Category: Travel

In the Land of the Vishwaguru, We Are Frogs in a Well

At a recent trip to Uzbekistan, I was expecting to be treated as a visitor from the country that we have been regularly informed during last 10 years, is the “vishwaguru”. 

Caveat: I risk confirming the status of an ‘anti-national’, given to me by many of my friends and relatives, after this piece sees light of the day. 

My recent sojourn as a tourist to Uzbekistan recently made me realise that we Indians are like frogs in the well confined to a cocoon created for us by the totally controlled media spreading government-sponsored propaganda. 

We Indians are happy with whatever life presents us because we have no one else except Pakistan and Bangladesh to compare with. Most of us (at least 1.35 billion out of an estimated 1.40 billion Indians) do not have means to travel and get a first-hand feel or knowledge of how much the other countries of the world have progressed leaving us way behind in almost all spheres of activity.

Having travelled abroad earlier too, I have experienced the much better level of infrastructure, systems, discipline, cleanliness and behaviour of people in those countries. However, I was particularly conscious to take note of these aspects during my  latest visit abroad. I was particularly conscious and anticipating that I will come across the “danka of India and Modi” (danka is a ceremonial drum) that is supposed to be playing in the world. I was expecting to be treated as a visitor from the country that we have been regularly informed during last 10 years, is the “vishwaguru” or at least is fast on its way to become one. 

However, I found that the country just about one-eighth of India in geographical area and having a population of only 38 million is way better in all the aspects mentioned above. The country which is ranked 67th or so in the world in terms of Gross Domestic Product, leads the world’s fifth largest economy by far in infrastructure and functional systems. 

The well-maintained roads ensured that the traffic was always smooth both within the cities and the highways. We did not encounter any “toll booths” anywhere on our journey on the highways, unlike in India where we find toll booths at short distances, in spite of which the highways are good only in patches. Even the single road to Chimgan mountains, two hours’ drive away from Tashkent, was without all pervasive potholes or speed breakers that we find in India. Suffice to say that in India the roads, especially, beyond the highway, are in despicable condition.  

The only police presence that I saw was that of “tourist police” at places of touristic importance. The traffic was smooth because everyone followed traffic rules. No one overshot traffic light, nor did they drive on the wrong side. Even the pedestrian traffic followed discipline, stepping out to cross the road only upon green light for them to walk. This was in spite of the fact that there was hardly if any presence of police on the roads. Technology, obviously, is the deterrent besides the pressure of societal norms. 

A lot of touring by us was by train. The distance of about 525 kilometre from Tashkent to Bukhara took just over four hours to cover, in spite of two halts en route. We on the other hand are still in the process of grandiosely flagging off “Vande Bharat” which can at best be termed as medium fast, hardly covering 300 kms in three hours or more. Unlike in India, the train staff was courteous and stood outside the bogey at the door to guide the passengers to their respective seats. Heaps of garbage along the railway line – a common sight in India – was nowhere to be seen. The trains were punctual to the last minute.

The “Nirmal Bharat” campaign started at the beginning of this century, has obviously failed to make an impact even after being rechristened “Swachh Bharat” and billions of rupees spent in advertising it. The campaign was bound to fail because of absence of any infrastructure for waste disposal. We also need to imbibe the sense of discipline and cleanliness amongst our children in their formative years in the schools. However, there isn’t enough emphasis on these aspects. Dependence merely on sloganeering and media hype is not likely to succeed in moulding behaviour rooted in a culture since centuries.

Discipline and appropriate social behaviour can be ingrained only if we as a society try and inculcate a sense of moral responsibility on part of citizens towards the society. It is the shared sense of respect for the rights of others, duty towards them and the society that can motivate people to behave appropriately. The sense of cleanliness and discipline thus gets imbibed into each individual and becomes inherited culture. We in India however, totally lack this sense of responsibility and care for others and towards the society. Breaking law in India is considered niche and the law breakers are looked at with awe, especially if the law breaker is well connected and powerful, besides having the ability to short circuit the due process of Law by paying out the law enforcers. 

The second reason for such impeccable discipline in Uzbekistan is the widespread use of technology to detect crimes and strict enforcement of law of the land irrespective of any external considerations. While one is not privy to actual data, one can safely presume that the rich and powerful perhaps too are treated in the same manner as any common citizen.

The levels of education in Uzbekistan too appear to be much better as compared to India. The cost of education, especially the higher professional education appears to be much less there. I found several young boys and girls travelling to Tashkent in our flight and interacted with some. A common refrain was that they preferred to go to Uzbekistan and other countries of Western Asia for medical education because it worked out much cheaper at Rs 3 million tuition fees for six years plus their personal expenses. Whereas in India the same education would cost upwards of Rs 15 million plus personal expenses if they fail to get into a government medical college through the centralised NEET examination. As per them, the standards of teachings imparted are equivalent if not better when compared to India. Lack of quality education in India has led to the presence of a large number of “professionally qualified” but actually unemployable young people in the society available for the politicians and religious bigots to exploit.

Samarkand. Photo: Flickr/Henrik Berger Jørgensen (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

We had two very young guides conducting us at Samarkand and Tashkent. Both of them were studying and working part time as tourist guides, even though they need not have done this because of sound financial conditions of their parents. In India this is unthinkable, especially, amongst the middle- and high-income households. The elite in India would rather present their minor children with a high-end SUV which they drive rashly and kill unsuspecting pedestrians after downing a few drinks, secure in the knowledge that the money power and contacts of their parents will save them from any penal action by the law enforcing authorities. It is only the poor who are compelled by circumstances to take up work at the cost of a formal education in order to supplement the income of their household. 

I was surprised at the amount of knowledge and world view that these young guides had, not only about the tourist sites that they took us to or Uzbekistan only, but also about what developments taking place in the world and their impact on Uzbekistan. To the contrary, one finds very few, if any, young and formally educated persons in India having well-rounded knowledge and analytical ability. There are hardly any young or even senior people willing to engage in any meaningful discussions on any issue beyond the bigotry of fixed ideas or knowledge acquired through social media.

