A Dreamy Visit to the "city of dreams"

A DREAMY VISIT TO THE CITY OF DREAMS
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Part-1
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Mumbai, the city of dreams. Some fulfilled and some just seen and forgotten.
For me, a city where I lived a dream that I never saw.

CONFUSED!!

I'm equally confused!! :-D

Well, life is complex. But this dream..... it was not complex at all... just explaining it is going to be a bit complex.

Let me begin this way...
A visit to Mumbai (the dream that i'm talking about! Just reiterating the point so that you don't lose track :-P)
happened not because of a planned vacation or something. It happened when college got over, when I graduated and got a job.It happened when life had turned boring and color-less for me in Bangalore. It happened when life was all about eating,drinking,sleeping and browsing the net. Literally!! No friends, No fun, No excitement!

O.K...  Before I start sounding depressed, it basically happened when I had to move to Mumbai to begin a new life in the Corporate World!! My first baby steps into a world that meant competition,confidence and hard work.
And so I was moving from a city where I had lived for 9 years of my life and had grown up from a teenager to an adult. As I was going to the railway station, I said goodbye to the trees, to the roads, to the soft breeze blowing over my face, to the buildings, to the restaurants I ever dined in, to everything that was familiar and not so familiar. I bid my final farewell to Bangalore!

Then, I landed in Mumbai and as I walked out of the railway station I saw almost everything that I dreaded about this city. There was crowd, honking taxis, smoggy atmosphere and that heat in the air. Everything I had ever heard of Mumbai was true. And I was hating it.\

After dumping my luggage into the prepaid taxi I had booked, my journey to the hotel room began. My first ride on the roads of the mega city.

Yes... this is where everything changed.

  

THE DISABILITY

Taare Zameen Par  and Barfi!! came across as the two beautiful movies that moved us to tears.I feel happy that Bollywood directors came up with brilliant movies on such sensitive issues such as disability, but what saddens me is that why do we need movies to get sensitized to such issues.

We often ignore the adversities faced by the disabled and turn a blind eye to them in our daily busy lives unless there is some familial responsibility. Our infrastructure,transport facilities, education system etc also does not favour their kind.It has been years since the Br ail has been developed for the blind.Since then,there have been hardly any efforts made by technologists and scientists to develop schemes and technology that favours the disabled. There have been innovations such as automated wheelchairs for the paralysed, printers for the blind etc.But none of these have been made available to the physically disabled on a large scale.

There are minimal schools for special children where they can receive special education that can help them perform better in lives.Parents still refuse to accept autistic children and refuse to put them in schools where they are given special attention and time.They continue to burden them with regular studies due to societal pressure.One must understand and accept the fact that an child cannot grow up to be a scientist but he can be an artist.

If a person cannot hear or speak does not mean that he/she doesn't deserve love and affection.He/She also needs equal,rather greater amount of appreciation and motivation as other people do.And if shown the right direction they can also be very successful in life and a living example would be Stephen Hawking who has stunned us with his scientific research and theories,no other non-disabled scientist has ever been able to match up to.

Let us take a pledge that in future we will not need movies to realize that we need to help that blind man cross the road.Let us make it a habit and work towards making a country where disabled also flourish.

THE FOREIGN BRAND.

India is not in it's 17th century but in the 21st century!!We no longer serve as slaves under landlords wasting our time in war cries and feudalism.We as Indians have made our mark as businessmen,innovators,scientists,technologists,artists etc across the world.Indian women have done us proud as efficient astronauts spending months together in space.

Apart from all this,I'm sure we have more to offer to the world.Why then has FDI become an issue of such widespread debate in our country?

FDI(Foreign Direct Investment)in multi brand retail is a positive move and is not detrimental in any way to our country's growth.Rather it comes as a boon when our country is reeling under inflation and burdened with unemployment. Multi brand retail through international chains like Walmart and Tesco will not only bring these organisations huge profit but also create jobs for the locals,bring down inflation and improve the GDP which has only been dropping since recession has arrived.It would also ensure availability of multiple brands under one roof,thus providing variety and ease of shopping to the consumers.

When food chains like McDonalds and KFC had invested in India years back,people feared that local food chains would suffer.But it has not been so.Instead it has only brought about more competition in the market.Why then FDI in multi brand retail being assumed as the return of the East India Company?

To feel that a positive response by the Government of India towards FDI will make our country an ideal choice for foreign investors who look for a promising market and a wide consumer base.And hence for a country like ours,with its proven diversity in people and culture, FDI comes as a welcome move.

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Exercise, Create Clean Energy, Eat a Free Meal: New Energy Initiative at Danish Luxury Hotel

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..The Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers, a luxury hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark is set to start paying its guests for the electricity they generate by exercising.





The hotel has hooked up two bicycles to electric generators. According to the Crowne Plaza spokesman, Frederikke Toemmergaard, every guest at the 366-room hotel that generates 100 watt hours of electricity will receive a free meal worth 200 kroner (€27 or US$36).



The bicycles have been set up with little screens mounted on the handlebars so riders can see how much power they have generated for the hotel.



Now for the enevitable question: how much bang for the buck do you get?



Toemmergaard says, "A person in bad shape has to pedal about 10 minutes to generate 10 watt hours and someone in good shape can generate up to 100 watt hours in 60 minutes."



The Crowne Plaza prides itself as one of the greenest hotels in the world; this new initiative falls right in line with the company mandate. The hotel states it is the first hotel in Denmark to generate all of its power from renewable sources, including solar panels and groundwater-based heating and cooling.



Read the full story at the AFP: Danish hotel to get 'green' energy from pedaling guests



Image courtesy of richardmasoner via Flickr

.Tags: bicycle generated electricity, Copenhagen, Crowne Plaza, Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers, Denmark, electricity generated through exercise, Frederikke Toemmergaard, green hotel, groundwater-based heating and cooling, Finance



Nathanael Baker is the Managing Editor of EnergyBoom. He has been immersed in the areas of renewable energy and climate change for two years. Before joining EnergyBoom, Nathanael was the Director of Research for the DeSmog Blog. In this role his services included providing research to the New York Times and The Economist.

.Energy Boom content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be advice regarding the investment merits of, or a recommendation regarding the purchase or sale of, any security identified on, or linked through, this site.



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