West Bengal despite its beaches, hill stations, religious places, handicrafts, tea gardens, historical places, wildlife destinations has not been able to be attract tourists for a number of reasons but nothing more than state government apathy.
With the wind of change in the political scenario, there is a possibility that the new people in power might work on putting West Bengal on top of the tourist map. Sultan Ahmed, the recently appointed Union Minister of State for Tourism has righly pointed out that West Bengal does not feature in the choice of destinations of even domestic travellers because of the lack of marketing and proper infrastructure. Read the rest of this entry »
UPDATE: The bridge is to be opened by Congress President Sonia Gandhi on June 30,2009.
Finally, the much hyped infrastructure masterpiece Bandra Worli Sea Link is to opened in the middle of this month after a five year delay. Started in 2001, the construction of the 5.6 km sea link was embroiled in numerous issues like logistical, environmental clearance and public interest litigation, leading to its delay and cost escalation.
And tourist operators are busy trying to get permission to get permission to halt their tourist buses on the bridge! Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: May 10th, 2009 | Author:SD | Filed under:Personal | Tags:travel | Comments Off
The Land of the Midnight Sun which includes Norway was in my list of favourite vacations for long time. Now, I am searching the internet about the procedure to immigrate to Norway! And I mean it!
Michael Moore, the Academy Award winning documentary film maker and political commentator made this short film on Norway which you can now in Youtube.
After watching this short video, I am really interested to know more about Norway.
Yeah we are crazy! But our system works. We can always find things to complain about, but in the long run it works. And we are rich, very very very rich. When I have to take the kids to hospital, the system pays for our airline thickets, hotel, and time in the hospital, and we even get day money, in case we have some unexpected costs. Even if they pay for al transport and stay at the hospital Yeah we ARE crazy! – Comment at youtube.
Although I knew Norway is at No.2 in the United Nations Human Development Index which takes into consideration life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment, and GDP per capita, I did some Googling to convince me that the video is not a joke. What I found convinced me that I will like immigrate to Norway when I am retired (and not a village in Spain). By the way, India is at 128th position. Here is the complete report on India.
The healthcare system in Norway is probably the best in the world with 1 doctor for every 283 people! Life expectancy is a remarkable 78 years in men and 83 years in Women!
The Bastoy Prison shown in the video really does exist. This is what Wikipedia has to say about it!
The facility is located on a 2.6 square kilometer (1 sq mi) island and hosts 115 inmates. Øyvind Alnæs, governor of the prison, leads a staff of 69 prison employees. Of this staff, only five employees remain on the island overnight…..During their free time, inmates have access to horseback riding, fishing, tennis, and cross-country skiing.
It is good to realize that the system does actually work with Norway among the countries with lowest crime rates in the world!
Although, the system cannot be duplicated elsewhere as Norway has less than 3,000 prisoners compared to for example our own India which has more than 2.5 Lac, we surely can look into their system and refine ours. Norway is also facing difficulties with crime rate going with the number of assylum seekers increasing in the country (Pakistanis being the highest settlers). Still, Norway is surely an example to consider and learn from. I really feel that we should have more open-air correctional homes in our country and the aim should be to bring back prisoners to the the mainstream rather than keep them away.
Meanwhile, I am planning to move to Norway before I am 50.