Such a state of affairs prevails here because formal education in India doesn’t encourage critical thinking. It doesn’t prepare people to face up to the challenges of the world. The result is that we have young people resorting to cultural and religious bigotry, moral policing, superstition and unscientific practices. No wonder the country has failed to achieve either moral ascendency or actual development. Whatever successes that we have achieved in the fields of science, technology, and sports have been in spite of impediments as mentioned above and due to individual brilliance.   

Last but not the least, one very important aspect of the society in Uzbekistan is communal and ethnic harmony in the country which has a majority of 96% Muslims (84% being Sunnis and 12% Shias) and barely 4% practitioners of other religions (2.3% being Orthodox Christians and remaining 1.7 other minorities). Even a minuscule minority of just 200 Jews have a functional synagogue in Bukhara where they continue to pray and welcome visitors of any religion or ethnicity with open arms (most of about 95,000 Jews left for USA, Germany and Israel after the dissolution of the Soviet Union). Different ethnic communities like the majority Uzbeks, Taziks, Kazaks and Russians too live in perfect harmony. There have hardly, if ever, been any reported case of ethnic or religious strife. Our Russian guide at Samarkand told us that the only time they faced some restrictions on open practice of religion was during the Soviet era till 1991, when it was practiced mainly in the confines of homes. 

There has been no reported case of practitioners of majority religion going and dancing in front of churches or synagogues on Eid or shouting religious slogans and waving weapons as happens quite frequently in India or vice-versa. None from religious minority is compelled to shout slogans equivalent of “Jai Shri Ram” that the protagonists of Hindutva force Muslims and other minorities to do in India. No one is ever known to have attacked the only synagogue or tried to fly a green flag on it or on any of the churches in Uzbekistan. No one scoffs at inter-religious or inter-ethnic marriages and cries “love jihad” or imposes food choices on minorities.

This short trip to Uzbekistan has brought in a realisation that India needs to do a lot of catching up in spite of the size of its economy, geographical size and population. We risk having continued ethnic strife if the people in power continue to resort to divisive policies, be they religion-based or caste-based.

I must confess that the short trip is not enough for a person to understand the nitty-gritty of the dynamics of a society, however, it is absolutely clear that the “danka” of India doesn’t actually play as we have been made to believe during the last decade. India is yet a far distance from arriving on the world scene. India has the potential to achieve greatness, which can happen only by inculcating discipline, morals and compassion. The people in power must work towards uniting the society instead of playing divisive politics. The common citizen thus empowered will have “true sense of patriotism and nationalism” which is totally different from the one being spread and talked about now these days. 

Sanjiv Krishan Sood was Additional Director General, BSF.

‘Misuse of Law to Shut Down Criticism,’ Says Entrepreneur After Goa Govt Files Police Complaint Over Tourism Post

Goa Tourism’s deputy director said in his complaint that Mukherjee’s post on X ‘may be part of a hidden agenda aimed at undermining Goa’s state image.’

New Delhi: A day after it was reported that the Goa government has issued a statement against several claims on social media that its tourism infrastructure is lacking, it has filed a police complaint against the person whose post led to the conversation. Entrepreneur Ramanuj Mukherjee has called it a misuse of the law to shut down criticism.

Indian Express has reported that Goa’s deputy director of tourism, Rajesh Kale, wrote in his complaint to the Superintendent of Police of the cyber crime police station in Panaji, that he was “writing to formally lodge a complaint regarding an incident of public mischief that occurred on November 5, at approximately 3:52 pm”.

That is the time stamp of when Mukherjee posted on X about the downslide in foreign tourists at Goa. His post prompted several thousands to comment, with many chiming in with their experiences with taxi unions and hotels.

The report noted that according to Kale, the entrepreneur, Ramanuj Mukherjee, “disseminated false data through his social media X handles, thereby causing significant annoyance to local businesses and inducing fear or alarm within the local community”.

Mukherjee had posted a chart from the database of the China Economic Information Center. Kale in his complaint questioned this data “as he neither consulted with the Department of Tourism prior to posting nor validated the data he collected”.

Kale’s complaint also claimed that the state’s tourism department was concerned that this action “may be part of a hidden agenda aimed at undermining Goa’s state image.”

It further said:

 “Goa has long been recognised as a prominent tourism destination for both domestic and international visitors. The propagation of such false statements not only jeopardises the reputation of our state but also poses a serious threat to public tranquillity.

While the Express report notes that Mukherjee did not respond to the paper, early today (November 9), he wrote on X with a screengrab of an Express journalist asking for his comments on the complaint.

“Turns out Goa Tourism decided the best course of action when tens of thousands of people are complaining about how badly they were treated in the state is this,” Mukherjee wrote.

He then added that his response was the following, highlighting that the action was a “misuse of law to shut down criticism”:

“It is unfortunate that instead of acting on complaints by thousands of tourists on social media regarding various tourist scams they faced in Goa, which by the way I did not highlight, and merely shared publicly available data which I also cited, the authorities are trying to intimidate me with a baseless police case. They should have put the correct data out there if they think my cited data is wrong instead of what appears to be a misuse of law to shut down criticism. I will counter this intimidation through legal means.”

Goa’s cyber crime police noted that it is yet to formally receive the complaint.

A day ago, the state government, in a statement, claimed that comparing the state to another country like Sri Lanka may yield an “inaccurate perspective”.

Goa Govt Says Comparing Tourism Infra With Foreign Countries Will ‘Yield Inaccurate Perspective’

Many responded to a social media post on foreign tourists’ numbers dipping in Goa and recounted how highhandedness of local cab drivers and hotels have given them a hard time in the state. 

