Happy New Year 2015

Snowfall at Schonbrunn Palace, Austria

New Features in Bhutan Biodiversity Portal

Bhutan Biodiversity Portal (www.biodiversity.bt) after launching on 17^th December 2013 is now one year older. More than 4000 observations are contributed by the portal users. Various documents and checklists can be found or uploaded in the portal.

Following are the few major features added during the upgrade (Adopted from Bhutan Biodiversity Portal Facebook page)

1. Multiple Observations - You can now upload multiple observation at once and the images you uploaded will be stored for 20 days. Therefore, you can always come back and upload the observations with details.

2. Audio Uploads - If you have captured the sounds and songs of species, you can upload them with observations.

3. Checklist - You can now upload checklist in various ways (spreadsheets, file uploads, and in a textbox)

4. Name Locks - If you are absolutely sure that the observation you uploaded is certain species, you can now LOCK the names so that other users will not be able to suggest names.

5. Document Views - Now you can view the documents without having to manually download. The uploaded documents will be displayed in a PDF viewer.

6. Contacting Users - You can contact any users by going to their profile. Click on the "Contact Me" button

7. Species Curation - The species pages can now be edited online by authorized users.

8. Taxon Browser - You can now browse through the taxon hierarchy using the Taxon Browser on the species page.

9. Advanced Search - Click on the down arrow near the search bar and you can search using different criteria.

For those interested to register here is the link  http://biodiversity.bt/register/index

Phone Zombies : Haiku

National Day and Me

Fourth King and the Fifth King of Bhutan serving the crowd during the 107th National Day (17 Dec. 2014)
                                                                                                                                     (Courtesy: facebook.com/KingJigmeKhesar)

What it’s like to miss the National Day, when my own brothers and sisters are happily celebrating the occasion? I know I am part of it but all I know is, what media informs me. What I do is, closely follow up with certain media and imagine I was right there.  Wonder, how I would feel if I was there the very moment standing and smiling before the beloved monarchs of Bhutan like I always wish. Well, it’s the 107^th National of Bhutan and the year is declared as the 60^th birth anniversary celebration of the Fourth King of Bhutan.

Indeed, King’s speech was inspiring, I read it online. I could see very huge crowds, I saw the picture. Every moment seems to be updated every single minute on that particular day, 17^th December 2014. Here, I am sitting and watching the wonderful occasion through my computer window.

Celebration in the fairy tale like Kingdom is something that everyone wishes to set for, and if you are a citizen of that Kingdom then the urges are extremely high like mine.

Faraway: Haiku

Happy Birthday Your Majesty the Fourth King of Bhutan

                                                                                     (Image: stampsofbhutan.blogspot.com)
Long Live the King!!!

Bio-diverse Lower Austria

Acer negundo

Phellinus igniarius

Cantharellus sp.

Larch (Larix decidua)

Dwarf Pine (Pinus mugo)

Buddhism Plain and Simple - The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day by Steve Hagen: Review

If you want to know the clear and simple insights of Buddhism, this is the right book. Buddhism Plain and Simple The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day profoundly written by Steve Hagen is something that reminds the readers of being aware of the self. Steve Hagen is a Zen Priest, a long-time teacher of Buddhism, and the author of How the World Can Be the Way It Is.

The book is easy and simple to understand and it guides readers to the path of Buddha’s wisdom and his observations. It revives the ancient teachings on awareness, where one learn to be aware of the self every single moment and every single day.

The approach to the teachings on awareness is frantically different from other books, it’s easy to understand the practice of awareness, the four noble truths and the eightfold path of Buddha. It also teaches the causes of sufferings and describes undeniable sufferings such as death. He clearly defines consciousness and Truth and Reality.

We are also reminded of the change, changes goes on whatsoever, every moment. That’s where awareness play a great role. Hagen teaches how to practice awareness on self on the very present moment, here and now. Meditation comes into scene while practicing awareness, some of the methods on meditation are well described here.

He notes: Don’t expect to get anything from meditation – including enlightenment. If you really want enlightenment. Just notice what thus – Mind – actually is. Notice that a grasping mind is the antithesis of what you say you want.

If you are interested you can find the book at Amazon.com

Silly but a lesson

Desperate friends

Unexpected things are always a surprise! People are good and bad at times. I and my friends were on a ride around the streets of Thimphu at night right after head banging some music numbers. It was a pleasant night with light drizzle. But only to encounter with tire puncture and with no tool-kits in our car to fix the tire issue. We knew no one from the vicinity. Called a friend but to no avail. Finally, stopped several vehicles including taxis just to borrow some toolkit to fix the unexpected but in vain.

Several taxis seemed to be deprived of the tool-kits, requested them but we were told that they got none. After all, money counts for them and especially Fridays and Saturdays are what they expect to earn more than the normal routine of other weekdays and in addition providing helping hands was not their priority. Fortunately, a taxi driver, who is a friend of my friend provided us with some tools but it did not really seem to fix the problem, since the ranges turned out to be larger for our wheel fixation. Yet, we stopped several vehicles and they seemed not to care for the troubled strangers.

Punctured wheel

This reminded me of how the tourists always praised Bhutanese for their kind gestures and hospitality. Our hopes started to decline for just to obtain some good helping hands. Waited for hours waving our hands to the vehicles passing by, only to receive blank and dumb glances. I cannot really explain the expressions of the friends, don’t even know what kind of expression did I expressed.

Police patrolling was on full swing. Fortunately, we managed to stop one of the cop's van after waiting for more than an hour and got the problem fixed finally. That’s when I noticed that my friend’s smiles were just as fascinating as one could expect.  Realized that cops are always there for the citizens even if it’s for minor issues at any time.

This was my first experience, but to many it seemed, it’s just a normal process of their life. I am almost on the conclusion that we hardly receive any help from our own fellow citizens. Thimphu is traveling with time at fast pace and the time is precious too, whether people carry out important or useless tasks.