DesiPundit
Posts tagged India
Surfing took a baby step or the first dip at the first India Surf Festival in Puri this month. Indian surfers, from states along India’s long coastline, came together for the first time, in one place. From fishermen’s sons to professional surfing instructors, they do not fit the classic, global image of surfers we have. They are uniquely Indian. Meet the first generation of Indian Surfers. Some day, if the sport takes off India, these guys will be the one’s responsible for making it happen, sprinkled as they are along our coastline.
I wish there were more surfing picture but excellent portraits.
Tucked between a strip mall Starbucks and a Jamba Juice, at the back door of a Chipotle Grill, Bombay Bowl is one of a number of Indian restaurants whose owners are thinking big no matter how small they are. Borrowing the assembly-line format, customized service and chipper style of national chains like Subway, they plan to make dals, curries, chutneys and flatbreads into fast-food choices from coast to coast.
“This is an intriguing little video summarizing the hypothesis of a new study by Vamsi Vakulabharanam. It looks at the puzzle of why China and India are exceptions to the Kuznets curve, that economic development at first increases income inequality but then starts to produce less disparity. But that did not occur in India and China. Vakulabharanam argues that the difference lies in changes in institutional arrangements, and the inflection point was roughly 1980.” (by INETeconomics)
The boy, a Class VII student and the son of a Uttar Pradesh farmer, pulled out several of his friends alive out of a burning van, caring little about his own safety. On September 4, 2010, Om Prakash was going to school along with other students in a Maruti van. But all of a sudden, the van caught fire because of a short circuit in the gas kit. The driver immediately opened his door and fled. But not Om Prakash. He broke open the van door and pulled out the others, caring little about the flames that had spread to his face, back and arms. He saved eight children. For his bravery, he has won the Sanjay Chopra Award.
One of the best parts about India’s Republic Day Parade. Wish the media talked about their stories more.
Pricey iPads and Android tablets are unlikely to make a huge impact in India any time soon. Nor is it clear that Aakash, a $60 made-in-India Android tablet launched in October, will convert Indians to the joys of touch screens. These would certainly come in handy during sardine-like commutes in Mumbai’s public transport, where reading a paper demands more than just plain reading skills.
Unfortunately, citizen journalism or individually-run blogs have failed to gain traction as most prominent bloggers were already journalists or are snapped up quickly by mainstream publications before they can develop it into a business.
When the task of defining one word—beauty—is so vast, how much more difficult must it be to capture the spirit and essence of a whole country. A country that is both ancient and modern, which has passion and wisdom, that is unchanging yet ever changing—a country that veritably defies definition. This is the conundrum that the Tourism Ministry of the Government of India faced seven years ago when it embarked on the ambitious task of trying to brand the country for the first time.
The story of the ‘India Incredible’ tourism campaign.
Our move was a success by any metric. My wife and I are software professionals, and our careers flourished at an Indian rate of growth (R.I.P., “Hindu rate of growth”). Our daughter attended a preschool in Bangalore whose quality matched any in the Bay Area. Our three-bedroom flat in Defence Colony, Indiranagar, was so comfortable and so American-friendly that my friends called it the Green Zone.
And yet, two years and nine months after our move to India, on one of our regular evening jogs along our impossibly leafy street, my wife and I found ourselves discussing not whether we should return to the U.S., but when.
A month later, we were back in California.
A honest look at the reality of moving back to India. Not everyone might agree with his views and may, in fact, be alright with the changes he experienced. However, you may not experience what he did without actually moving back. It definitely is something you should ponder about if you are on the fence about moving back to India.
As the city of
ChennaiMadras turns 372, The Hindu, from its Photo Archives, brings alive Madras through the years - when horse-drawn jutkas and trams graced the roads, the visits of Jawaharlal Nehru and Gandhiji drew huge crowds, and the Gemini flyover was under construction. Driving on the spacious NSC Bose road was a pleasure but Mount Road already had its share of traffic jams.Photos: The Hindu Archives
4 notes (via vimoh & nayadiction)
The 7/13 Mumbai Bomb Blasts - Reactions
Once again, Mumbai was rocked by multiple bomb blasts across the city. Although the death toll thankfully was relatively low, the sense of panic and terror was familiar. As usual, there has been a range of emotional responses from Indians across the world. I’ll try to focus on the ones that I think deliver an appropriate and sane response. I’ll try to add more as I find them but sadly, right now, I’m not finding many that strike the right balance.
Folks at Pragati have been balanced in their opinions as usual. Nitin, the founder and editor at Takshashila has an insightful initial assessment on the attack and clarifies several aspects that in an ideal world would be obvious:
Regardless of who set off the three coordinated bomb blasts, it was an act of terrorism. Even if the explosives were set off by members of organised crime syndicates, as some initially suggested, they constitute terrorism. Terrorism is political theatre that primarily aims to create a psychological impact that then influences politics. Physical damage and casualties are secondary, as is the choice of ‘foot-soldiers’
Sidin also writing at Pragati has a slightly depressing column that hits too close to home for comfort. Lest you be mistaken, this is how most of us feel; at least the few sane ones that remain:
But what does upset me is the relentless, deep hatred that I see in the educated, cosmopolitan young. Take any contemporary issue that has excited young people recently.
The recent Lok Pal bill comes to mind. At one point it was impossible to criticise the bill in a column or even a social network update without receiving a barrage of—there is no other way to put it—hate. If you disagree with Mr Hazare then this clearly means that you are a stooge of the Congress who is being paid by the Italian empress of the nation…
…But look at their profile pictures. Look at their professions. Read their blogs. See what else they talk about. These are young people. Some of them are still in college. Presumably they are literate enough to read and intelligent enough to think.
It is a sad day when people of the city have come to accept the present state of affairs as something routine in their city life:
What seemed to be the problem? “They’ve cancelled the 10 P.M. show of ‘Delhi Belly,’ ” a man in shorts with an angry demeanor explained. Surely no one had the stomach to watch the scatological sleeper hit on an evening on which three blasts in southern Mumbai had left eighteen people dead and about a hundred and thirty wounded? “These kinds of things happen all the time,” the man replied. “Why should we put our lives on hold just because there have been a few bomb blasts?”
Arnab is expasperated that in spite of repeated and similar attacks on Mumbai, little has changed:
And finally, yet once again, when the nation bled, we found out we had no Prime Minister. No one expects the PM to come and give a Sunny Deolian “Kasam Ganga Maiyya ki ,ghar mein ghuskar maroonga” shout-out but is it too much to expect a bit of inspiration in a dark hour, something even George W could provide after 9/11? Some may say silence is MMS’s style (like it was for Charlie Chaplin even after the technology of sound came into being) and should not be taken for inaction (ahem ahem) but surely there must have been reasons why when their nations were attacked, two of the greatest leaders of the last century, Roosevelt and Churchill did not take such a “awaaz neeche” stance.
