A fountain pen for Gandhi: The story of a celebrated pen

"Great Indians ranging from Mahatma Gandhi to Indira Gandhi, Rajendra Prasad to Shankar Dayal Sharma, S. Kasturiranga Iyengar of The Hindu to Ramnath Goenka of Indian Express, had one thing in common: they used pens supplied from this town in coastal Andhra Pradesh. Ratnam pens, known as `swadeshi' pens, during the freedom movement, brought laurels to Rajahmundry and the pen-maker K.V. Ratnam.



The pen has many unique features. And you can order one of your choice.
During the swadeshi movement, after Gandhiji gave a call to boycott foreign goods, Ratnam, who was until then involved in making lithographic blocks, met Gandhiji in 1921. Gandhiji advised him to make something that would be useful to the common man and that was inexpensive.

Ratnam and his brother, basically goldsmiths, made a golden nib and presented it to a sub-judge who needed it. Then in 1932, Nyapati Subba Rao Pantulu, one of the founders of The Hindu, ordered the first pen. It was made of silver.
Nyapati Subba Rao (Junior), a grandson of Subba Rao Pantulu, said: 'It is true that the first pen was purchased by my grandfather. He used only Ratnam pens. They were made to order and gifted to VIPs visiting Rajahmundry. I was told that my grandfather personally delivered Ratnam pens to Sri Kasturiranga Iyengar several times.'

One for Gandhiji

Ratnam made a pen made in ebonite material and sent it to Gandhiji, who wrote to him commending it. Gandhiji wrote from Wardha: 'Dear Ratnam, I must thank you for the fountain pen you sent me... I have needed it and [it] seems to be a good substitute to the foreign pen, once in the bazaar. Yours sincerely, M.K. Gandhi, 16.7.1935. '

The pens retained their popularity after Independence and remained status symbols. In the 1950s, a Ratnam golden pen (22 carat gold) cost Rs.55: now it costs Rs.30, 000. Prices now range from Rs.35 to Rs.40,000.

K.V. Narasimhacharyulu and K.V. Ramana, Ratnam's two sons, assisted their father in the business. In 1959, Mr. Narasimhacharyulu went to Germany and on his return started a ballpoint pen manufacturing unit, for the first time in India in Rajahmundry. The brothers run the pen business today.

A Ratnam pen takes at least two days to deliver — custom-made, to individual taste."

The world's first biplanes were ... dinosaurs?

"Like the Wright brothers, the first flying dinosaurs took to the air with two sets of wings.



New analysis of the winged Microraptor gui suggests that the first feathered dinos relied on a biplane-like wing configuration to swoop from tree to tree. The result may settle a century-old controversy over how the first feathered creatures achieved flight.

"It is intriguing to contemplate that perhaps avian flight, like aircraft evolution, went through a biplane stage before the monoplane was introduced," said Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University. "It seems likely that Microraptor invented the biplane 125 million years before the Wright 1903 Flyer.""

Chinese astronauts complete 3rd day in space

"Ships tracking China's Shenzhou 6 spacecraft encountered rough weather Friday and were preparing emergency measures in case conditions worsened, even as the astronauts completed their third day in orbit without a hitch, state media reported.

The four ships monitoring the spacecraft's position from posts in the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans were fighting high winds and waves late Friday, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Up in space, the capsule performed a delicate operation to adjust its orbit earlier in the day, and its two astronauts were well-rested and in good health, China Central Television said."

The king and I

"The World Chess Championship, San Luis, Argentina: what an event! The daily hecatombs of pieces and pawns have produced the most thrilling chess spectacle of recent decades. It is a pity there are so few visitors to the hall to witness the bloodbath. Never mind: the servers that carry the moves live around the globe are breaking all audience records.

One man, Bulgaria's Veselin Topalov, has given an exhibition of such virtuosity that it looks doubtful, at the halfway stage, that he can be stopped. The comparisons are not with Garry Kasparov - merely the greatest chess player ever - but with Bobby Fischer, the only modern giant capable of such thorough annihilation. Of course the 30-year-old could still falter: when the crown is within touching distance, strange things happen to all but the most steely-nerved."

Bobby Fischer Wants to Face Bulgaria's Topalov

"The legendary Bobby Fischer is willing to play against Bulgaria's chess master Vesselin Topalov, local Trud daily reported.

The newspaper cites an Australian reporter covering the World Chess Championship in San Luis. The reporter claims that Fischer is willing to face Topalov in a game of chess, but not the classical type of the game but a version invented by Fischer.

The Australian reporter has informed the manager of the Bulgarian chess master and says that he is preparing the game, Trud daily says."

Jaguar rules

What more can anyone say?

 
 

Birdlike dinosaur may force raptor revisions

"The discovery of a birdlike dinosaur in South America has paleontologists rethinking when, where and how one group of raptors evolved.



The rooster-sized dinosaur is called Buitreraptor (bwee-tree-rap-tor) gonzalezorum. It has a long head and long tail and winglike forelimbs. Its serrated teeth, shaped like steak knives, suggest it was a carnivore.

Buitreraptor is related to Velociraptor, the presumably cunning killer made famous by Hollywood. Both belong to a class of birdlike dinosaurs that ran swiftly on two legs and are called dromaeosaurs."

More bones of hobbit-sized humans discovered - Science - MSNBC.com

"Scientists digging in a remote Indonesian cave have uncovered a jawbone that they say adds more evidence that a tiny prehistoric Hobbit-like species once existed.

The jaw is from the ninth individual believed to have lived as recently as 12,000 years ago. The bones are in a wet cave on the island of Flores in the eastern limb of the Indonesian archipelago, near Australia.

The research team which reported the original sensational finding nearly a year ago strongly believes that the skeletons belong to a separate species of early human that shared Earth with modern humans far more recently than anyone thought."

The World's Smallest Fountain Pen

"Researchers have created the world's smallest fountain pen with a tip so tiny it can draw lines a hundred times thinner than a red blood cell.



Called the 'nanonfountain probe,' it can paint lines as thin as 40 nanometers and has its own reservoir to hold various types of inks, including pigments for painting patterns and organic materials for designing sensors.

Existing nano-pens use the same type of inks, but cannot hold an ink supply and must be dipped into the ink."

'Planet Xena' has a sidekick -- Gabrielle

"The astronomers who claim to have discovered the 10th planet in the Earth's solar system have made another intriguing announcement: it has a moon.

The moon discovery is important because it can help scientists determine the new planet's mass. In July, Brown announced the discovery of an icy, rocky object larger than Pluto in the Kuiper Belt, a disc of icy bodies beyond Neptune. Brown labeled the object a planet and nicknamed it Xena after the lead character in the former TV series "Xena: Warrior Princess."

By determining the moon's distance and orbit around Xena, scientists can calculate how heavy Xena is. For example, the faster a moon goes around a planet, the more massive a planet is.

But the newly discovered moon, nicknamed Gabrielle after Xena's faithful traveling sidekick in the TV series, likely will not quell the debate over what exactly is a planet and whether Pluto should keep its status. The problem is there is no official definition for a planet and setting standards like size limits potentially invites other objects to take the "planet" label."