Forget delivery boys, a leading e-tailer has officially launched a women-only delivery station in Thiruvananthapuram, the first in the country. For over a month now, the ‘biker girls’ have been delivering around 40 packages daily to customers in the Technopark region on an experimental basis.
“We have built a new model, which will help us reach out to customers, at a time when transportation of products has become most challenging and expensive,” said Samuel Thomas, director (transportation), Amazon India. The company will next set up a similar station in Chennai, followed by one in Kochi by next month, he said. The plan is to have dedicated women delivery stations across India, to be completely managed by women service partners.
The station, with Divya Syam of Thiruvananthapuram as service partner, is based in Kulathur near Technopark. “With increasing popularity of e-commerce platforms and with support from our dedicated delivery associates, I am sure we will be able to grow in this male-dominated business,” she said.
The company has around 20 service partners in the state. “The women deliver packages on two-wheelers, covering a radius of 2-3km from the station. There are plans to train them in self-defence besides starting a helpline,” Thomas said.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Thiruvananthapuram / TNN / March 03rd, 2016
Each member in this Kudumbasree team has four cows and the unit sells 300 bottles of milk daily — in an autorickshaw.
They were just homemakers and their husbands were small-scale farmers. But now their lives have changed. Each member of the 11-member team of the Thanima Kudumbasree unit at Kulamavu is now making a monthly income of Rs.20,000 by selling milk.
The Ksheera Sagaram Scheme of the Kudumbasree district mission supported by the Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA) gave them an opportunity to buy cows and locally distribute milk on the model of the Nature Fresh project implemented at Edavetti grama panchayat in the district.
Thanima members locally distribute the milk in bottles and the remaining milk is given to the dairy cooperative society at Arakulam.
“Each woman member has four cows and it is possible for the consumers to identify the milk supplied by each member through the number affixed to the bottles,” said Ancy Vinod, a member.
Fresh produce
They carry the milk in an autorickshaw to homes, tea shops, and hotels. “Fresh milk is locally made available in the morning and afternoon,” she said.
The self-help group president Thressiamma said they sell 300 bottles of milk every day at Kulamavu. The aim is to make available quality and fresh milk on the doorsteps, she said adding that they sell milk in 650- millilitre bottles at Rs.31 and 375-millilitre bottles at Rs.17.
They have no plans to increase the price. Instead, they want to make more value-added products available in the market. The team is also planning to buy more cows.
Expert advice
They follow scientific methods in growing the cows and took the advice of experts for building cow sheds.
The members were trained under the experts in the Government Veterinary College, Mannuthy.
The Agriculture Department also takes them for study tours to learn about model dairy farms outside the district.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Kerala / by Giji K. Raman / Idukki – February 28th, 2016
She hails from a family of educationists and is married to one. So, it was only natural that Shima Sendhil, who spent more than a decade in the US, came back to the country to help with the family run educational institution.
The director of Rathinam Educational Institutions tells us, “I hail from a remote village in Ernakulam, Kerala and my father was a headmaster of a school there. We moved to the US, when I was just 15 years old. After completing my studies in the University of Florida, I worked for a private concern as a programmer for five years. I moved to Coimbatore to take over the family business after the stint. When my husband heard the news about the award, he was quite excited. He asked me to consider this achievement as a motivation to take up many more programmes for the benefit of students.”
Shima has been voted as one of the #100Women Achievers of India in the category of education by the Ministry of Women and Child Development. “I wasn’t even aware of the fact that my name was nominated in the list. It was only when the Ministry asked for my profile that I believed the news was true. A lot of credit goes to my husband for being a pillar of support.”
When it comes to education, Shima ensures that she doesn’t leave any stone unturned as far as benefiting her students are concerned. “We have associated with many corporate companies to provide skill-based training to our students, through their CSR activities. The activities include training in electrical work, plumbing, IT and even costume designing. The idea is to make our students more employable.”
Shima says that her five-year-stint in the US has helped her pick many tricks of the trade and implement them back home in Coimbatore. “For instance, we have upgraded many technical aspects in the college and have also begun providing smart classes for students.” This apart, Shima has also taken steps to provide scholarships to underprivileged students. “We have also been undertaking tree plantation drives, helmet awareness campaigns and providing support to the needy in the times of crises, like the Nepal earthquake and Chennai deluge. We are now envisioning a waste-free campus in 2016 by which we intend to reuse plastics and covert food waste into gas & thus, use negligible resources from outside. This apart, we have a plethora of new activities in the pipeline, focusing on women.”
