprise.com

Twitter.com/dwallach

Agar Firdaus bar rue Zamin ast, Hamin asto, Hamin asto, Hamin ast!
If there is a paradise on earth, this is it, this is it, this is it! – 13th century poet Amir Khusrau’s famous couplet describing India, inscribed on the walls of the 17th century Red Fort.

DELHI – The earthly “paradise” that is the Red Fort in Delhi is getting a stuttering makeover even as it continues drawing thousands of visitors as one of Asia’s most popular historical monuments.

The Archaeology Survey of India (ASI) is face-lifting the Red Fort to preserve the site’s tumultuous legacy. The fort not only represents painstaking craftsmanship and creativity, but also a decadent lifestyle that weakened and destroyed one of the most

powerful empires in history – the Mughals.

A bit of Mughal-style wealth would come in handy right now, say the restorers. “The Red Fort is far too important a monument to be left neglected,” ASI conservation officer Milind Angaikar told Asia Times Online. “But our biggest challenge is shortage of funds. Being declared a World Heritage monument [in 2007] has not increased the budget.”

No such financial constraints hampered Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (1592-1666) whose architectural credits include the Taj Majal. He took nearly 10 years to complete building the Red Fort in 1648. There was nothing like it in existence. An English general described it as the greatest palace in the world of that time, if not all time.

Merging Indian, Persian and European art, the fort holds marble and red stone structures of low height set amid wide rectangular lawns, gardens, trees, fountains, music played five times a day, waterways and lights. This palace of palaces was ruled by Mughals, ransacked by Persians and Afghans, colonized by British and retrieved by India.

The largest and most significant of the seven forts or seven old cities of Delhi, the Red Fort, or Lal Qila in Hindi, still carries much significance in modern India. The flag of a free India fluttered here on August 15, 1947. Indian prime ministers have addressed the nation every Independence Day since from the Red Fort ramparts near the Lahore Gate entrance.

The Red Fort gets hours of my time often when I am in Delhi. There is a sense of deja vu, a feeling of wonder at the happiness, sorrows, triumphs, tragedies, intrigues, struggles these skeletons of the past might have seen, the stories the red sandstone walls could tell of the people who lived and died within.

They were a curious breed, those emperors of the Mughal dynasty (1526-1857). The founder, Zahiruddin Muhammad Babar, was descendant of the Mongolian psychopathic mass murderer Ghenghiz Khan from Central Asia. The word “Mughal” comes from “Mongol”.

Shah Jahan, the fifth of the Mughal emperors and builder of the Red Fort, died a prisoner of his son Aurangzeb (1618-1707). Aurangzeb, whose coronation in the Red Fort came after he’d murdered his brothers, became an intolerant extremist, an one-man ancestor of the Taliban who was ignorant to the fact that one respects one’s own religion by respecting others’. His intolerance for non-Muslims destroyed regional alliances his forefathers had built. He was the last of the powerful Mughals who ruled from the Red Fort.

He sowed the seeds for the end of the Mughals, even as the Red Fort was epicenter to one of the largest empires in the world, the second-largest in Asia after the Qing Dynasty domains in China. At its peak, Mughal lands stretched across 4.6 million square kilometers, nearly all of South Asia except for a part of present-day Kerala in south western India.

In the next hundred years, the Red Fort became a temple for the empire’s luxuries and pleasures of the flesh. But attachment to excessive physical comforts can creates mental discomfort, and the following generations of Mughal princes grew up progressively weak and incompetent.

Their final fall came in the Red Fort within 150 years. In 1857, the English colonials captured Bahadur Shah Jafar the second, the 17th and last of Mughals and a figurehead in India’s First War of Independence, which saw him led him out in chains and shipped to exile in Burma (now called Myanmar).

The last known descendant of the Mughals, in the lineage of Babur, Akbar “the Great” and Shah Jahan, was in 2009 discovered living in dire poverty in a Kolkata slum. She was running a small tea stall, and later given a job as a maid servant running errands for the government-owned firm Coal India.