New Delhi: Following conversation on social media on how Goa’s tourism has seen better days, the state government has released a statement saying that efforts to compare the state to foreign countries will “yield an inaccurate perspective.”

On November 5, social media participant Ramanuj Mukherjee wrote on X that “tourism in Goa is down in [the] dumps.” Mukherjee cited numbers from the database CEIC to illustrate that the state has seen a downward slide of foreign tourists.

Goa’s long coastline and rivers have made it a tourist favourite for decades now. However, Mukherjee said, “Russians and Brits who used to visit annually have opted for Sri Lanka instead.”

Many responded to his post and recounted how highhandedness of local cab drivers and hotels have given them a hard time at Goa.

A user on X wrote that “Goa’s taxi mafia is responsible for it” and recounted a purported incident involving taxi drivers who were ready to beat passengers up for opting for a taxi from another region. Similar stories were shared by many others.

The state government appears to have taken exception to the ‘Sri Lanka’ comparison in particular.

“It is important to note that Goa is a state within India, whereas destinations Goa is being compared to… like Sri Lanka are countries. Comparing a state to a country may yield an inaccurate perspective,” it said, according to a report by Indian Express.

The report noted:

Acknowledging that Goa does face challenges of “limited scheduled international air connectivity”, the department said the government is working closely with the Centre to relook at point of call and additional seat entitlement for Goa to establish “more robust international connections”.

The department also claimed that like any other tourist destination, Goa is governed by market forces and “at times the air and hotel components make Goa expensive, leaving the potential tourist seeking alternate options.”

The Tourism department also claimed that Goa experienced a “robust resurgence” in domestic tourism, with over 8 million (80 lakh) domestic visitors in 2023, which it said surpasses pre-pandemic figures.

Picturesque Lakes and a Debilitating Sickness: A First-Person Account of What HAPE Looks Like

On a rainy, dark and cold morning, I was stranded with a group of friends at 3,500 metres around the pastures of Jadimarg in the Pir Panjal region of Jammu and Kashmir with our friend dying in our arms.

Shopian (Kashmir): As an amateur mountaineer, I had a vague idea of high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) or cerebral edema (HACE), two acute forms of mountain sickness which affect trekking and skiing enthusiasts, and alpine climbers from lowlands who rapidly ascend to 2000 metres and above.

But on a rainy, dark and cold morning in August this year, I was stranded with a group of friends and fellow mountain admirers at 3,500 metres around the pastures of Jadimarg in Pir Panjal region of Jammu and Kashmir with our friend (we later came to know he was suffering from both HAPE and HACE) dying in our arms.

We were a group of eight members on a three-day hike to the largest cluster of about two dozen alpine lakes, some approaching 4,200 meters, which are set like precious jewels in a necklace of rough and challenging but spectacular mountains in the heights of south Kashmir’s Hirpora wildlife sanctuary.

Our plan was to start from Dongimarg in Shopian and proceed up along the Jadi Nallah rivulet to the Handu valley, a vast, undulating meadow and the summer residence of a dozen or so families of Rajouri mountain dwellers who spend four to five months here grazing their herds of goats, sheep and buffalo.

Our plan was to set up a base in Handu valley.

But the 1,200+ meter rapid climb to the Handu Valley from Dongimarg in a single day can be hard on some human bodies which is perfectly normal. Sadly, I couldn’t join the group on the first day. Next day, I discovered our base in Jadimarg, some six kilometers behind Handu valley.

This was the first setback.

Our cook was deep asleep in the kitchen tent. Rashid, Salman, Owais, Abrar and Riyaz were away exploring Bhag Sar, Kashmir’s third largest alpine lake, along with Handu Sar, Sona Sar, Kada Sar, Lakhsukh Sar and few other surrounding tarns.

When they returned, I learnt that Rashid had not adapted well to life at high altitude. He was fatigued with a headache and dry intermittent cough. At night, his appetite disappeared, despite a mountain goat on the table.

On the next day, we woke up to a clear sky holding immense possibilities. After packing our bags and eating breakfast, we split into two groups of four and five members each. One would head east towards the Girjan Valley with its magnificent Reevawali meadow and Belamarg, in the vicinity of which are Katori Sar, Kaldachni Sar, Gum Sar, Neel Sar, Kukad Sar and other alpine lakes and water bodies not exceeding 3,500 metres.

Rashid insisted on taking up the more difficult trail with the group I was leading along with Riyaz and Shakir. From Jadimarg, we traversed a belt of rockfall-prone mountains, partly covered by glaciers, towards the challenging Lakhsukh Sar pass, skirting the sparkling Chandan Sar along the way, to enter the Handu valley.

Chandan Sar is one among the largest cluster of about two dozen alpine lakes in the heights of Hirpora Wildlife Sanctuary.

As we crossed the Lakhsukh Sar pass, a range of jagged, lifeless mountains, also home to the world’s largest mountain goat Markhor, stood before us in all their majesty.

Our destination was Tikyar Sar, arguably the most beautiful lake in the set of Hirpora lakes. The oval-shaped tarn is hidden behind a wall of towering, jagged peaks in the Baliyan Valley nestled at the far end of the Handu valley. As the altitude clocked 4,200 metres, we could see ominous signs and hear the pattering sounds of rockfall along the trail.

Rashid was struggling to keep pace. Being the more experienced among the four, I asked Riyaz to drop the idea of Tikyar Sar and wait for Rashid, who was about an hour behind us but still in sight. We chose a place for our rendezvous. Shakir and I proceeded to Tikyar Sar.

To our horror when we returned, the duo was missing. Shakir and I decided to ascend to Kada Sar with the hope of stumbling into Rashid or Riyaz along the trail but only disappointment waited for us. A quick traverse on a small but difficult range of mountains brought us to Bhag Sar, Barani Sar, Sanaan Sar, Sona Sar and finally Handu valley.

After a 30-km traverse on boulder rocks, scree, slippery glaciers and high gradient mountain slopes, we returned late to the base at Jadimarg at 11.30 pm.

