Oct 07

Euro Competition - 10 years with the Euro - poster competition for kids

EU, Euro No Comments »
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the euro, the European Commission launches a Eurocompetition, an online poster competition among Europe’s youth! The Eurocompetition invites pupils from the euro area and Slovakia to express their views and thoughts on the “10 years of the euro” in a creative way in the form of a poster.

So, if you have a creative mind and if you have a heart for the euro, get to your drawing boards and subscribe to this unique European poster competition!

Growing up with the euro: how does it feel to be part of the euro generation?
This age group is the first generation living with the euro for most of their lives. Many don’t remember the time when we still lived with a variety of national currencies, and don’t realise the impact the euro has had on our daily lives and for the EU as a whole. So pupils are encouraged to discuss in class the changes which the single currency has brought about, and express their ideas in the form of a poster.

Learning what the euro is and what it has achieved
The Eurocompetition website (www.eurocompetition.net) provides materials for teachers to connect their history, geography or even language lessons with the euro, EMU and the economic background involved. Teachers will also be offered guidelines and activities to help teach the euro to this age level.

The project is expected to stimulate debate about the euro within the classroom, and with parents and peers. The debates will raise issues around the changes it has triggered in our daily life, and also encourage thinking about the benefits of a single currency.

How does it work?
Schools and teachers from the Member States of the euro area and Slovakia can register for the competition on the website and receive further information about the celebration of the euro’s 10-year anniversary. Participating students must be aged between 10 and 14. There is no charge for participating in the competition.

The competition itself will be launched on 15 September 2008. Until 31 December teachers can upload their pupils’ pictures onto the website gallery, where it will be possible to view all the submitted entries from across Europe.

A jury will select 16 national winners, who will each be awarded with a digital camera and the chance to have their poster printed and displayed by the European Commission at an exhibition. From these 16 an overall winner will be selected. A special prize – yet to be unveiled – will be awarded.

About the project
This project is an initiative of the European Commission, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Economic and Monetary Union. The Eurocompetition is organised by the Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission (http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance), and coordinated by European Schoolnet (www.eun.org) on their behalf.

For further information please contact:

Ms Nora Nadjarian e-mail: noranadj@logosnet.cy.net
Website: www.eurocompetition.net

written by Rajaram S

Apr 07

Severe water shortage in Cyprus

EU, Euro, cyprus 3 Comments »
UPDATE (1st June 2008): The Water Board of Limassol has announced that, as of Saturday 31st May 2008, there will be further restrictions to the water supply during the weekend with a reduction of the duration of supply from 36hrs to 24hrs. Also, some areas have moved from Area A to Area B and Vice versa. See below for the timings/area details.
UPDATE(13th Aug 2008). Looks like the water problem in Cyprus has been solved thanks to the innovative solution of an individual. Check it out here.
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For the first time in the 6.5 years i have been in Cyprus, nothing happened when i turned on the water tap. There was silence, absolute silence! Okay, it happened once before, but it was because i had forgotten to pay the water bill.
But, this time, I was in the clear. Cyprus is facing its worst ever water shortage in the past few decades. It is so bad that the usually indulgent Cypriots have been forced to accept a rationed water supply with the water coming in only 12 hours every 48 hours.

There are many side effects to this move by the Cypriot Government

  • I am not allowed to practice the 4th doctrine that i learnt from my wife in spite of the fact that I was forced to put it into practice once upon a time. I am surprised as to how the concept of cleanliness can change with a change in the available resources!
  • Many Cypriot teenagers went on a party rally as soon as this scheme was announced. It seems that they no longer have to worry about their moms complaining when they shower with beer instead of water.
  • More and more Cypriots are becoming sea-borne i.e. they go for a dip in the sea for their daily bath as they have used the bathtubs in their houses for storing water.
  • According to an article by Patroclos in the Sunday Mail (Feb 10th, 2008) , people from Paphos are supposed to be small-minded, complex-ridden, self-serving and semi-civilised. It seems that an average Paphite has the inferiority complex that makes him want to prove that he is smarter than the other Cypriots. I don’t know about all these attributes attributed to Paphites, but the people of Paphos are having a ball of time now, laughing their asses off at other Cypriots , because the water cuts are yet to apply to Paphos!
  • In Cyprus, as in many European countries, you may be asked for ID-proof if you are entering a bar after 6 pm. Nowadays, anyone purchasing cans of water have to prove that they are over 18 years old. This is to prevent underage Cypriots from wasting water.
  • The Cypriot police have invented a new apparatus which is used in surprise checks on the roads. This apparatus attaches to the belly of the person and the person is then asked to jump up and down 3 times. This apparatus measures the amount of the water consumed by the person based on the frequency with which the contents inside the belly oscillate. The new laws state that the allowable limit is 427.5 ML of water per hour. The government passed the ruling that it should be 250 ML per hour late last year, but after the Euro conversion everything, including this, got multiplied by a factor of 1.71.

