Consulate Weekly Newsletter Volume 02, Issue 35

Consulate General of India, Vancouver www.cgivancouver.gov.in

Vol. 02, Issue No. 35 August 31, 2018.

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India Perspectives India Perspectives is the flagship publication of the Ministry of External Affairs. Richly illustrated, this magazine provides our readers with an insight into India’s culture and tradition along with elements of contemporary India. Click here to read more‌.

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Vol. 02, Issue 35, August 31, 2018.

Consulate News

Media Brief on Namaste Canada – 2018 (August 28, 2018)

Namaste Canada – 2018 Media Brief on ZEE TV Canada News 1|P a g e

Vol. 02, Issue 35, August 31, 2018.

ICCR Scholarship Scheme for Dance & Music ICCR administers ICCR Scholarship Scheme for Dance & Music for propagating Indian classical forms of Dance and Music amongst foreign nationals by providing them a chance to learn these ancient art forms in India under the Guru-Shishya Parampara.

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ICCR has provision for 100 scholarships under this scheme on an annual basis. This particular scheme is open for students across the world without any requirement of age or specific qualifications. It depends entirely on the Guru to whom the student applies who makes the selection. The scheme serves students from all backgrounds ranging from fresher to practicing artists in the respective arts forms. Since this scheme is under Guru-Shishya Parampara there is no fixed time by when students need to apply.

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Like other ICCR scholarship schemes the candidates can apply for this scheme through ICCR’s Admission-to-Alumni portal (http://a2ascholarships.iccr.gov.in/). A list of empanelled institutes offering dance/music courses under guru-shishya paramapara is also available at the same portal.

Cultural – Heritage Tourism in India Sundarbans National Park (West Bengal) The site lies south-east of Calcutta in the District of West Bengal and forms part of the Gangetic Delta, which borders on the Bay of Bengal. The Sundarbans, covering some 10,000 km2 of mangrove forest and water, is part of the world's largest delta formed from sediments deposited by three great rivers, the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna, which converge on the Bengal Basin.

The whole Sundarbans area is intersected by an intricate network of interconnecting waterways, of which the larger channels are often a kilometre or two in width and run in a north-south direction. These waterways now carry little freshwater as they are mostly cut off from the Ganges, the outflow of which has shifted from the Hooghly-Bhagirathi channels progressively eastwards since the 17th century. This is due to subsidence of the Bengal Basin and a gradual eastward tilting of the overlying crust. In the Indian Sundarbans, the western portion receives some freshwater through the Bhagirathi-Hooghly river system but that portion designated as the tiger reserve is essentially land-locked, its rivers having become almost completely cut off from the main freshwater sources over the last 600 years. Thus, waterways in the tiger reserve are maintained largely by the diurnal tidal flow, the average rise and fall being about 2.15 m on the coast and up to 5.68 m on Sagar Island. The Sundarbans National Park entered the UNESCO world heritage list in 1987.

(Sources: https://indiaculture.nic.in/sundarbans-national-park and https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/452)

Important Trade Fairs in India – To know more, click on 2|P a g e

Vol. 02, Issue 35, August 31, 2018.

News from/of India 1. This entrepreneur uses technology to solve India's e-commerce challenges for SMEs Despite holding senior roles at companies like MasterCard and PayPal, there’s always been an itch inside Anurag Avula to make a difference in the world of e-commerce. Make no mistake, the companies he worked for made a huge impact. But as he surveyed the markets he was operating in, he saw a problem.

Entrepreneurs were trying to create thriving businesses without a supporting ecosystem that enabled their businesses to go online and find success. Whether it was a homemaker creating earrings in Singapore or a street vendor selling crabs in Hong Kong, the technology wasn’t there for them to easily create a fully fleshed-out business. Given his age and track record, this was not a decision that Avula made lightly. Read more…

(Jay Kim, Forbes, Fri, 24 Aug, 03:15pm)

2. Sonali Banerjee: The untold story of India’s first woman maritime officer Defying societal pressure and convention to follow her dream, Allahabad’s Sonali Banerjee was the first Indian woman to become a maritime engineer. Even in the 21st Century, sailing on the high seas remains a male-dominated trade. Whether aboard trans-oceanic cargo vessels or sturdy inshore tugboats, crews and officer complements of India’s ships are mostly made up of men. And if you do find a woman aboard, it’s quite likely that she has walked a memorable path to get there. Read more…

(Sanchari Pal, The Better India, Tue, 28 Aug, 03:50pm)

3. India’s manned space mission to cost cheaper than US, China India said on Tuesday it expected to spend billion on its first manned space mission to be launched by 2022, Reuters reported.

The amount, according to the report, suggests that it is likely to be cheaper than similar projects by the United States and China.

India is cultivating a reputation as a low-cost space power, after the 2014 launch of an unmanned Mars mission at a cost of million, or less than the budget of the Hollywood space blockbuster “Gravity” and a fraction of the million the US space agency NASA spent on its MAVEN Mars mission. Read more…

(Adelle Geronimo, Tahawultech, Thu, 30 Aug, 03:10pm)

4. Mumbai University researchers ‘develop DNA’ for air planes, cars Researchers at the University of Mumbai (MU) have developed a new technique to insert unique codes into composite materials used for manufacturing airplanes and high-end motorcars.

These barcodes can help track these composite materials the same way deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecules present in a body part are used to track the person it belongs to.

As part of the technique developed at MU’s department of chemistry, nanoparticles of gold are implanted in the material in the shape of the code. This code isn’t visible with naked eyes but can be viewed in ultraviolet (UV) light. Read more…

(Musab Qazi , Hindustan Times, Sun, 26 Aug, 04:17pm)

5. Gurugram-based The India Craft House is changing livelihood of Indian artisans Indian handicraft products are universally adored, but the industry is seeing a decline as younger generation of artisans are looking elsewhere for more lucrative options. Since the products – sold in India and abroad – are often expensive, the customer base is niche too. However, these aesthetically appealing crafts never lost interest among art lovers. A few years ago, Gurugram-based Sona Puri, Prakash Bhalekar and Shailesh Bishnoi decided to exploit the rapidly-growing ecommerce industry to the benefit of artisans. The trio – all former colleagues in the automotive sector and now in their 40s - launched an online shopping platform for handicrafts called The India Craft House (TICH) in 2013. It is a social enterprise, which wants to create a fair trade platform and support artisans across the country. Read more…

(Athira A Nair, Your Story, Thu, 30 Aug, 03:37pm)

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