Rashid and Riyaz were still missing. We spent an anguished night huddled inside our tents, chalking out a plan for the rescue. At the crack of dawn, a team made the ascent to the Handu valley again and, after an arduous day on one of Kashmir’s most challenging trails, the team returned with Rashid and Riyaz just before sunset.

Riyaz narrated that Rashid had insisted on continuing to Tikyar Sar which, as I had feared, proved to be a terrible decision. By the time the stunning presence of Tiykar Sar enraptured their visual senses, the sun was beginning to set and the two had lost a lot of time. They would soon lose their way too.

Tikyar Sar is arguably one of the most stunning among the cluster of alpine lakes in the heights of Hirpora Wildlife Sanctuary. Photo: Jehangir Ali.

As darkness enveloped the Hirpora sanctuary, Rashid and Riyaz were still 15 km from the base, roaming around Kada Sar, with no water or food and without any knowledge of the terrain. At first, the fear of the unknown planted the idea of fashioning a temporary night shelter in their minds. But it was dismissed as impractical, given the huge size of boulder rocks. Without a map, the two decided that it was better to continue walking with the hope that they could run into one of the few human habitations in the area.

But there was no end in sight to their agony. The two lost their way but they had not lost their determination to continue, which made them wander around a chain of bare mountains holding a cluster of a dozen alpine lakes in their bosom. To defeat the pangs of thirst, they fed on dirty glacial ice. Fearing that they were not going to survive, Rashid even recorded his last video message!

At around 3 in the morning, they could hear the faint voices of a shepherd’s dog which led them to a tribal dwelling.

Rashid was conscious when our team got him back to the base. He had a severe headache and a high-grade fever but he insisted that it was general tiredness and wished to sleep. His speech was slurred and soon enough he lost consciousness. Then, intermittent spells of hallucinations took over which made some of us with a penchant for myth-making to speculate that he was consumed by demons after losing way in the girdle of alpine lakes.

In the popular Kashmiri imagination, some unknown supernatural powers inhabit all the lakes, rivers and especially freshwater springs who target innocent humans. Some historians write that it was a myth circulated by Kashmir’s Hindu inhabitants against the littering of water bodies that they consider sacred.

For more than 15 hours, Rashid put up a brave fight. His breathing produced gurgling sounds and his mouth was spitting froth. Sometimes, the scary bouts of hallucinations awakened the prosecutor in him. At another time, it was a husband-wife conversation. His fever was showing no signs of subsiding. He was breathing with difficulty. He was fit to die.

On the morning of our expedition’s final day, it started raining furiously. Evacuating the nearly lifeless body of Rashid seemed a difficult proposition but it weighed heavily against the odds of wasting time in waiting for the rain to subside which could prove lethal.

A stretcher was fashioned out of wooden poles and nylon ropes with the help of the Bakarwal tribal people who, after charging a hefty fee, shouldered Rashid on a gruelling two hour hike to Nanga Pahad amid a heavy downpour and four more hours of descent along the vast and soul-rejuvenating meadows of Namnad to the Mughal Road.

An alpine climber traversing a difficult, glacier and boulder stretch of the Hirpora Lakes trail on the border between Poonch and Shopian districts of J&K.

Rashid was hauled into my car, which we had managed to summon, and driven to Shopian district hospital. After explaining Rashid’s condition, the doctors discovered that his oxygen saturation had dropped to 30. But he still had some life in him. Rashid was stabilised with a shot of hydrocortisone, dexamethasone and antibiotics backed by respiratory support. Then, he was referred to the super-speciality SKIMS hospital in Srinagar where he remained in the Intensive Care Unit for five days.

Dr Sonaullah Shah, a senior pulmonologist who heads the Internal Medicine at SKIMS, said that Rashid was suffering from both HAPE and HACE which was confirmed by CT scans. It is then that we got to know about the severity of Rashid’s illness. Dr Shah said the diseases progress quickly to coma and death if left untreated.

“Rapid descent and timely medical attention, including supplemental oxygen and dexamethasone are vital for treating such cases,” he said.

Rashid survived to tell his story but there are many more in Kashmir who don’t, often due to the negligence of commercial operators which take gullible adventure enthusiasts on uncertain and difficult mountain expeditions without knowledge or expertise to handle such cases.

One such incident took place earlier this month on the Kashmir Great Lakes trail where a HAPE victim passed away, and the organiser and the insurance provider, like greedy criminals, watched him die while doing absolutely nothing to evacuate him by citing whiteout and storm, even though weather advisory had already predicted the gloom ahead on that date.

When the HAPE or HACE set in, which primarily happens due to low oxygen levels at high altitude, lack of acclimatisation and rapid ascent, it’s easy to mistake the first warnings of dry, unproductive cough, fatigue, breathing difficulties, slurred speech, disorientation and hallucination for the consequences of a long, hard day of hike or supernatural powers.

More Indians Than Ever Are Going on Holiday Abroad – So Where Are They Heading And Why?

According to Google Trends, Vietnam was the most-researched destination by Indians in 2023.

Travel is on the rise again. According to the UN’s tourism agency, international travel for all purposes reached 97% of its pre-pandemic level in the first quarter of 2024. In some regions such as Africa and Europe, arrivals are already surpassing these levels.

Indian travellers, in particular, are adding to this growing trend – no nation’s outbound tourism market is growing faster. In response to this rapidly expanding travel boom, Indian airlines ordered record numbers of new planes in 2024.

The Indian travel market is gigantic, with its middle class now representing 31% of the country’s population. This figure is expected to increase to 60% by 2047, meaning there will be more than 1 billion middle-class Indians by the middle of the century.

For budding Indian tourists, the future of travel looks exciting. But for the many destinations already besieged by overtourism, this new market may be viewed through a more sceptical lense.

