This weekend, The New York Times sent back a report from a visit to Shillong, a city that the paper says is the "hub" of India's rock and roll scene. The Times describes the town as full of Bob Dylan singalongs and guitar circles, but it's not all peace, love and music.
The city is located in the northeastern corner of India, an area that the Shillong Times says is "under Islamist rebel threat." Militants from nearby Bangladesh are a growing presence in the region and they're not rock fans.
The New York Times today reports on an interesting trend in Mumbai where "hunger cafes" take drive-by donations for the starving. These restaurants serve cheap meals to the poor who sit in front and wait for passing motorists to give them the cash they need to eat.
The hunger cafes are clustered together on a street in the city's Muslim Mahim neighborhood. They serve rice and "yellow curried gruel" in both meaty and vegetarian varieties. A meal at one of the cafes costs about 25 cents.
According to the Times, this up close and personal style of charity is a part of Indian culture. The paper reports that "anonymous, checkbook-style charity has yet to catch on" in India. Mumbaikars apparently prefer what the Times describes as good old fashioned "feudal charity: making donations to those below you in your household chain of command."
Employees at a shrine in Thiruvananthapuram, India will no longer be forced to work in their underwear thanks to their local Human Rights Commission. The shrine workers collect donations of cash, precious metals and gems at a temple dedicated to Ayyappa, a local deity. But after a spate of thefts at the shrine five years ago, police officials and temple bigwigs began forcing the shrine staff to wear a uniform that consists of nothing but a cotton wrap around their waists.
Temple workers were also subjected to strip searches before going home each day to ensure that they weren't hiding cash in their underwear. Unsurprisingly, the staff found this treatment incredibly degrading and they complained to the local government.
After hearing the case, the Kerala State Human Rights Commission sided with a union representing the temple employees and ruled that they must be allowed to come to work fully clothed again. Officials at the shrine said they would agree to end strip searches and get rid of the skimpy theft-prevention "uniforms." Temple authorities are now thinking about installing surveillance cameras at the shrine--now that their staff will be wearing pants again.
After much delay, Bangalore's new international airport is set to open this Saturday. But while air traffic controllers have been busy training, the local government has been strangled by its own red tape, says The New York Times, leaving the city horrendously unprepared to deal with all the new traffic.
The roads and rail links that promised to connect the new hub--which is 21 miles outside of town--have yet to materialize. Even now, crews are scrambling to finish road-widening efforts, the Times reports. Meanwhile air traffic at the old HAL airport in the heart of Bangalore (also known as Bengaluru) has doubled in the past two years. With that airport slated to close and the population booming, India's "Silicon Valley" is looking to be more car-choked than ever.
We took a look at the shuttle schedule on the BLR Web site, which lists nine routes that seem to connect the airport to the city pretty well. Of course the routes won't matter if the roadways are so clogged that nobody wants to ride them. A small local air carrier is looking to capitalize on the situation by running a commuter helicopter service to the airport for $100 per ride. Sounds familiar!
Over at HotelChatter, they're always complaining about the lack of WiFi (especially of the free kind) in hotels around the world. Their problem is they haven't considered traveling across India by luxury train, where free internet access is part of the package. At least, that is, if you ride the Golden Chariot, a luxury tourist train which started running regularly between Bangalore, Mysore and Goa last week.
The Golden Chariot is really full of amenities: there's an on-board gym with exercise bikes, weights and a treadmill. You can even get ayurvedic spa and massage treatments. It's pretty exclusive, with room for just 88 passengers. A standard trip takes a week and costs almost $3,400, which is not in everyone's budget. But there's free WiFi. We love that. We'll even cross Russia again when they get WiFi on the Trans-Siberian.
The tiny Indian state of Sikkim is home to the world's third highest peak, Khanchendzonga, and its craggy landscape ranges in elevation from 920 to 28,000 feet. It's probably one of the most ridiculously difficult places in the world to ride a mountain bike. But, man, the things people will do for money.
The Khanchendzonga Mountain Biking Expedition is a ten-day, 370-mile-long course that winds through all of Sikkim's four territories. The prize money totals $25,000.
The event kicked off on March 3 and drew about 60 competitors. Most were from India, but a handful were from other countries, including one from the United States. The race was organized largely to help boost tourism in the region. (They probably could've started by fixing up their website.)
Where we live, the opening of a new airport is a big event, and it's often one that comes with its own controversies too. But if you're living in China or India then you can pretty much expect a new airport to pop up 'round the corner from you any day now.
This week both countries have unveiled their plans for the next decade or so, publicizing how many new airports they hope to create by the year 2020. China has the relatively modest goal of opening 97 new airports, at a cost of $62.5 billion. By the time they've built those, they reckon that 82 percent of Chinese citizens will live within a 90 minute drive of an airport, which is pretty handy.
In India, they're even more ambitious. The country's aiming to have 500 airports open to regular public flights by 2020. Right now, only 80 airports in India operate commercial flights and only 16 of these offer international flights. But there's a lot of half-hearted landing strips and small private airports that could be renovated and put into commercial service, and that's where the goal of 500 comes from. Looks like the world is gonna need a whole lot more of those three-letter codes soon.
With so many islands and unfathomable distances, there aren't many alternatives to flying in the Asia-Pacific region, and with economies booming in China, India and Australia, more and more people want to hop on a plane. Demand was up 7 percent in 2007 alone.
India's a good example of the booming air market. Low cost carriers are popping up across the country and existing LCCs are making a packet. Across six budget carriers, 250 aircraft are currently on order, so it's only going to get bigger, and the next Indian expansion goal is flights to "non-metropolitan" destinations.
In such times of change, you could be worried that your LCC might drop out of the market, easy-come, easy-go style. So take note of these names, the airlines who are having huge growth at the moment: SpiceJet and Indigo grew by 200 percent last year, and GoAir by a (still big) 50 percent. We can't guarantee they'll stick around after you buy your ticket, but they're a better option than India's own non-flying plane.
