Spring Festival

During the month of may, Malmö city organizes spring festival( vårfest) in Katrinetorp. Katrinetorp is situated just outside Malmo and houses a mansion surrounded by park

This years spring festival had spring market where cheese, bread and other productcts from the local farms are sold. A garden fair and a exhibition of antique artifacts is also on dispaly.

 

Spring festival in Katrinetorp, weather permitting makes a good family picnic and offers possibility to enjoy nature.

Indian Students at Swedish universities

Sweden is a country known for its quality higher education. This year, 3 Swedish universities are among the top 100 universities in the world. Inspite of this, when it comes to studying at Swedish universities, there are not many takers from India.

Data from Statistiska Central Byrån (SCB) shows that the number of Indian students enrolled in Swedish universities in the year 2012 has dropped by one-fourth compared to year 2010.  As it stands, only 259 Indian students(male and female) has opted to study in Sweden  compared to 1100 in 2010. The main reason for lackluster demand is that Swedish universities started charging tuition fees for Non-EU students from 2011. Education at universities were free of charge prior to 2011.

Sugar beet

I have always thought that sugarcanes are the only ones to produce sugar - Until I came to Sweden. Sugar beets (SockerBeta in Swedish)  are also used to produce sugar. SUgar beet plantations can be found in many parts of skåne during summer.

Apple farm near Lund

One of my favorite pastimes during late summer-early autumn is to check for possibilties to do what is called in swedish as "självplockning" or self-plucking. you visit a farm, pluck fruits or vegetables yourself and ofcourse pay for them as you come out. And, last week it was the turn to visit glorias trädgård(http://www.gloriasappelgard.se/)  and self-pluck some apples. September to early November is the right time to visit apple farms. The trees are full of ready-to-pluck juicy apples.

Rubinola, Discovery and Aroma were some of the varieties on offer.We were told that the apples are juicier and sweeter this year compared to the previous years.Needless to say, we bought as much varieties of apple s possible along with some apple cider, apple glogg and apple juice that will last for the for the next few weeks.

 Glorias apple farm is located near stångby just outside Lund and it makes a perfect day trip if you live in skåne and enjoy the countryside atmosphere and the beautiful nature that surrounds it.

Only in Sweden

I have heard before that Swedish people are quite conscious about waste management. I got a chance to see it myself at the recycling centre (ÅtervinningsCentral in Swedish) in Malmö. You see the big line up of cars and people waiting patently inside for their turn to throw waste.You sort the wastes and throw them in the bin. There are separate bins for each type of waste like metal, paper, wood, electronic wastes etc. Impressive!!

We made a visit to Ängavallen farm, a ecological farm outside Vellinge,Skåne. Ängavallen, is a small village outside Vellinge between Malmö and Trelleborg.The farm has a butik where products produced(predominately meat products) in the farm are sold. It even has a good, cozy restaurant offering lunch. 

The owner of the farm was a very nice gentleman and he offered to show us around the farm talking about his farm and the farm animals. The farm animals are fed only organic food, are allowed to wander in the pastures nearby and have a stress free happy life unlike the animals bred for big meat producing corporations.

It was an afternoon well spent but i kept asking myself one question as i came out of the farm. If someone is so concerned about animal and their well-being, why not turn vegetarian? And, i know the answer is difficult...

Rapeseed fields everywhere in Skåne!!

Rapeseed fields are common sights in Skåne now.  

Rapeseed fields are in full bloom during the month of may.

The  young pods of rapeseed plant. These contain black seeds when fully matured.

Öresundståg: Connecting two different worlds

Oresund bridge was build in the year 2000 and connects sweden with its neighbour Denmark.  oresundståg , the railway system that connects sweden and denmark runs between  Helsingor in Denmark to Helsingborg  and beyond in Sweden through oresund bridge.

When the idea of Öresundståg was conceived, the officials were faced with several challenges. The most important were the electrical system and signalling system. Sweden and denmark have different electrical system for railway line. Sweden uses 15Kilo Volt 16 2/3 Hz line while denmark uses Kilo Volt  50 Hz line. Unlike Norway, which has the same ATC(Automatic traffic Control) mechanism as in Sweden, denmark uses a different system making it all the more  difficult  to establish common ground.

Inspite of all these challenges, oresundståg was made a reality  making it one of Europe's  most complex railway connection. Over the oresund, the trains change to Swedish signalling system in the danish artificial island of pepperholm  and to the swedish power system in Lernacken on the Swedish side before entering Malmo.

This year  Oresund bridge and öresundståg completed 10 years of service. Many events were held as part of the celebration, the most notable being broloppet , a marathon over the oresund bridge in which  30000 people participated.

India 3G Spectrum auction

During may 2010, Indian government auctioned the 3G spectrum to operators for 11 billion dollars. The commercial launch  is expected to be in mid-2011.

According to Department of Telecommunications(DOT) release:

Paired spectrum of 3 blocks of 5MHZ  have been auctioned for 3G in 2.1 GHz range.

