Cycling trip across the Jalori Pass, Himachal Pradesh
Day one is always hard. But staying the night at Raju bharti’s guest house in Gushani more than made up for it. Lovely family to stay with and an absolutely gorgeous place too.
On day two rode through rain and climbed 1,234m over 17 kms, (that’s pretty darn steep, eh!) see elevation profile. The downhill after the pass was endless – the break shoes were totally worn out, and our wrists were hurting by the time we reached down.
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1 minute read | 135 words
#cycling, #adventures, #cycle tour in india, #cycle touring, #himachal pradesh, #cycling in india, #indian himalyas
Education in rigor mortis: a 10-year report card
Can anything possibily change in the Indian education system. A comparison between a survey done in 1996 and another done in 2006 seems to suggest that nothing much has changed in our education system. Read this brilliant report from Frontline here.
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1 minute read | 41 words
Bringing in winds of change through Radio Ga Ga
So early on in the process of starting a community radio station, it is evident to me the transformation it is capable of bringing into communities and individuals. Here’s a story from “Media For Freedom” that is testimony to the power of CR.
Lucknow: 32 years old Kanshiram undergoes a complete transformation as he goes behind the microphone talking to his listeners on the Community Radio (CR). Formerly a bus conductor who used to ferry passengers to and fro from the remote village of Lalitpur, today he works as a radio jockey (RJ) at the newly set up community radio station here.
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6 minute read | 1201 words
#community-radio, #gurgaon ki awaaz, #samudayik radio station
Exercise and play helps students in the classroom
Here is some news for the academic minded parents and schools: “…brain activity and brain development are enhanced by physical exercise. It now appears that exercise can help kids learn at school.” Listen to the NPR story…
According to study presented to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) “students benefit both physically and academically from time devoted during the school day to physical activity”. Read this story…
Need more evidence?
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1 minute read | 123 words
Documenting wild life adventures in Asia and beyond
This started out as a personal project to document all the wildlife sanctuaries and national parks in India. The idea was to collate and provide unbiased information about parks and what to do, where to stay…
Over the years it has grown. There is now information about national parks and wildlife sanctuaries across most of Asia. It continues to grow and evolve…
Go to World-Wildlife-Adventures.com
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1 minute read | 65 words
Content rating for kids?
A study in the US has found that “TV ratings don’t accurately reflect the aggressive content found in shows popular among children – even cartoons”.
And what do you say to parents who take their 10-year-olds, 3-year-olds and even 9-month-olds to adult cinema? Not so long ago I left a late-night movie half-way because I found it disturbing/horrific… perhaps a little scary. But mothers with babies stuck to their bosoms stayed on…
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1 minute read | 162 words
LIFE photo archive on the web
The LIFE magazine photo archive (millions of photos), most never published before, is now available online, for free.
A teat for some of us (I still have old copies of LIFE magazine!). And we have Google to thank for it. I wish the images had better captions, and were better organized… but then I am glad that they are available at all.
So you can see gems like this or or this(must enlarge and see).
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1 minute read | 79 words
Is Kindle 2 about to replace us in our family bed-time ritual?
Will the new Kindle read bed-time stories to our kids? Can it? Will it? Should it?
TV has proven its worth as a baby-sitter, across cultures! Social networking has effectively come to represent what we do using a browser and not what we do in our living rooms or parks and sports fields… This is a logical next step. Right?
The only loud objection one can hear is coming from the Author’s Guild of America.
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1 minute read | 138 words
Wittenberg University professor Dan Fleisch sets a new standard in after-sales service
Professor Dan Fleisch set a new standard in after-sales service when he flew 600 miles on Christmas Day to hand-deliver his book to a buyer who had posted a comment on the Amazon web site that his copy of the book had missing pages.
Read the Telegraph article
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1 minute read | 48 words
Time magazine says "Content, Once King, Becomes A Pauper"
Has it really? Is content being devalued because of the current economic conditions or is there a larger trend here? Have the accountant got it all wrong?
Read the Time article “Content, Once King, Becomes A Pauper”
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1 minute read | 37 words
Advertising on portals/social networking sites Vs niche sites?
The 2009 Online Advertising Attitudes report of UK reports that “22% of British consumers claim to only visit niche sites that are specific to their interests… A further 34% of British consumers spend the majority of their time visiting niche sites that are specific to their interests.”
Raising questions about the effectiveness of advertising on large portals and social networking sites, the report found that “26% of users never pay attention to the advertising on these sites and a further 36% rarely claim to pay attention to it.
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1 minute read | 91 words
Is the news world changing?
When White House press conference doesn’t invite correspondents from The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, Time and Newsweek but president Obama fields questions from the correspondent from The Huffington Post, a news blog (or should I call it an Internet only news publication) it sure is a sign of change!
Read the New York Times article…
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1 minute read | 57 words