FastCompany has a story about Micro Home Solutions, a Delhi-based company owned by the husband and wife team of Rakhi Mehra and Marco Ferrario, wants to build affordable housing for low-income people.
The ultimate goal for Micro Home Solutions is to provide sound housing planning for low-income dwellers and at the same time keep the company financially sustainable so that it can continue to provide its services.
An article in the Wall Street Journal has generated a lot of debate. The article, titled ‘Why Chinese Mothers are Superior‘ by Amy Chua who is a professor at Yale Law School explains the differences in the way Chinese (and … Continue reading
The New York Times reports that the sales of the Nano, the ‘people’s car’ from the Tata group have gone way down.
Analysts say the Nano situation demonstrates it may not be sufficient to make cheaper, smaller versions of existing products to win over that broad base of customers. Companies, they say, must also make sure the products are widely available and are seen as safe, useful and alluring.
“The bottom of the pyramid continues to be where the action is,” said Hormazd Sorabjee, editor of Autocar India, a magazine. “But the aspirations of people are moving up. People want to jump into something more substantial.”
This is from CNN:
The co-pilot of an Air India Express 737 sent the jetliner into a terrifying 7,000-foot plunge in May when he accidentally hit the control column while adjusting his seat, investigators report.
According to the report from India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the co-pilot panicked and was unable to execute the proper procedures as the jetliner dropped from 37,000 feet at a 26-degree angle. The plane and its 113 passengers were saved when the pilot, who’d gone on a bathroom break, used an emergency code to get into the locked cockpit, jumped back into his seat and grabbed the controls to bring the plummeting plane out of its dive.
From the NY Times:
The campaign, labeled “Take Back Yoga,” does not ask yoga devotees to become Hindu, or instructors to teach more about Hinduism. The small but increasingly influential group behind it, the Hindu American Foundation, suggests only that people become more aware of yoga’s debt to the faith’s ancient traditions.
Today’s WTF story is from the The Guardian:
An Indian village has banned unmarried women from using mobile phones for fear they will arrange forbidden marriages that are often punished by death, a local official said today.
The Lank village council decided unmarried boys could use mobile phones, but only under parental supervision, said one council member, Satish Tyagi. Local women’s rights group criticised the measure as backward and unfair.
This is from the state of Uttar Pradesh which is a very backward state.
Another reason why I believe that people are delusional when they say that India is a developing/emerging country.
MSNBC has this story about the proliferation of rats in Mumbai and the people who catch rats for a living.
The competition for rat catcher jobs in Mumbai is stiff. Only men aged 18 to 30 need apply. They must be able to lift a 110-pound sack and run a few kilometers. They must demonstrate their ability to catch and kill a rat in the dark within ten minutes.
Each rat catcher must kill 30 rats a night, six nights a week. If he doesn’t make the quota, he doesn’t get paid.
Everything in this story is pretty pathetic. Shows to show that we have a long, long, long way to go to become a developed country.
Financial Times is reporting that Beatles will be available on iTunes tomorrow.
Foreign Policy has this nice photo essay about the mining industry in Jharkand.
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