Nonetheless, Indian tourists spent US$33.3 billion (£25.3 billion) in 2023, and many destinations are recognising their potential. In April, for example, Japan introduced a new e-visa system for Indian tourists in the hopes of increasing arrivals.

Two months earlier, Dubai created a five-year, multiple-entry tourist visa tailored to Indian visitors. South Africa’s simplified visa scheme will also start in 2025, while other nations including Malaysia, Kenya, Thailand and Iran have scrapped visa requirements for Indian tourists entirely.

The evidence suggests these schemes work. Tour operator Thomas Cook reported in May that Indian demand for holidays in Georgia has surged by a staggering 600% year-on-year since the country launched its e-visa system for Indian tourists in 2015.

Other European markets have been slower to adjust. Europe’s border-free Schengen zone has introduced a new “cascade” system, which will allow Indian visitors who have used a short-stay visa twice in the last three years to now apply for a two-year, multiple-entry tourist visa.

But, while this is a positive step towards easier travel for some Indian tourists, it will have no effect on new travellers. The Schengen visa process can also still take months, requires significant paperwork, and appointments are notoriously difficult to find.

The story is similar for British visas. Many people in India, as well as other applicants, feel the process is too harsh and can be humiliating. Endless amounts of paperwork are required, including bank statements and invitation letters, and rejections are often not explained.

In a study of travel trends in India, online travel platform Booking.com also found that Indian tourists typically book their trip at the last minute. They spend just 30 days planning a holiday on average, compared with 63 days for Americans and 90 days for Brits. Many simply cannot be bothered with time-consuming visa requirements, and are opting for easier and more welcoming destinations instead.

So, where are they going?

Budget airlines flying to relatively nearby destinations have contributed to India’s tourism rush, with south-east Asia increasingly popular. According to Google Trends, Vietnam was the most-researched destination by Indians in 2023.

That year, the Vietnam National Authority of Tourism reported a 231% increase in visitors from India compared with 2019. Other south-east Asian countries such as Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia are seeing similarly huge jumps in arrivals.

Indian travellers are hugely influenced by television and movies, often opting to visit the places they have seen in Bollywood. Despite visa restrictions, the number of Indian tourists visiting Spain jumped by 40% in 2011 after the La Tomatina festival – where participants throw tomatoes at each other – was featured in the popular Hindi movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.

It has been a similar story for Switzerland. Several Bollywood movies filmed there over the past 50 years have resulted in an Indian tourism love affair with the country. The Swiss tourist board even offers Bollywood tours to the various sites featured in Indian cinema.

While only 9% of Indian travellers focus on long-haul destinations in western Europe, Switzerland has been a top-20 destination for Indian tourists for over a decade.

Other destinations have started using Bollywood actors in their promotional campaigns. Dubai, for example, is promoted by the Indian acting superstar and film producer Shah Rukh Khan. And the heartthrob actor Siddharth Malhotra has been New Zealand’s brand ambassador since 2015.

By 2040, the number of international tourist departures from India could hit 90 million, not far from the 104 million Chinese tourists who travelled in 2019. However, research suggests that Chinese holidaymakers are increasingly deciding to travel at home, meaning Indian tourists may soon overtake them.

As more people in India flock to airport departure lounges, tourist destinations around the world are jostling for position in the race to take their share.The Conversation

Ross Bennett-Cook, Visiting Lecturer, School of Architecture + Cities, University of Westminster

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

16 Vande Bharat Trains Are Waiting to Be Inaugurated. Here’s Why

Signalling woes and a lack of routes add to the woes of the Modi government’s flagship railway initiative.

New Delhi: It is just as well that Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to inaugurate three Vande Bharat trains when he did because the number of such trains waiting to be inaugurated is piling up.

Sixteen Vande Bharat trains, each with eight coaches, are parked in railway yards across the country, waiting to be inaugurated. An additional five rakes are on standby. This is as of August this year. The Integrated Coach Factory at Chennai has been rolling out two Vande Bharat trains every month. 

The reason for the inventory pile-up as per railway ministry sources is that there are no routes available to run these trains on.

Hours

Typically, Vande Bharat trains are chair cars which means that they can only operate on short routes that can be covered in eight hours, one way. “Vande Bharat trains have a limitation as they can’t run past midnight. The train has to complete the round trip and be back by midnight at the originating station especially since a six hour break is required for maintenance,” said an official. “This is why only short routes are chosen for these chair car trains,” they added.

This was also why when the prime minister inaugurated yet another route on August 31, officials questioned the logic behind it. The Lucknow to Meerut route already has two Vande Bharat trains – the most recent one being to Ayodhya via Lucknow. “Meerut is not a major passenger hub and existing trains coming from Delhi would have sufficed. No consideration is being given to whether these trains are running to capacity or not. Most have a light passenger load on weekdays,” says officials.

As of now, there are 54 Vande Bharat trains in operation, several of which were inaugurated just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. What’s more, the capital blocked because of the stationary rakes is over Rs 800 crore. Production cost at the ICF for an eight-car rake is about Rs 52 crore.

Thus, it is not just the Model Code of Conduct and the elections that put a spoke in the wheels of the prime minister’s Vande Bharat inauguration spree. It is the lack of short routes tailor-made for these trains.

As for sleeper coaches, while the railway ministry shared impressive videos of a prototype that will be “ready in the next three months”, the target date for production is 2025 and there will be several months of testing before the first Vande Bharat sleeper rake can be commissioned. 

Signals

Experts are also questioning the speed ascribed to the Vande Bharat trains. These trains are designed to run at 130 kilometres per hour on tracks, a majority of which are designed to withstand only up to 110 kmph of speed. The signalling system for 110 kmph is called a distant signal, and is distinct from a double distant signal that is needed to run a train at 130 kmph. “When the track has only distant signals, how can a train run at 130 kmph?” asks an official.  