The wealth this maid servant’s Mughal forefathers hoarded in the Red Fort hints at the riches the sub-continent once owned. The loot Persian raider Nadir Shah carried out of Delhi in 1739 needed 1,000 elephants and 800 horses to carry it. His booty included the golden Peacock Throne encrusted with sapphires, emeralds, rubies and the famous Kohinoor diamond now part of the globally stolen property comprising the British queen’s Crown Jewels.

“All this was like a jungle, full of weeds, when I came here,” said gardener Dinanath, watering the lawns in front of the palace where two of the most powerful emperors in the world lived. Dinanath, working here for over 35 years, is part of a team of 105 gardeners trying to recreate a semblance of what was once called Hayat Bakhsh Bagh or “Life-Bestowing Garden”.

The garden had its own “Stream of Paradise” or “Nahri-i – Bisht“, an elaborate waterworks running throughout the royal living quarters. Water lifted from the River Yamuna flowed out of copper and clay pipes in lavishly appointed bathrooms called the “Hamman” to offer a choice of hot, cold and steam baths. In a late February afternoon a few hundred years later, a child delightedly scampered up and down a small wooden board bridging the now bone-dry, dusty “Stream of Paradise”.

“In about two or three months, there will an improved sound and light show with computerized laser beams and projections,” said Pradeep Kumar, manager of the nightly Sound and Light show manager since the mid-1980s. The Red Fort itself was built for light effects. The important edifices, including court halls and the emperor’s living quarters, are laid out to face the setting and rising sun in an east-west line.

The Rang Mahal or “Palace of colors”, for instance, must have been a spectacular sight as the sun rays reflected off small mirrors embedded on ceiling and walls. The late winter sun at about 5.30 pm glowed exactly on the marble pedestal in the Diwan-i-Khaas where the bejeweled golden Peacock Throne once stood, probably turning it into a shimmering glow of rainbow colors.

Even the waterways contributed to the light effects. The water ran through garden tanks with niches for candles or oil lamps – so the flickering light plays on the water and turns it into rippling gold at night.

Yet all the sensory delights of this “paradise” proved a gilded trap that across centuries choked the life out of the Mughals. One of the major reasons the tide turned against them was people revolting against excessive taxation imposed to pay for Mughal luxuries, compared to which European kings of the era could be said to have been living in budget accommodation.

A now poverty-stricken Red Fort depends on revenue from visiting tourists, but at the same time these visitors threaten its existence. “Increasing footfall on the marble floors creates reverberations that are damaging the structures,” says conservation official Angaikar. “Some of the sections that are closed may never be opened again.”

(Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

International Society of Automation News Release
Contact: Becky Schneider
+1 919-990-9266
bschneider@isa.org

Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA (21 February 2012) — The International Society of Automation (ISA) and San Jacinto College, Pasadena, Texas, USA, announced today a collaborative partnership to provide local-area students with access to ISA’s instrumentation curriculum at San Jacinto College. This collaboration will ensure flexible course offerings and hands-on learning opportunities to prepare workers for careers in automation and control.

Through this collaboration, the college will be able to expand its instrumentation-related continuing education offerings and ISA will be able to provide its technical training courses to local industry professionals at a location that is convenient and cost effective for them. Local automation professionals looking to enhance and grow their existing knowledge will benefit from being able to enroll in these ISA course offerings at San Jacinto College, a convenience that will reduce training travel costs for their companies and themselves.

ISA will qualify local instructors with relevant and relatable real-world experience to lead the courses. Another benefit to the local community is that the college will be able to schedule the courses to meet the needs of students in the local area.

“We are very fortunate to now offer an International Society of Automation curriculum at our college,” said Dr. J.D. Taliaferro, director of applied technologies and trades with the continuing and professional development division at San Jacinto College, adding that the college is the first in Texas to hold this licensing agreement. “This assures our local industry workers that we are committed to providing the highest standard of instrumentation instruction.”

