Girl Power

 

What a month it was. Olympics was the number one topic for the whole month. Even now, I see people watching recordings of some of the olympic events. But for India, there was the great Irony.

Women athletes from India saved the nation’s face at the recently concluded 2016 Olympics at Rio. After all the promotions, and goodwill ambassadors and selfies, three girls stole the thunder and showed what sheer determination can do.

 

A news which was not widely reported was that squash player Deepika Palikkal took the Australian open, in the same weeks.

Squash, as I couldn’t-believe-it found out, is not part of the Olympics, but there is a huge campaign for it.

So that means Indian women athletes were winning accolades for the country, while back home, crime against women is rising. I find that highly ironical. In a country were free speech is oppressed, and patirachal rules are more powerful than the consitution, it was finally women who saved the country’s face. The male athletes on the other hand, were out in the knockouts, or were banned for doping.

Not sure how long the focus will be on these athletes. And thanks to their brave life choices, many more girls can dream of making a huge splash in the world of sports.

In a cricket crazy nation, it will only be till the next cricket match. Hope here things change for the better.

 

Trivia ?

I read this on the news.

What are we celebrating

On 15th August, 2016, India celebrates its 70th Independence day. Not sure whether they counted from 1947 being the first, as in 1997, we celebrated the Golden jubilee of Indian independence. That was also the year A R Rahman released his landmark album Vande Mataram, and why I remember that year so much, apart from Jack and Rose.  But that's not the point. These many years from the read letter day, how far have we come ? Where do we see ourselves going ? And exactly what are we celebrating ?

Growing up in India, I read in our NCERT textbooks, that India is a developing country, while countries like America and Britain are developed countries. All the students in the class asked the question, when will India too become a developed country ? The naive teacher replied, “Soon, in a few more years”, or something like that. Today it is becoming increasingly obvious that that dream has now drifted farther away from reality.

Surprisingly, it is reporte that poverty levels have actually gone down.


But these are global parameters to measure a country’s development. India seems to be facing a bigger problem at the heart of its social fabric. Violence against women has been rising exponentially.

Communal violence is on the rise, specially agains dalits (lower caste members). There are more separatist movements and people are asking for the country to be further divided. The 29th state was created by bifurcating Andhra Pradesh, and there is actually a huge list of proposed further division of the country.  India is the second least corrupt country in the whole of South Asia.  With the advent of internet and social media, the country has found a new way to curb free speech, by censoring internet traffic.  As of this writing, the largest democracy in the world has still not been able to win a medal in the ongoing Rio Olympics. There have always been, and will be , natural calamities, but the country is becoming slower to respond to them, often leaving the job to citizen’s movements. And terrorism, the age old enemey of the country, is finding newer ways to intrude into the country.

So, what are we actually celebrating ? Independence day has just become one more reason to shop, and the ever-deal-chasing Indians are frantically trying to purchase more things before time runs out. People are worried to go out, fearing possible terrorist attacks in places where crowds congregate.

One thing is sure, the NCERT textbooks students learn from today will still be the same from over 30 years ago. Hardly anything has changed. We are still developing.

United States Wins 1,000th Olympic Gold Medal

 

The United States won its 1,000th Olympic gold medal on Saturday when the American women swimmers won the 4x100 meter medley relay at the Rio Games.  Not 1000 medals. 1000 Gold medals !

 

 

Now that’s just awesome ! This is due to the high importance given to all kinds of sports there.

Electric vehicles in India

 

Last months’ terrible traffic jam and worsening climate got me thinking about greener modes of transport. What are the non-fossil fuels based transport avaiable to us Indians ? Turns out, not very much. Whatever options are available today are way more expensive and cumbersome than the simple petrol/diesel engine based vehicles. But still, there are quite a lot of options, the general public is not aware of them.

For instance, take electric bicycles. These are the standard pedal cycles, but with an additional electric motor which can be used to further the distance that can be covered. The only company currently seen selling such bikes is Hullikal, and the bikes are priced way high.

Around Rs 30,000/-. For this price, one can easily buy a second hand petrol engine bike. And this pricing is the biggest problem which will hamper early adoption of this novel new technology.

For the same price, or slightly more, one can buy a full fledged two wheeler, which looks like any one of those million scooters on the road. And it says it can travel double the distance.

The company every e-bike enthusiast is watching right now is Ather. They have promised to deliver a futuristic looking smart bike, with full integration to smartphones and gps. But this bike will be priced > Rs 75,000/-

But those few who can afford these vehicles , and their monthly electricity bills, and care for the planet, are surely buying and using them. In Bangalore, I see a lot of electric cars from Mahindra on the road. It was initially priced at ~7 lakhs, but now the price is down to  ~5 lakhs.

I didn’t know this, but it seems one can buy an electric sedan too.

 

Going green is definitely expensive. That and the non-availability of charging stations around town is going to slow down this even more.