A double distant signal is located approximately two kilometres from the home signal and gives adequate lead time to a driver travelling at 130 kmph to react and decide as to whether to go ahead or brake. To illustrate, if a train has to pass through a station, the double distant signal will be green. A distant signal turns yellow to caution a train to stop at the home signal which is located just before a station. A single distant signal thus does not give a driver enough reaction time which means a train cannot travel at speeds beyond 110 kmph if it is only receiving the latter kind of signal.

The speed of the initial trains was docked at 160 kmph but reduced subsequently to 130 kmph in June this year following the Kanchenjunga Express accident. But even the 130 kmph tag is exaggerated say experts. “Vande Bharat trains have an average speed of 70-80 kmph while other trains that are designed for similar speed limits have an average speed of 60 kmph,” says another official.

In addition, many tracks are in a poor condition and a lot of investment is required to upgrade them, say officials. They point out that rather than investing in railway infrastructure such as tracks, the government is upgrading railway stations, further reducing profits and rate of return. While the tracks of the Chennai-Nagercoil route are in good condition, the Madurai-Bengaluru and Meerut-Lucknow routes will be a challenge, say officials.

The Wire has written to the Railways with these concerns. This report will be updated if there is a response.

Goods Trains Go Off Track in Three States in 24 Hours, Disrupt Rail Traffic

The derailments occurred in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and West Bengal. No casualty was reported.

New Delhi: A series of derailments involving goods trains occurred across three states — Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and West Bengal — over the weekend, disrupting rail traffic between Saturday (July 20) and Sunday (July 21), The Indian Express reported.

In Uttar Pradesh, a goods train carrying cargo from Gonda to Ghaziabad derailed near Amroha railway station on Saturday evening, affecting both up and down tracks on the Lucknow-Delhi section. While no casualties were reported, the incident forced the diversion of 28 passenger trains and cancellation of six local and passenger trains. Normalcy was restored by Sunday afternoon, the report mentioned.

Aditya Gupta, senior divisional commercial manager, attributed the derailment to a sudden drop in locomotive pressure, which led the drivers to apply emergency brakes.

“Nine wagons of a goods train which was on its way to Ghaziabad from Gonda in Uttar Pradesh derailed near the Amroha railway station on the Moradabad section. The drivers, Iqbal and Amit, got command of the goods train from Moradabad and they said there was a sudden slump in the pressure in the locomotive, forcing them to apply the emergency brakes which perhaps caused the derailment,” Gupta was quoted as saying by IE.

In Rajasthan’s Alwar, three wagons of a goods train derailed early Sunday morning at 2.30 am, affecting the Alwar-Mathura route, but no passenger or freight trains were impacted due to the timing of the incident.

An empty goods train derailed at Ranaghat station in West Bengal’s Nadia district on Sunday evening, but the incident was minor and did not impact rail operations.

“During internal shunting in Ranaghat goods yard, brake van of empty BCN goods rake derailed on Point no.133. However, the brake van was quickly rerailed at 21:56 hrs in Sealdah Division,” Eastern Railway said.

Why the 2024 Olympics Is Not Exactly Good News for Paris’s Cultural Sector

As France welcomes millions of visitors for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, Parisian cultural attractions are anticipating a decline in attendance, overshadowed by the grandeur of the event.

Paris’s cultural sector is bracing for a tough summer. Judging by the 2012 Olympics in London, when the city’s cultural visitor numbers dropped by a staggering 30 percent, Paris cinemas, museums and theatres are expecting much of the same.

The London statistics are a scary read: during the two-week Games, the British Museum lost one out of every four visitors, the National Gallery two out of every five, and the London Zoo saw a 40 percent plunge in the number of recorded entries.

In a bid to anticipate what otherwise could turn out to be an even costlier experience, some cultural venues have decided to shut – either fully or partly – during the July 26-August 11 Games, and several recurring cultural events have been cancelled, including the Summer Vibration and Lollapalooza music festivals. In an interview with France Bleu earlier this year, the organiser of Lollapalooza said the cancellation was worth some €180 million.

Closing is ‘the least worst option’

“We’re the big losers of the Olympic Games,” said Pierre-Édouard Vasseur, the head of the independent film theatre network Cinémas Dulac.

Having run the numbers ahead of the Games, in which the network calculated a 20-25 percent drop in move-goers, Dulac has decided to close its five central cinemas in the 5th, 6th, 11th, 13th and 16th arrondissements (districts).

“We won’t be able to absorb the drop in visitors,” he explained, adding that the fact that the city’s public transport is expected to be both complicated and saturated during the period contributed to his decision.

“Some of our staff live far away, so their journeys would take longer, and we didn’t want to inflict that on them,” he said. “It might also have translated into delays, which would mean delayed screenings, and ultimately, unhappy movie-goers.”

Vasseur said that by closing his cinemas altogether, he had opted for “the least worst solution” considering there is no government help to plug the losses he otherwise would have incurred.

While most other movie theatres will remain open during the Olympics, many of them have reduced the number of screenings. The situation is much the same at many Parisian theatres. Many of the smaller, private ones see no option but to close their doors.

Paris By Night. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Benh LIEU SONG/CC BY-SA 4.0

The city’s museums are also expecting a severe downturn and have taken measures to adjust to what they expect to be a significantly smaller clientele than usual. The site hosting the Museum of French Monuments and the French architecture centre, for example, is located right in central Paris, within the security parameters of the Games, and for about a week (July 18 and July 23) it will only be accessible to those who have a special pass to enter the area. Then, in the days surrounding the opening of the games (July 24 and July 27) it will be closed. The Museum of Mankind, which is located just nearby, has decided to close throughout the Games.

In an article published in Le Monde in September, 2023, the heads of a number of Parisian cultural venues expressed their concerns about how the Games would impact them. Quentin Bajac, director of the Jeu de Paume arts centre which will be closed also throughout the Paralympics and until the end of September, predicted a loss of between €600,000 and €700,000. And Aurélie Clemente-Ruiz, the head of the Museum of Mankind, said her establishment would see 10,000 visitors less than usual.