ISA is a global, nonprofit organization with more than 30,000 worldwide members. ISA sets the standard for automation by developing consensus standards for industry, certifying industry professionals, providing expert-developed education and training programs, publishing books and technical articles, and hosting conferences and exhibitions for automation professionals.

ISA’s technical training courses are known and respected worldwide for their unbiased, practical approach to technology application. ISA’s technical training courses are led by ISA-qualified, industry experts who offer in-depth, real-world coverage of topics critical to automation and control success. Course attendees are able to apply what they learn in the classroom immediately.

The ISA technical courses currently scheduled at San Jacinto College are as follows:

• Advanced Operation of Digital (Smart) Transmitters and Digital Valve Controllers (30 April – 4 May 2012)
• Industrial Data Communications Systems: (21–25 May 2012)
• Industrial Networking and Security: (18–22 June 2012)
• Maintaining Pneumatic Components in Measurement and Control: (16–17 July 2012)
• Installing, Calibrating, and Maintaining Electronic Instruments: (6–10 August 2012)
• Math for Instrumentation Technicians: (17–20 September 2012)
• Introduction to Industrial Automation and Control (8–12 October 2012)
• Tuning Control Loops: (5–7 November 2012)
• Troubleshooting Instrumentation and Control Systems: (8–9 November 2012)
• Developing and Applying Standard Instrumentation and Control Documentation: (10–11 December 2012)

All ISA courses at this location will be managed and maintained through San Jacinto College.

“ISA was pleased that San Jacinto College reached out to us regarding this collaboration, especially given ISA’s past technical course offerings on their campus. Through this collaboration—similar to the one we have in place with Los Angeles Harbor College in Wilmington, California— we will be able to bring all that ISA has to offer industry professionals, from our technical resources to professional networking opportunities via our local sections, directly to them at a location and institution of higher learning in their location. Through this and similar collaborative efforts, ISA will be better able to train existing and future automation professionals with the skills necessary to fill the ever-growing skills gap within industry,” said 2012 ISA Society President, Bob Lindeman.

About San Jacinto College

Surrounded by monuments of history, industries and maritime enterprises of today, and the space age of tomorrow, San Jacinto College has been serving the citizens of East Harris County, Texas, for more than 50 years. The Achieving the Dream Leader College is committed to the goals and aspirations of a diverse population of 30,000 students in more than 200 degree and certificate options, including university transfer and career preparation. Students also benefit from the College’s job training programs, renowned for meeting the needs of growing industries in the region. San Jacinto College graduates contribute nearly $630 million each year to the Texas workforce. San Jacinto College. Your Goals. Your College.

For more information about San Jacinto College, please call 281-998-6150, visit www.sanjac.edu, or follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/SanJacintoCollege.

About ISA

Founded in 1945, the International Society of Automation (www.isa.org) is a leading, global, nonprofit organization that is setting the standard for automation by helping over 30,000 worldwide members and other professionals solve difficult technical problems, while enhancing their leadership and personal career capabilities. Based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, ISA develops standards, certifies industry professionals, provides education and training, publishes books and technical articles, and hosts conferences and exhibitions for automation professionals. ISA is the founding sponsor of the Automation Federation (www.automationfederation.org).

Return to Previous Page ]]> http://thebest999.com/san-jacinto-college-collaborates-with-international-society-of-automation-to-deliver-the-industry-standard-in/feed/ 0 http://thebest999.com/blog-katsucon-2012-the-experience/ http://thebest999.com/blog-katsucon-2012-the-experience/#comments Tue, 21 Feb 2012 19:37:23 +0000 admin http://thebest999.com/blog-katsucon-2012-the-experience/ The most interesting part of the weekend for me was the return of the academic panel. Looking for mental stimulation at an anime convention may seem like an oxymoron, but a con of nothing but “Hetalia: Ask a Nation OMG SQUEEEEEEEEEE!” really wouldn’t be all that interesting. So, having a more intellectual bent to some of the panels is a welcome and refreshing alternative to the convention scene. On Friday, there was the “Moe Moe What?” panel. For those unfamiliar with the term “moe”, generally speaking (and this is a broad way to put it) it’s applied to a subset of female anime characters that are considered emotionally vulnerable in some way. The panel was an attempt at an academic-style discussion of moe, and while that’s really hard to pull off in an hour they did a good job. I highly recommend it if it’s being held at a con near you. Another highlight was a Saturday panel called “We Con, Therefore We Are”, which got down into the nitty gritty of how con-going defines the anime fan and vice versa. Obviously those uninterested in taking a meta look at anime fandom wouldn’t like it, but I found it fascinating.