I hope that the water crisis ends soon so that i can wash my car!

On a more serious note, there is really a problem and the government is trying its best to solve it soon. The details below give the days on which a particular area will receive water.

Area Á: (the first three digits of the “Location Number” appearing at the top right-hand side of your water bill)

Water will be supplied during the following days and times:
7pm Tuesday till 7am Wednesday
7pm Thursday till 7am Friday
7pm Saturday till 7am Sunday
Water will be supplied to the following locations: 120, 121, 122, 124, 125, 126, 128, 217, 218, 219, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 317, 318, 319, 928, 930, 931, 932.
 These areas are located west of the Garyllis river and include the following locations: Tsiflikoudia, Agios Spyridonas, Zakaki, Agios Antonios, part of the Tjami Tjetit and the refugee settlements Makarios III, Agios Ioannis, Agios Spyridonas, areas of Kato Polemidia, Agios Athanasios (north of the highway) and the communities of Fasoula, Mathikoloni and Cherkes Chiftlik, Agia Napa and part of Katholiki area (south of Navarinou street), Agia Triada area, Neapoli area, Agios Georgios Frangoudi and Sfina area, Apostolou Petrou and Pavlou area, Agios Georgios Havouzas and Tsirio area

Area B: (the first three digits of the “Location Number” appearing at the top right-hand side of your water bill)
 Water will be supplied during the following days and times:
7pm Monday till 7am Tuesday
7pm Wednesday till 7am Thursday

7pm Friday till 7am Saturday
Water will be supplied to the following locations: 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 320, 321, 322, 919, 921, 922, 923, 924, 925, 926, 927.
 These areas are located east of the Garyllis river and include the following locations: part of the Tjami Tjetit, Agios Georgios, Agia Zoni, Agios Nektarios, Kapsalos, Kontovathkia, Chalkoutsa, Mesa Geitonia, Agios Nikolaos, Ekali, Agia Fyla, Panagia Evaggelistria, Kallithea, Laiki Lefkothea, Panthea, Linopetra, Agios Athanasios (south of the highway), Omonia area, Agios Ioannis and Arnaout area, Monovolikos (south of Pafos street up to the Lemesos industrial area), Apostolos Andreas area

written by Rajaram S

Feb 05

My Euro portfolio

EU, Euro, cyprus 3 Comments »
Cyprus moved to the Euro from January 2008. When i learnt that the euro coins of the different countries were different, my passion for coin collecting was rekindled. I used to collect coins in high school and i still have hundreds of them back in India. After i moved to Cyprus, i moved to collecting currency notes as there were many people travelling in my company.
Few weeks back, i started to collect the various euro coins and mailed to people in the various euro countries (who were returning to Cyprus) to bring back coins for me. I now have 37 coins from the various Euro countries. Given below is my “Euro Portfolio”.
Before writing this post, I was readin up stuff on the net (mainly wikipedia) about Euro coin collection. I was surprised to find that my collection would not be complete if i just get the above mentioned ones. There are a LOT more, too many of them! The wiki page on the Euro coins explains in detail the history of Euro coins and I was surprised to find that:
In 2007, a new design was introduced to reflect the enlargement in 2004. The design still retains all elements of the original designs, including the twelve stars, however the map of the fifteen states is replaced by one showing the whole of Europe ‘as a continent’ without borders. The vertical ridges only appear over the ’sea’.

This means that the entire collection above (except the ones which started in 2008) would have to be duplicated with the older/newer version of the coins. Also, there are dozens of commemorative coins which were issued. It is going to take ages to collect all of them!

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written by Rajaram S

Jan 02

New Year Party in Limassol, Cyprus

EU, Euro, cyprus, limassol 2 Comments »
As always, we went to the New Year celebrations at the Municipal town hall in downtown Limassol. There was a big crowd, but where were the Cypriots ? Only a handful of them could be seen. Probably they came from families who didn’t know how to make black smoke and souvlaki. The rest of the crowd consisted of Asians, Eastern Europeans and even some turkish cypriots. Welcome to Europe!
I have been here more than 6 years and the change is getting more evident by the day. 6 years back, cypriots used to dominate any crowd (apart from the half naked britishers, in the summer). Nowadays, they are starting to become a minority, in the workplaces, in the malls, everywhere. This is the effect of joining Europe, becoming a part of EU. I am sure that the cypriots didn’t expect this side-effect when they wanted to join EU. For an average cypriot, rest of the world used to mean Greece and UK. Now things have changed. They are “forced” to interact with other Europeans too, those that they deemed inferior to them. I hope that the Cypriots take to this change in a positive way and welcome the interactions with new people and cultures.
The fireworks at this year’s new year celebrations looked a little special, probably because of Cyprus’ move to the Euro starting January 1st 2008 and they wanted to spend all the old Cyprus pound currency notes before that! But it was too cold to go out with a camera, so no photographs this time.
Happy New Year!