What about the tour guides?

Parisian tour guides are also worried, but some have come up with creative solutions to keep on working.

According to the national tour guide federation (FNGIC), which has carried out a survey among its members on the matter, said that two-thirds of them expect to continue working as normal during the Games, with only one-third seeing the event as an obstacle to their work. Ten percent of the respondents said they would stop working during the period.

Maëva Marie-Sainte, who has been a tour guide for the past decade, said it was out of the question that she would let the Olympics get in the way of her working.

“I welcome the opportunity,” she said, noting that she considers it more of a fun challenge than anything else. “But I understand that some guides might be worried or tired, because it takes a lot of energy to readjust, as we’ve had to do throughout all the other recent crises,” she said, referring to both the global pandemic and France’s terror threats.

To make ends meet during the games, she will return to a concept she created already back in 2017 and which she calls “1 arrondissement per day”. It consists of touring Paris arrondissement by arrondissement for a total of 20 days.

The concept, which she plans to mix-up with tours of more traditional tourist spots such as the Château de Versailles and the Louvre Museum, will help her keep working given that large parts of central Paris will be disrupted during the Games and will be difficult to get to. Marie-Sainte also expects most of her clients during this period to be locals.

“When we found out that we were going to have more French customers, I was motivated to focus on these types of visits, which will be more protected from the Olympics,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to share the secrets [of these places] that nobody else knows.”

But for the tour guides who don’t live in Paris it’s much harder to keep on working in the French capital.

Fifty-three-year-old Céline Ridard, who has been a tour guide in Paris since 2011 but who lives out in the suburbs, has remedied this by coming up with new tours that are focused on her Seine-et-Marne region instead.

“In light of what’s coming up, it’s better to stay away,” she said, noting she wants to avoid the big crowds – in tourist spots and public transport alike – as well as the potential risks of terror attacks these can bring.

“I’m apprehensive. So I preferred to give my availability to tourist offices in Seine-et-Marne rather than rush off to Paris and ruin my health,” she said.

Her Olympic itinerary will include guided cruises and walks along the Marne river, and tours of the Esplanade des Religions in Bussy-Saint-Georges, a site that hosts five places of worship from five different religions.

Ridard, who said she has always been against the idea of hosting tours limited to just Versailles and the Louvre, said she is thrilled to be able to showcase “the riches of the distant suburbs”.

The downside, she said, is that her bookings for the summer are fewer than usual.

“It’s very quiet this year – too bad for my turnover,” she said. But, she quipped, “I’ll pay less tax next year.”

This article has been translated from the original in French.

This report first appeared on France24.

Chardhaam to Char-Daam: Desecrating the Himalayas in the Name of ‘Spiritual Tourism’

What is ‘spiritual’ in this selling out of the Himalaya? 

There is a dust storm in blistering heat, vehicles jam the road while a queue of rafts jam the Ganga. Her crowded banks are a cheap version of Mumbai’s Chowpatty. Plastic litter is everywhere, as are malodorous garbage dumps. Then there is prostitution and Ankita Bhandari rape horrors, boards boasting of the highest bungee jump, and hordes of raucous tourists with beer cans and selfies. There are parking lots cum alcohol centres blaring DJ music in the revered ‘Muni ki reti’; and not far are deluxe spas, luxury hotels, and international ashrams with asana practitioners. This sweltering dust-bowl is none other than yoga city Rishikesh, and this is what ‘spiritual’ tourism looks like. 

The chardhaam yatra was once a pilgrimage; then it was ‘spiritual’ tourism; now it is simply a stampede. This May a staggering 1.4 million tourists visited in the first 20 days. The Uttarakhand government has capped the tourists per day at 18,000 in Kedarnath, Gangotri at 11,000, Badrinath at 20,000 and Yamunotri at 9000, increased by approximately 50% compared to 2022. This means that the actual darshan for every individual is no more than five seconds before being shoved off by a policeman.

And to facilitate the frenzy, the deities will now work overtime. Their afternoon eating and resting periods have been slashed; online pujas continue through the night, and at the crack of dawn begins a new day of relentless darshan. This irreverence is a mirror reflecting the depths to which our spirituality has plummeted.

Are our deities living images or stone? Do the praan pratishtha mantras invoke the divine presence into them or not? Are laser shows on Kedarnath temple wall devotion?

Also read: Uttarkashi Tunnel Collapse Calls for an Immediate Scientific Review of the Char Dham Project

We were certainly lectured to that effect during the elaborate installation of Ram Lalla in Ayodhya. And the chardhaam deities are ancient. While this frenzy of tourism goes on there is an entire section of the lower class, the villager, the authentic devotee, barricaded in an open field, begging to be let through, and denied because he does not live in a world of computer access and is ignorant of online registration. Nor is there a walking path for those who yet believe that a pilgrimage is to be made on foot, because the Chardhaam Pariyojana (CDP) sacrificed it for a wider road to facilitate speeding vehicles.

Amidst the unprecedented heat, the landslides, the forest fires, the water crisis, and the onslaught of tourist related construction in the Himalaya, especially in the prohibited floodplain zone, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways is still pushing for a wider 12m width road. What makes it entirely incomprehensible is that this width is specifically required for 10,000 passenger car units (PCUs) per day, whereas the government has been compelled to cap tourist inflow to well below this due to the choking of these narrow valleys. Even if one takes the conservative average of five people in one vehicle, and ignores buses, the vehicles are well below 5000 PCUs per day. Even with these limits once again there are long traffic jams 30 kms below Kedarnath, starting from Gaurikund and extending up to 10 kms, in the same stretch where lives were lost in the 2013 floods.