There was also plenty of merriment to be had. Capping my Friday evening was a panel on the good, the bad and the ugly of Saturday morning cartoons called “Saturday Morning Cartoons: The Good, The Bad and the Monchichis”. It was a wonderful panel, though it does seem to be outside the realm of what one would expect to see at an anime con. It’s hard to get really good panelists for anime-related things for an entire weekend though, and I really had a lot of fun at the panel. On Saturday I saw the anime music video contest, which to me was acceptable though nothing in particular stood out in either a good or bad way. I’ve attended these for years and have seen some truly amazing videos, so in fairness the fact that I only see this as “fine” says more about my high standards than the quality of the competition. Right after that was the voice actor cattle call panel. The voice actors are always good for laughs, though things also got serious when J. Michael Tatum talked about how acting allowed him to come out of his shell as a child an engage the world. After dinner came two 18+ panels, “Staff Uncensored” and “Guests Uncensored”, which I am sworn to secrecy about.

Katsucon turned 18 years old this year. That’s a long time to be doing anything, much less a fan-organized event dedicated to animation from a foreign country, and lately it’s just kept growing (to 12,614 people compared to the record of 7,250 last year). Through it all it’s been through multiple venue changes and its fair share of weather emergencies and other maladies, but this year was notably stable. The weather cooperated as it was basically 50 degrees and sunny all weekend, and only a bit colder at night. There was no two feet of snow, no strong winds making cosplayers lose parts of their outfits, no rooms so packed with people that it’s suffocating, no scheduling disasters that led to large blocks of time with nothing going on. It was just a nice, easy, well-run and completely positive convention experience.

The Taj was built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, in Agra, India, and houses the grave of the beloved queen.

The entrance fee to the Taj has increased to $20, but it’s well worth it to visit this wonder of the world. You’ll find many guides who will point out (for a fee) the best spots for taking photographs. Ticket lines are longest at the west gate and shortest at the south gate.

After you’ve visited the Taj Mahal, take a 2.5-kilometer drive to the Red Fort of Agra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The fort was originally built with brick by Hindus; the Islamic Mughals later captured the fort and rebuilt it with red sandstone. Be sure to check out the Delhi Gate and the Lahore Gate when entering. Throughout the fort you’ll see the interesting mix of Hindu and Islamic architecture.

Most guide books recommend that you make a day trip from Delhi to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. The city itself is quite dirty and polluted, and there’s little else to warrant spending a night there. The Taj is closed on Fridays, so make sure to schedule your visit on a day to see both monuments.

You can also see the Taj Mahal for free by climbing onto a hotel rooftop in the Taj Ganj neighborhood, or go to a small Krishna temple by the Yamuna River where you can see the Taj or take a boat ride (100 rupees) to see it from the river. If you’re not a fan of crowds, have a guide take you across the Yamuna on a road bridge to Mehtab Bagh for another breathtaking view of the Taj at dawn.

After daytripping at the Taj and Red Fort, be sure to experience the famous Mughlai cooking in the many area restaurants before returning to Delhi.