A closer look at what this means:
The total geographical area of india is divided into areas called circles and 3-4 operator have been alloted 5Mhz frequency block in each circle. Unlike GSM, All the mobiles belonging to one operator use the same frequency but, ditinguish each other by a scrambling code .

ITU(International Telecomunication Union) has earmarkedset of frequencies called Frequency bands to be used for 3G. One such frquency band is Band 1 operating in a frequency of 2.1 GHZ.

This "Band 1" is used for 3G  transmission in europe, Asia Australia and south ameraica. Frequecies surrounding  3G spectrum are reserved for maritime mobile in india.

Three operators have successfully bid Frequencies for TamilNadu circle:

Books: Kiran Desai

When i began reading Kiran desai's first novel Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, the plot summary reminded me of  RK Narayan's Novels. A small railway staion for a village, the lone station master, a banyan tree for villagers to gather around..
But, this book  is about sampath, a young man working for postal service having a dull, simple life. He flees his home town and climbs up  a guava tree and his life makes a U-turn afterwards. The story is fresh. It is unique in all respect, and abundant with subtle humour.

Her second book The inheritance of loss touches upon a more serious topic -Influence of british in every day life of  indians and obsession with all things western.
The story is set in a far-away town on the foothills of himalayas and revolves around the life of a retired judge
and his cook.

Though the book adapts a bit of a complex writing style with a discontinuous flow, it is in most parts an interesting read.

Strawberries in Skåne

This saturday, I had been to strawberry fields .Since i come from a place where strawberry fields are a impossible sight, i was excited at the prospect of going there and plucking strawberries on my own.

It was in a place near Hassleholm in Skåne in southern sweden, 90kms away from malmo city. My first thought when i arrived was that the plants were much smaller in size than i expected, more like a shrub. Each one had 5 to 6 ripe strawberries. We were told early July is the best time to pluck strawberries in southern sweden.

Here are 2 gardens you could visit:
http://www.kvistalanga.se
http://www.eriksgarden.nu

Self-plucking strawberries is a good weekend outing and a good break from the mechanical city life.

Upcycling

One might have heard about reusing, recycling, but the latest buzzword in green-living parlance is upcycling.

This word was coined by Reiner pilz and used by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. UpCycling by definition is converting a material which would otherwise be a waste into another material of higher value. Yes, It doesn't sound like an invention arrived after several months of out-of-the-box thinking, but it is something that emerged out of common sense.

Infact, it is something that we do in everyday life. Remember the seventh grade practical class where you converted a old shoe box into a toy aquarium with paper fish, sand etc. That is a typical example of a upcycled product. 

Now that this fancy term is coined and making rounds, who uses these upcycled products is a question. A more important question is how can upcycled products enjoy mainstrream use? Upcycled products are today displayed in exhibitions and expositions  and is often used to demonstrate the handiwork of the creator. 

But as awareness in eco-friendly living increases, many hopes that usage of upcycled products will also increase.

Chennai or Madras?

Madras was renamed as Chennai long ago. In the year 1996 to be exact. But, even in india many still remember this city as Madras.

Here in Sweden, When i say to my friends that i come from Chennai, they usually give me a ignorant look.and when i clarify that it was once called Madras, they seem to be surprised.  They still know this city as Madras.
Several Sweden based websites are still  stuck with Madras.

So, the next time you are in Sweden, you know what to say!!

Study in sweden

Many students in India and elsewhere are showing interest in studying in sweden. With a high standard of education, immigrant-friendly policies and a near-perfect social system, sweden is one of the ideal destination for higher education.

I try to compile some useful information about studying in sweden.

Application and Admission
The admission procedure is very straght forward. STUDERA is the website where one has to apply for admission  to all courses in all universtities in sweden.
Take your time to browse through this site. Make sure to submit all the required document before the deadline and you are on your way in.

A recent trend is to apply through a agent. The agent usually charges 50,000 rupees or more with a promise of getting admission in the university of your choice. That's not true! .The agent has no say in the admission procedure and i strongly recommend not to go through the agent, unless you have a lot of money to waste.

Accomadation
When it comes to accomadation, i must admit that it is difficult to find one in sweden. BLOCKET is the best place to begin your search. Alternatively, Call your university and enquire about student accomadation. The people are generally nice and will be happy to assist you.

Cost of Living
Spending pattern is different for each one of us. Swedein is one of the expensive places to live in europe. Most students i know spend somewhere between 5500 to 6500 SEK per month on living.

So, If you are looking for a calm, peaceful student life and a good quality of education, you should give sweden a serious thought.

Happy Learning!!!

Technical Jargons Simplified

Single Chip ICE Platform

Multi Chip ICE platform

Samband - The swedish connection

It has been a good 3 months since i started learning swedish at SFI. I knew swedish belonged to the family of Indo-European languages and so, i have been searching for similarities in words/Pronunciations between swedish and Indian languages esp. Tamil. At last, I found one.

SAMBAND means connection or relation  in swedish .Sambandam  also has the same meaning, connection  or relation in Tamil.
It makes you feel happy to find some similarity between two languages spoken by people 7000 kilometers apart. , no?

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