Will India become a superpower?

I had the opportunity to listen to a talk given by Ramachandra Guha - a well know Indian author. His speech was about the question if India can/will/should become a superpower? The following challenges were mentioned which prevents India from moving ahead:

1)Rise of Religious Extremism
2)Rise of Left-wing Political Extremism
3)Rise of Political Corruption
4)Decline of Public Institutions
5)Growing Gap between the Rich and Poor
6)Rise of Environmental Degradation
7)Role of the contaminated Media
8)Rise of Multi Party Coalitions

I somehow found the last one very surprising. But he pointed out that the state in India which is most well functioning and prosperous, namely the State of Kerala, does have a 2-party systems since more or less ever. He concluded his speech that in what way you ever define superpower (economical,...) it might not be worthwhile for India to become one. It should better focus on itself and judge it on its own standards.

Well, the talk was pretty impressive and I read some more columms from the author. If you are interested in India and its progress and issues you might check the following Link; Ramachandra Guha

best.
Lizzy

Mantras for daily living?

Posted with my gym - funny stuff.
Didnt know that faith is my cousin???

And finally, my lovely room. You might notice my "3-bucket-luxury-shower". I really liked it! ...but I am glad you cant see the mess right now...trying to pack and sort things out...not to0 easy.



hugs.

New pic

Well, I thought about picturing myself once, got a new camera, trying it out,...will post some more relevant pictures about India over the weekend!! Sorry for my selfishness but you might be able to observes if e.g. I gained weight or not, if I got married or not, if yoga changed my physical appereance, and so on...

Energy crisis?

I dont want to withhold you the daily news from Bangalore. Today's heading, 18. July, in the The Times of India, Bangalore:


What does this mean? In short, the energy company announced "official" daily 2-hours powercuts for the next weeks! Yeah - this step is due to the fact that monsoon rain has not started yet (kinda unusual) and thus there is too less water to produce enough energy. Well, adding this offical 2-hours cut with all the other breakdowns makes half the day without electricity + I have the impression that they mean to shut down electricity EVERY 2 hours cause that would fit the experience of the last couple of days better. However, back to basics: candles are great!

Further, another kindly announcement was made in the newspaper of today:


So well, no water supply till Sunday, but thanks for informing me! However my roommates guess that our water tank might do till sunday, w'll figure out!

You see, everything is as it should be in India!

hugs.

Indian curiosities

So well,

-It took my nearly 3 months to get wireless internet connection in my apartment. But lucky me, I got it :-)

-Do you know that Indians rate Mr. Bush kinda high in opinion polls. The Economist put it in a funny way: The Pew Research Centre found that Mr Bush's approval rating in India was “still astonishingly high” at 55%. In fact, Indians were the only people sampled who rated Mr Bush more highly than they did Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. So, perhaps they know something the rest of us don't?

-Roaming around the organized grey market in Bangalore is kinda fun - in particular if your taxi driver volunteers to help you out with translation to bargain a cheap deal.

-Do you know that Indians cant say NO? It kinda amazes me all the time...well a typical conversation with a taxi driver could go like that
"Can you drive me to Mahatma Gandhi Road?"
"Yes, madam"
"Do you know the way?"
"Yes, madam"
"Whats the price?'
"Yes, madam"
"You dont know where I want to go, do you?"
"Yes, madam"
"So you are not driving me?"
"Yes, madam"
"Can you say no?"
"Yes, madam"
"Say it then"
"Yes, madam"
However, sometimes you really got stuck with all this yes, madam cause you never know and it becomes very tiring.

-Detecting or even setting a blaze in India seems not to bother anyone. In fact there was a fire for the entire afternoon in our neighbours garden. Well, first I thought I forgot to turn off the gas from our stove and thus I set the kitchen on fire but I didnt *g* so we checked the neighbours, well we were not sure if they wer burning rubish or leafs or if the grass just caught fire on its own. However, I had a balcony view on some "fireworks" the entire afternoon.

So well, time is flying by here. Just three weeks to go and I am off work! Its going fast, I am telling you.
So far, so good.

hugs.

So well, cause I thought I should do some more for my health and well-being it happened that I dropped by in an Ayuverda clinic. It was kinda hard which one to chose, cause I can find around 10 of them in my neighborhood, seems to be kinda popular here!

However, I had a little chat with the "doctor", actually I am not sure what she studied but she sounded like she knows what shes talking about. Alright, the first secret in ayuverda is to determine your personal "dosha", don't exactly know what it means but this determines your personal conditions and thus recommends treatment. I am an officially VATA type :-) If you are interested in determining yours, I ll ask you to follow the link: Dosha-Test

Well, after complaining about the spicy food and my troubles with digestion I got some prescription and "natural" medicine. I don't know what it is, cause everything is written in this "ajuverda language" or in the local one, well I dont even can pronounce the names of them but I try to follow the treatment.
At the top I ll pictured one of the bottles, I ll take 2 tablespoons after every dinner (for them who know, it was also recommended to me to have a regular meal schedule, meaning 3 meals only *g*)...so well if I am right and if my sense of taste are somehow working its just anis schnaps :-) funny stuff.
By the way, the treatment also includes massages :-)

The new pictures you can see in the diashow are taken from a friend of mine. She was studying in Dehli for a semester and also worked for Atree for a month. Her camera is about 10 times as worth as mine :-) and she is talented too. I feel she really pictures India and its people very well. You should have a look at too.

So well, thats all so far.

Cu

Happy Index?

The New Economic Foundation in the UK calculates the so called Happy Planet Index (HPI) for 178 countries. The HPI combines data on life expectancy, surveys on life satisfaction and the consumption of natural resources (energy, land etc) in each country. Particularly the index combines the environmental impact with human well being!

I do find the results kinda interesting. Looking at India, it may be far behind development and it is also ranked badly regarding human development indicators but astonishing --- Indians are far happier than most other countries.
India is ranked 62 in terms of happiness, just one rank behind Austria on 61. We might think about that!!!!

So well it is possible to calculate your own index too. I did it for myself :-)

My result;
Your personal Happy Planet Index (HPI) is 78.1, which is above that for any country, including top-placed Vanuatu. Congratulations! However, it is still below the reasonable ideal we have set, of 83, so you can still do more to improve your health and well-being, or reduce your environmental impact. Your score is above that of your country, 48.8.
So it seems I am the happiest country overall :-)
However the survey is funny and ends with a lot of results and recommendations. It also calculates your ecological footprint etc. Anyone interested in beating my happiness -- go to Happy Planet Index

Further, I guess regarding improving my health: I told you to get a consult on my knee, well it seems that my miniscus is torn :-( However as far I could communicate with the doctor - I ll definitely survive :-)