1. We grew up with the Internet and on the Internet. This is what makes us different; this is what makes the crucial, although surprising from your point of view, difference: we do not ‘surf’ and the internet to us is not a ‘place’ or ‘virtual space’. The Internet to us is not something external to reality but a part of it: an invisible yet constantly present layer intertwined with the physical environment. We do not use the Internet, we live on the Internet and along it. If we were to tell our bildnungsroman to you, the analog, we could say there was a natural Internet aspect to every single experience that has shaped us. We made friends and enemies online, we prepared cribs for tests online, we planned parties and studying sessions online, we fell in love and broke up online. The Web to us is not a technology which we had to learn and which we managed to get a grip of. The Web is a process, happening continuously and continuously transforming before our eyes; with us and through us. Technologies appear and then dissolve in the peripheries, websites are built, they bloom and then pass away, but the Web continues, because we are the Web; we, communicating with one another in a way that comes naturally to us, more intense and more efficient than ever before in the history of mankind.

Brought up on the Web we think differently. The ability to find information is to us something as basic as the ability to find a railway station or a post office in an unknown city is to you. When we want to know something – the first symptoms of chickenpox, the reasons behind the sinking of ‘Estonia’, or whether the water bill is not suspiciously high – we take measures with the certainty of a driver in a SatNav-equipped car. We know that we are going to find the information we need in a lot of places, we know how to get to those places, we know how to assess their credibility. We have learned to accept that instead of one answer we find many different ones, and out of these we can abstract the most likely version, disregarding the ones which do not seem credible. We select, we filter, we remember, and we are ready to swap the learned information for a new, better one, when it comes along.

To us, the Web is a sort of shared external memory. We do not have to remember unnecessary details: dates, sums, formulas, clauses, street names, detailed definitions. It is enough for us to have an abstract, the essence that is needed to process the information and relate it to others. Should we need the details, we can look them up within seconds. Similarly, we do not have to be experts in everything, because we know where to find people who specialise in what we ourselves do not know, and whom we can trust. People who will share their expertise with us not for profit, but because of our shared belief that information exists in motion, that it wants to be free, that we all benefit from the exchange of information. Every day: studying, working, solving everyday issues, pursuing interests. We know how to compete and we like to do it, but our competition, our desire to be different, is built on knowledge, on the ability to interpret and process information, and not on monopolising it.

2. Participating in cultural life is not something out of ordinary to us: global culture is the fundamental building block of our identity, more important for defining ourselves than traditions, historical narratives, social status, ancestry, or even the language that we use. From the ocean of cultural events we pick the ones that suit us the most; we interact with them, we review them, we save our reviews on websites created for that purpose, which also give us suggestions of other albums, films or games that we might like. Some films, series or videos we watch together with colleagues or with friends from around the world; our appreciation of some is only shared by a small group of people that perhaps we will never meet face to face. This is why we feel that culture is becoming simultaneously global and individual. This is why we need free access to it.

This does not mean that we demand that all products of culture be available to us without charge, although when we create something, we usually just give it back for circulation. We understand that, despite the increasing accessibility of technologies which make the quality of movie or sound files so far reserved for professionals available to everyone, creativity requires effort and investment. We are prepared to pay, but the giant commission that distributors ask for seems to us to be obviously overestimated. Why should we pay for the distribution of information that can be easily and perfectly copied without any loss of the original quality? If we are only getting the information alone, we want the price to be proportional to it. We are willing to pay more, but then we expect to receive some added value: an interesting packaging, a gadget, a higher quality, the option of watching here and now, without waiting for the file to download. We are capable of showing appreciation and we do want to reward the artist (since money stopped being paper notes and became a string of numbers on the screen, paying has become a somewhat symbolic act of exchange that is supposed to benefit both parties), but the sales goals of corporations are of no interest to us whatsoever. It is not our fault that their business has ceased to make sense in its traditional form, and that instead of accepting the challenge and trying to reach us with something more than we can get for free they have decided to defend their obsolete ways.

