Monday, June 8, 2026
Sunday, June 7, 2026
MY GREAT GRAND FATHER KOTTAYAM KADANKOT CHINDAN NAMBIAR
This is a rare and priceless photograph of KOTTAYAM KADANGOT CHINDAN NAMBIAR, the father of my Grand Mother. A unique person in many ways and of compassionate and constructive disposition and a true Genius of sorts. I was for a very long time trying to get a glimpse of his persona which has happened now and some facial similarity with me cannot be totally over-ruled and a stern countenance even which I carry.
His ancestors are from the Kottayam village in Telicherry about which I had written earlier. He is the second generation of people who made the village of Cherukunnu their home. His immediate ancestors fled the township of Kottayam in 1800 ad or so from the hegemony of the East India Company who took control of Telicherry and its surroundings. When Kottayam Kadangot Chindan Nambiar was nine years old his uncle built a traditional Naalu Kettu house in Cherukunnu extending their dynasty in Cherukunnu in Kannur or Cannannore which exists even today.
K K Venugopal who was the Attorney General of Govt. Of India is a grand-nephew of Kottayam Kadangot Chindan Nambiar. The people of this clan are well mannered and development oriented building artistic houses with professional finesse. Dr. K C Nambiar FRCS who was the Dean of Stanley Medical College Madras is a nephew of this person.
Saturday, June 6, 2026
Saturday, May 30, 2026
DR. ABDUL KALAM MEMORIAL RAMESHWARAM
Few kilometers before the township of Rameshwaram Government has created a memorial for Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam former President of India and exists adjacent to the highway. It is a well maintained place with artefacts and murals.
The temple town of Rameshwaram is the birth place of Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam and it is apt a memorial be constructed here. Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam was an extra-ordinary Engineering and Scientific person before becoming part of Government as President of the Country.
Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam is some-one engineering graduates must be proud of as he is a global embodiment of Management, Science and Engineering..largely home-grown and self made. Any one travelling on this highway must visit this place as a tribute to his persona. He is respected both in the country and globally and is an example of what Indian Education system as we see today can engender considering that he had his entire education within the country.
The Government of India must be praised for erecting such memorial as it sends the right signals to posterity.
Tuesday, May 26, 2026
REVIVING ITI THROUGH CHINESE HELP
The public sector ITI could be brought to glory and action through Chinese help and participation; Sudden technological and market impacts owing to globalization could be seen as reasons for stagnation of Telecom giants like ITI. Chinese participation in revival of Public Sector could be seen as a weird concept. The idea is to get back the old ITI which had some thirty thousand people working in it with dynamism and purpose.
Why the Chinese? Point 1 they are our neighbour with land connections which involves lesser supply chain costs; Point 2 they have a population as that of India when combined creates a large market for wired and wireless telephony; Point 3 the Chinese have designs which are less costly but of Quality and time need not be spent for re-design; Point 4 large amounts of Chinese Telecom work can be out-sourced to India creating scores of employment in the manufacturing sector , Point 5 a combined work and technological force that the two countries can engender in the Telecommunication field can supply extra-ordinary telecom products to nearby continents. Seen from any angle a co-ordinated action can benefit both the countries and even the world at large.
Times have changed and so have markets, technology and paradigms and some of the foundations created in the past must be preserved ,nurtured, maintained and developed even if it is with outside support and help which might be the need of the hour.
THE STROWGER TELEPHONE EXCHANGE
ALMON BROWN STROWGER
SINGLE DIGIT STROWGER EXCHANCE
My father spent a sizeable amount of years within the ITI complex adjusting Strowger exchange switches. This is the first automatic exchange system and an electromechanical device. Building telephone and their exchange systems in the past era was cumbersome because it involved various kinds of switching devices. My father was very good at switch adjustment so much so that he did lot of overtime.
The concept of Strowger exchanges has become obsolete but still admirable in many ways as it used stepper motors to achieve the activity of switching. There are single digit ten line exchanges to multi-digit exchanges and the optimum exchange had fifty lines.
It had two motor actions , the first one in the vertical way and the secondary in the rotary way. Suppose you dial the number 26 the motor went first two notches upwards and six steps in the rotary motion creating switching. A two digit switch could give fifty switching connections and multiple such switches could be arranged in a serial way to get larger number of telephone connections.
Considering that the number dialled in a complex exchange is 89765432 ..the first switch is 89..eight times vertical motion and nine times rotary motion which links to the secondary switch with 76..same way seven times vertical and six times rotary and so on and so forth until the final telephone connection is obtained. The same kind of concept is implemented in solid state exchanges of today.
Why I write about Strowger exchanges. They were invented by a swedish man Strowger who ultimately paved way for the large telecommunication networks and organizations of today spanning continents. Using modern day material and electromagnetic insights we must see if the Strowger concept can be erected and implemented successfully in certain specific situations and not abandon it totally. I still think it is a solid technological concept and device which can be re-developed on modern lines of manufacturing and thinking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_O5ZGLrbwA
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