This is because the terrain and limited carrying capacity that these close-ended valleys impose are being outrageously flouted. Extensive slope failures and landslides were triggered in building this unnecessarily wide road. Recently, an additional Rs 1400 crore of taxpayer’s money has been sanctioned to the CDP for management of destabilised slopes. Experts monitoring the Silkyara tunnel that trapped 40 labourers alive admit that the 12m width of the tunnel was a major factor. We are funding our own destruction. And it is a vicious cycle.

 ‘Spiritual’ tourism is a dangerous oxymoron. ‘Spiritual’ tourists dump an estimated 10,000 kilograms of garbage every day in each of the dhaams; ‘spiritual’ tourists defecate along the road and the Ganga banks; ‘spiritual’ tourists throw whisky bottles and styrofoam plates out of moving cars; and they also deem it their right to blare loud music and undress for selfies with the mountains and shrines as backdrop. And it is ‘spiritual’ tourists who blare pressure horns and race, raising a whirlwind of dust, amidst the pine, the silver oak and the stunned animals of the mountains. What is spiritual in this desecration and selling out of the Himalaya? 

The approach was different before five trillion dollars blinded the eye. Mountain villagers never walked with shoes on the bugyals, or raised their voice while in those abodes of the gods. People were hesitant to stop overnight in the dhaams as one would defecate and pollute those sacred spots. Even bright apparel was considered disrespectful. And Rishikesh itself was once a haven of peace for wandering monks like Swami Vivekananda who delighted in the transparent waters of the Ganga where fish ate from one’s hands, and elephants came to drink.

And since this fiasco is being perpetrated as sanatan dharma, let us clarify. Sanatan dharma looks at a thing and thinks “How can I raise this?” Modern man in ‘New India’ looks at something and thinks, “How can I consume this?” Modern India is willing to tunnel the immortal Ganga, turn a chardhaam into a chaar daam, and make the Himalayas bite the dust. We are trading an eternal wisdom until all we know is the price of a thing, and nothing of its value.

Priyadarshini Patel is head member of Ganga Ahvaan, a citizen forum working towards the conservation of the Ganga and the Himalayas.

This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.

 

Kazakhstan’s Ghostly Lake of The Dead

Surprisingly few visitors go to Kaindy despite the ethereal, eerie beauty of the lake.

“It’s Divya’s middle-aged gap year,” my work colleagues said, giggling. Because in 2022, bored and exhausted in the aftermath of the pandemic, I set out on a world trip.

The target: 15 countries in one year – travelling through the Middle East, Indochina, southern Africa, India via Singapore to New Zealand and Australia. And finally, Central Asia – attractive, because it had always seemed remote and mysterious.  

The 15th country on this once-in-a-lifetime trip was Kazakhstan, after a stay at the otherworldly, high altitude Song Kul Lake of Kyrgystan. My mind was prejudiced by Borat and his Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. I didn’t expect to find a country as exquisite and unspoiled as Kazakhstan turned out to be. The much anticipated highlight was Kaindy Lake – the Lake of the Dead or the Submerged Forest. It’s part of Kolsai National Park, 80 miles from the sophisticated city of Almaty surrounded by snow-capped peaks. 

The lake formed in 1911 after the Kebin earthquake. With a seismic moment of 8.0, this massive upheaval destroyed almost all of Almaty. The tremors triggered severe landslides. The limestone slippage in Kaindy was one of the largest, killing 38 people. Locals claim a single baby girl survived. 

The falling debris dammed the gorge which slowly filled with water from the Tian Shan mountains, submerging the forest. The lake water is very cold, and has preserved, almost perfectly, the dead trees for over a hundred years.

Surprisingly few visitors go to Kaindy despite the ethereal, eerie beauty of the lake. Chiefly, this is because it is pretty difficult to get here. I was put up in a guest house run by locals in Saty village 10 miles away, where the haunting call to prayer from the mosque rang out through the day. 

Saty village and its mosque. Photo: Divya Maitreyi Chari

An ancient, creaky Russian 4×4 picked me up from the guest house and the Kazakh driver hurtled through the roads at maniacal speed. Up the mountain forests, over rocky washed out roads and through fast flowing streams. The driver could barely see through the heavy rain and misted windscreen as the vehicle bumped and careened. 

The van on its way to the lake. Photo: Divya Maitreyi Chari

We got out half an hour later and waited. Another ancient vehicle – the shuttle to the lake – screeched up. I got in with a large Kazakh family. Toddlers, teenagers, parents, grandparents – everyone packed in tightly. We set off at breakneck speed through twists and bends up the mountain, to the deafening sound of a Kazakh pop song blaring from the van’s speakers, creating a pleasant party atmosphere.

You walk the last bit, about 20 minutes down a steep, rocky path which probably is inaccessible to anyone with mobility troubles. I trod carefully, and soon, through the trees, the lake came magically into focus. 

I am not ashamed to say I would have been deeply spooked if I had been on my own. A heavy mist hung over the distant Tian Shan mountains. Out of the translucent, still green water rose dead spruce trees, submerged roots visible in a watery grave. Chained to a wooden log nearby, in a final surreal touch, was a large eagle. I looked away, repelled, not wanting to see this majestic bird unable to fly.

I spent a long time peering into the water, marvelling at the small army of silvery spruces at the edge of the lake. The still water seemed to change colour as I watched – full of light and deep greens and blues. Then dusk fell and as the skies darkened, I began the steep walk back up, panting and out of breath. 

We waited a long time in the rain, but the shuttle failed to appear. The guide, exasperated, told us they wouldn’t come unless they had fares to bring up. We abandoned the wait and walked the mile or so through the mountains, to our waiting driver. Back to Saty village, and a large Kazakh feast accompanied by a bottle of Russian vodka. Perfect.

Divya Maitreyi Chari is a neuroscientist and Professor of Neural Tissue Engineering at the Keele School of Medicine in the UK. She has previously published articles on a jungle survival course in British Guyana, travels in Patagonia, Norway, New Zealand, the Galapagos islands, Southern Africa and along the Bhutan-Tibet border.