One more thing: we do not want to pay for our memories. The films that remind us of our childhood, the music that accompanied us ten years ago: in the external memory network these are simply memories. Remembering them, exchanging them, and developing them is to us something as natural as the memory of ‘Casablanca’ is to you. We find online the films that we watched as children and we show them to our children, just as you told us the story about the Little Red Riding Hood or Goldilocks. Can you imagine that someone could accuse you of breaking the law in this way? We cannot, either.

3. We are used to our bills being paid automatically, as long as our account balance allows for it; we know that starting a bank account or changing the mobile network is just the question of filling in a single form online and signing an agreement delivered by a courier; that even a trip to the other side of Europe with a short sightseeing of another city on the way can be organised in two hours. Consequently, being the users of the state, we are increasingly annoyed by its archaic interface. We do not understand why tax act takes several forms to complete, the main of which has more than a hundred questions. We do not understand why we are required to formally confirm moving out of one permanent address to move in to another, as if councils could not communicate with each other without our intervention (not to mention that the necessity to have a permanent address is itself absurd enough.)

There is not a trace in us of that humble acceptance displayed by our parents, who were convinced that administrative issues were of utmost importance and who considered interaction with the state as something to be celebrated. We do not feel that respect, rooted in the distance between the lonely citizen and the majestic heights where the ruling class reside, barely visible through the clouds. Our view of the social structure is different from yours: society is a network, not a hierarchy. We are used to being able to start a dialogue with anyone, be it a professor or a pop star, and we do not need any special qualifications related to social status. The success of the interaction depends solely on whether the content of our message will be regarded as important and worthy of reply. And if, thanks to cooperation, continuous dispute, defending our arguments against critique, we have a feeling that our opinions on many matters are simply better, why would we not expect a serious dialogue with the government?

We do not feel a religious respect for ‘institutions of democracy’ in their current form, we do not believe in their axiomatic role, as do those who see ‘institutions of democracy’ as a monument for and by themselves. We do not need monuments. We need a system that will live up to our expectations, a system that is transparent and proficient. And we have learned that change is possible: that every uncomfortable system can be replaced and is replaced by a new one, one that is more efficient, better suited to our needs, giving more opportunities.

What we value the most is freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of access to information and to culture. We feel that it is thanks to freedom that the Web is what it is, and that it is our duty to protect that freedom. We owe that to next generations, just as much as we owe to protect the environment.

Perhaps we have not yet given it a name, perhaps we are not yet fully aware of it, but I guess what we want is real, genuine democracy. Democracy that, perhaps, is more than is dreamt of in your journalism.

___
“My, dzieci sieci” by Piotr Czerski is licensed under a Creative Commons Uznanie autorstwa-Na tych samych warunkach 3.0 Unported License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Contact the author: piotr[at]czerski.art.pl

More From The Atlantic

Photo by Mike Brown, Mike Brown/The Commercial Appeal
Buy this photo »

Janice Parker visited the National Civil Rights Museum on Monday while visiting Memphis from New York City. Several new rights museums are slated to open around the country.

ATLANTA — Drive through any state in the Deep South and you will find a monument or a museum dedicated to civil rights.

A visitor can peer into the motel room in Memphis where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was staying when he was shot or stand near the lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., where four young men began a sit-in that helped end segregation.

Other institutions are less dramatic, like the Tubman African American Museum in Macon, Ga., where Jim Crow-era toilet fixtures are on display alongside folk art.

But now, a second generation of bigger, bolder museums is about to emerge in a handful of major cities.

Atlanta; Jackson, Miss.; and Charleston, S.C., all have projects in the works. Coupled with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, which breaks ground in Washington this month, they represent nearly $750 million worth of plans.

Collectively, they also mark an emerging era of scholarship and interest in the history of both civil rights and African-Americans that is to a younger generation what other major historical events were to their grandparents. “We’re at that stage where the civil rights movement is the new World War II,” said Doug Shipman, the chief executive officer for the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, a $100 million project that is to break ground in Atlanta this summer and open in 2014.

“It’s a move to the next phase of telling this story,” he said.

