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India

Delhi Snapshot: Air Pollution This Morning

As promised in my previous post on the remarkable smog that has descended on the Indian capital, here’s a photo I took at about 9 a.m. downtown, near Connaught Place. 

Yikes. There’s no filter on this pic, by the way. 

Categories
India

Delhi Hit by Severe Air Pollution

My colleagues reported last night on the severe air pollution that has enveloped Delhi:

NEW DELHI—India’s capital ordered the city’s schools closed for three days starting Monday, as authorities moved to combat the effects of thick smog that has choked residents and prompted public outcry.

Some public elementary schools in New Delhi had been shut Saturday as well, but Sunday’s decision marked the first time the local government closed all schools citywide to avoid exposing children to toxic air, a spokesman for the Delhi government said. According to measurements by the U.S. embassy in New Delhi, the concentrations of the tiny pollutant particles that penetrate deep into lungs have been at hazardous levels for much of the past week.

Car exhaust, soot from burning garbage, and dust from unregulated building activity cause the megacity’s air to be ranked among the world’s most dangerous.

See also this story we ran last week, providing some good background info on what’s causing the smog. If you’re interested in the issue, I also came across an informative website called DelhiAir.org, which has a lot of good material.

Stay tuned for more. I will also aim to post a few images.

Categories
India

Delhi Snapshot: Sidewalk Fruit Vendor

Spotted yesterday near Connaught Place.

Categories
India

Quote of the Week: David Letterman Visits India

David letterman india

“You talk about the energy of New York City — India makes New York City look like nap time.”

That’s from an in-depth New York Times story this week on what the late-night icon has been up to since retirement (beyond growing an impressive beard).

Letterman apparently traveled here to world’s second-most-populous country to film a TV series on global warming called “Years of Living Dangerously.” He continued:

“The first day was very depressing. You smell what you think might be furniture burning, and it never leaves.”

“And then,” he added, “one day it would be exhilarating. What never seemed to waver was their optimism. The fact that there’s 1.2 billion people is, to them, an asset, where we would think, oh my God, what are we going to do?”

Here’s more info on the series. The show airs on National Geographic Channel later this month.

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India

Delhi Snapshot: Carrying Goods at Night 

Snapped last night in New Delhi’s Nizamuddin East neighborhood. 

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India Journalism Tech

Exclusive By Me Yesterday: Facebook Messenger Hires Anand Chandrasekaran

The story begins:

NEW DELHI— Facebook Inc. is hiring a high-profile technology executive with expertise in Silicon Valley and India to help develop strategies for its Messenger app, an increasingly important platform for the social-media company.

Anand Chandrasekaran, a former senior executive at Yahoo Inc., will assume a global leadership role working on strategies and partnerships for Facebook’s billion-user-strong texting service, said people familiar with the situation.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether Mr. Chandrasekaran would be based in the U.S. or India.

An announcement could be made as soon as Tuesday, one of the people said.

A Facebook spokeswoman confirmed the hire, but didn’t add anything further.

After working at Yahoo, Mr. Chandrasekaran served as chief product officer at Bharti Airtel Ltd., India’s largest cellular company, where he launched Airtel’s mobile application and a popular music-streaming app.

Last year, he joined New Delhi-based Snapdeal, one of India’s major e-commerce startups, as chief product officer. He departed the company in recent months.

With global users increasingly flocking to messaging platforms such as Facebook’s own WhatsApp and Chinese internet company Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat, the Menlo Park, Calif., company is eager to transform Messenger into a hub for activities such as e-commerce.

In April, Facebook emphasized its focus on the app at its annual F8 conference in San Francisco, showing developers how to create so-called chatbots for the service. These automated services can interact with consumers in real time to answer questions about the prices of goods, for example.

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Humor India Tech

Image of the Day: Amazingly Hardcore Hacker Stock Photo

So, I posted this image on Twitter recently and it’s proven to be a big hit. 

Why? 

People — and I guess I am one — seem to love stock photos of “hackers,” particularly ridiculous ones. And this one, which I noticed in an Indian newspaper the other day,  fits the bill.  

Rather than simply putting a Post-It note over the machine’s video camera, as some have pointed out, this man (or woman) has donned not merely requisite hacking gear like a hoodie, but also goggles and a balaclava. 

And perhaps best of all, gloves — which, as many have noted, would certainly make typing more difficult. 
It’s a dangerous world out there, folks. Stay safe. 

Categories
India

Delhi Snapshot: Goat Eating a Paratha

Came across this fellow here in Delhi yesterday. He (or she) was eating a paratha

Given his/her interesting colouring, neck adornment, and hoof bling, I was wondering if it might be an auspicious goat, kept and fed by people nearby in the neighborhood. 

So I asked some guys hanging out nearby. They kept repeating a word I didn’t understand. I thought it might be the creature’s name, or an adjective meaning something like “special.”

Then I looked it up and it was “bakara,” बकरा. Which means “goat.”  

So there you go. 

Categories
India

Delhi Snapshot: ‘Selfie Garlic Bread’

Spotted here in Delhi: a brochure for an Italian restaurant promoting free “selfie garlic bread.”

I have no idea what it has to do with selfies. And who is the guy in the photo?

It’s a distinct possibility that I’m overthinking all of this. 

Categories
India

Delhi Snapshot: Nighttime Autorickshaw Ride

Snapped on a rainy evening recently, while stuck in traffic.