written by Rajaram S

Aug 08

2nd Euro-Mediterranean Festival in Limassol

August, Euro, concert, cyprus, limassol, music 4 Comments »
If you are reading this (before August 10th) and you still haven’t watched the show, WATCH IT! It happened on August 6th (in Downtown Limassol) and August 7th(inside the Municiapal Gardens Theatre) and will happen on August 9th at Ayias Fylas/Zakaki (not sure where exactly) and on August 10th on the sea-front near the Old Port. I went to this show on Thursday not expecting much out of it. But, it was awesome. So, I went again yesterday, this time with my camera, to the Municipal Gardens and it was much better here with proper seating and a good view of the stage. There were some new sequences on the second day probably because this was a proper stage with a Green room etc where artists could change costumes and do more than one sequence. Enjoy the photographs below and don’t forget to watch the show.
There were artists from many countries in Europe like Belgium, Serbia, Bulgaria (or was it Belgrade/Serbia), Greece and of course Cyprus.
The girl in the photograph below, from serbia, had the crowd behind her and she could have put any belly dancer to shame with her amazing dance sequence.

euro mediterranean festival dance folk belly dance serbia

euro mediterranean festival dance folk belly dance serbia euro mediterranean festival dance folk belly dance serbia

euro mediterranean festival dance folk belly dance serbia

When i was in switzerland, I had been to Pilatus near Lucerne. There, they had these long horns (called as alphorns) on display. This was the first time i was hearing them being played. The sound was amazing and it looked like they were just controlling it with the way they blew air into the horn.

euro mediterranean festival dance folk long horn switzerland

When the group from Belgium came on stage, i was wondering as to what they are going to do with flags. They showed a lot of things that can be done with them! They threw the flags high up in the air in unison and caught it perfectly in tune with the beats of the song. Their choreography was great and the music was even greater. In fact, one of the songs was played has been directly copied in one of Indian movie songs. I guess we should appreciate the Indian music directors for spending so much time on research and look for remote folk songs to copy over! According to one of the commentors on this post, this group/folk-art is called “Flago” in the esperanto language (the universal language). You can see more details about this group at the Flago Website.

euro mediterranean festival dance folk flago belgium

euro mediterranean festival dance folk flago belgium euro mediterranean festival dance folk flago belgium

Yes, i took photos of guys too. One of them had funny looking shoes! One group did an interesting sequence standing on a pot.

euro mediterranean festival dance folk euro mediterranean festival dance folk euro mediterranean festival dance folk euro mediterranean festival dance folk

The group from Serbia was the best of the lot with the girls performing a routine lasting for almost 15 minutes with a very fast beat and some amazing co-ordination!

euro mediterranean festival dance folk serbia

euro mediterranean festival dance folk serbia

euro mediterranean festival dance folk serbia

euro mediterranean festival dance folk serbia

euro mediterranean festival dance folk serbia

euro mediterranean festival dance folk serbia

and, of course, we had the cypriots and the greeks doing their thing of getting around in a circle and watching a guy sit down/stand up/touch his leg and doing the rest of the things which they usually do.

euro mediterranean festival dance folk cyprus greek

Hope you enjoyed the photos and if you are reading this before 10th, don’t miss the show.

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written by Rajaram S

Jul 12

Cyprus to move to Euro from 1 January 2008

Euro, cyprus No Comments »
As mentioned in a BBC article, it seems that Cyprus and Malta have got the go-ahead from EU Finance Ministers for adopting the Euro on 1st January 2008.

1 euro = 0.585274 Cyprus pounds

So, does that benefit all of us who currently receive our salaries in USDs? I hope so, as the current situation with the USD is terrible and i assume that the Euro won’t be allowed to fluctuate so much.
But, psychologically, this will be a difficult move! We get our salaries in dollars and then convert to Cyprus Pounds for local spending. So, we shall be getting a smaller salary in terms of the “number” of euros (as compared to dollars) and spending a bigger amount in terms of the “number” of Euros (as compared to Cyprus Pounds). I hope that the brain understands the fallacy of this logic.

written by Rajaram S