The collection at the museum, which is to be set on 21/2 acres of prime downtown real estate donated by Coca-Cola, will include 10,000 documents and artifacts from King and a series of paintings based on the life of Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., by the artist Benny Andrews, who died in 2006.

Like many of the new museums, the Atlanta center aims higher than the first wave of monuments to the period. It will link the civil rights movement to global human rights, exploring how, for example, King’s speeches helped fuel the Arab Spring.

Although the momentum for the new museums is strong, the recession has shaved the size and shape of some of the projects, and raising money can be a challenge.

John Fleming, the director of the International African American Museum planned for Charleston and a former president of the Association of African American Museums, points to the United States National Slavery Museum in Fredericksburg, Va. That project led by former Virginia governor L. Douglas Wilder, was supposed to open on 38 acres in 2004. The project recently went into bankruptcy, and people who donated money and artifacts are upset.

Although exactly what went wrong is still being debated, Fleming said that in part the project aimed too high and did not adjust as the economy softened. Fleming’s own project began as an $80 million, 70,000-square-foot museum. Now, it is smaller by $30 million and 20,000 square feet.

“Most black museums have difficulty raising funds,” Fleming said. “Being truthful, I don’t think people in the African-American community have stepped up to the plate in terms of making significant donations to these projects.”

Other directors disagree, saying a generation whose parents or grandparents lived through the 1950s and 1960s are now elected officials and on foundation boards, where they have influence over where cultural dollars are spent.

“The folks who actually participated in the civil rights movement are getting to an age where legacy is important,” said Lonnie G. Bunch III, director of the Smithsonian’s African-American museum.

Interpreting history requires the passage of time, and the museums show a maturation of a movement whose seminal events are now a half-century past — enough time, scholars say, for a new interpretation of what they mean.

The election of President Barack Obama, Shipman says, “caps the civil rights era and opens up the next chapter. There is a distance that allows new questions to be asked.”

As with the Holocaust and other historical events that eventually moved from painful reality to memorials and then to museums and academic scholarship, the importance of the civil rights movement gets heightened as the last of the participants begin to die.

“In some ways, it’s very much like the old Civil War veterans passing from the scene. Suddenly, the Civil War became more important,” said Philip Freelon, the architect who has designed most of the major civil rights museums in the country, including the projects at the Smithsonian and in Atlanta and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, a long-stalled project that finally secured $20 million from the state Legislature last April after then-Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, spoke in its favor.

For some, however, there is concern that the movement to isolate the era in bigger and better museums helps people avoid meaningful conversations about the day-to-day racism that still expresses itself in everything from interactions at a grocery store to the presidential election.

“All of these efforts are important, but we still have not addressed the issue of race in America, and until we do, that hydra is going to keep raising its ugly head,” said Ayisha Cisse-Jeffries, vice president for global affairs and international policy at the African American Islamic Institute.

And then there is the question of attendance. With so many new museums with similar themes, are there enough interested visitors to go around?

“This is part of the larger museum boom globally,” Freelon said. “The business of cultural tourism is on the rise as baby boomers get older. They want to go places where history happened. They want to go back home.”

‘More places to go’

The National Civil Rights Museum, celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, has welcomed new civil rights-themed museums as a way to increase interest in the heritage themes it represents.

When Atlanta announced plans for its new museum in 2006, the former chairman of the Memphis institution, the late Benjamin Hooks, said: “In my mind, it won’t be competition. For a long time, black people had no place to go. Now they have more places to go than they can get to.”

Museum president Beverly Robertson called it part of a “symbiotic relationship” among heritage museums. Robertson said the museums fill a “void in American history and in our education system” about black history and the history of the civil rights movement. She said Memphis “will always be a place of importance as the place where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his life in the battle for civil rights. It’s hallowed ground.”

– Michael Lollar: (901) 529-2793

A rendering of the memorial. (Gehry & Partners)

Along Washington, D.C.’s National Mall, an array of neoclassical monuments give tribute to the country’s leaders. But a new arrival would break the mold and has caused recent controversy.