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Coimbatore / P . Sangeetha, TNN / January 17th, 2016
Children from the State who will be conferred with the National Bravery Awards 2016, at an interaction with the media in New Delhi on Monday. (From left) Beedhovan and Muhammad Shamnad (Kozhikode), Nithin Philip Mathew and Anandu Dileep (Kottayam), Aromal S.M. (Neyyattinkara), and Abhijith K.V. (Kannur). —PHOTO: SHANKER CHAKRAVARTY
Eight children from the southern part of the country, including six from Kerala and two from Telangana, are among the 25 National Bravery award winners this year.
The winners will receive the award, a medal, a certificate and cash price from Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his residence on January 24. The award recipients will also participate in the Republic Day parade on January 26.
One of the six winners from Kerala is Aromal SM (12), who saved two children from drowning in a 14-feet deep pond. Aromal has been honoured with the Bapu Gaidhani award.
Another winner from Kerala is Nithin Philip Mathew (13), who braved fire to save his neighbour’s family after their house caught fire in a cylinder blast.
“When I saw that my neighbour’s family was stuck inside their house because of a fire, I broke open the door and entered with the help of others to save their family,” said Nithin, who wants to become an IAS officer.
Beedhovan (14), who saved a boy from electrocution, is also one of the six winners from Kerala. Other winners from the State are Anandu Dileep (14), Abhijith K.V. (15) and Muhammad Shamnad (14) who saved people drowning. The winners from Telangana are eight-year-old Shivampet Ruchitha and 14-year-old Sai Krishna Akhil Kilambi.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Kerala / by Staff Reporter / New Delhi – January 19th, 2016
An engineering student, who developed a device which ensures safety of KSEB workers engaged in hazardous tasks, has won the first prize at a project contest based on the theme ‘IoT With Open Source Hardware’.
The contest was held as part of the FOSS Young Professional Meet. The meet was organised by the International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS) here the other day.
The device called iPost or Intelligent Electric Post was developed by Shyam Pradeep of Government Engineering College, Thrissur. He won a cash prize of Rs 50,000.
iPost has an in-built facility to control the power line with a simple circuit fixed on the safety gloves of the worker. iPost can also be used by KSEB is the functioning of streetlights. It informs KSEB office whenever a streetlight malfunctions and this could help in rectifying the defective streetlights quickly.
The first runner-up prize of Rs 25,000 each was shared by two teams – National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology, Calicut, for their project ‘Citywide Water Quality Monitoring’ and TCS team which developed the product ‘iBot’, a social cognitive robot.
Kerala State IT Mission director K Mohammed Y Safirulla presented the prizes to the winners at a function held at Mascot Hotel in the presence of ICFOSS director Jayasankar Prasad.
Delivering the valedictory address, Safirulla said that Kerala was a frontrunner in the use of Open Source software. ‘’Those who had participated in the meet should use their expertise in creating new devices using free software,’’ he said.
Earlier, during the day, experts in the domain of open source computing spoke on the topics related to open software. Christy Jacob, data scientist, TCS, spoke on the topic ‘IoT Data Analytics’. He said that the Internet of Things had brought about revolutionary changes in the way business is conducted.
Amit Dev, senior, Principal Applications engineer, Oracle, spoke on the topic ‘IoT protocol’.The challenges and opportunities of using Internet of Things in various sectors were explained. Mathan Raj of SECO and Shahim Baker of Grey Technologies spoke on the topic of ‘Open Source Hardware’.
Contest held for projects
using open source hardware
Safety device for KSEB
workers wins 1st prize
Device developed by engineering college student
Device can also control functioning of streetlights
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / News> Cities> Kochi / by Express News Service / December 28th, 2015
Sub Lieutenant Darshita Babu wins two gold medals at the passing-out parade.
The cynosure of all eyes at the passing-out parade of cadets at the Indian Naval Academy (INA) here on Thursday was a Kannur girl, who completed her primary course as a Naval officer and won medals for meritorious performance as a trainee.
Sub Lieutenant Darshita Babu, a mechanical engineering graduate, who won the Chief of the Naval Staff gold medal for best cadet in overall order of merit for the Naval Orientation (Regular) Course and also the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief (South) gold medal for the best woman trainee of the course in the Autumn Term 2015 at the passing out parade, is a native of Ulikkal near Iritty here.
“It is a matter of great pride that the woman cadet who got two awards at the passing-out parade is a Kannur girl, from the local community,” said Navy Chief Admiral R.K. Dhowan during his interaction with the press after the parade.
Daughter of Dinesh Babu, who is an employee at Ulikkal Government Higher Secondary School, and Lissy Babu, Darshita will be going to Visakhapatnam for a sub course. She is specialising in naval architecture.
“What inspired me to join the Navy was my association with the National Cadet Corps (NCC) during my school days,” she said adding that her training at the INA was a challenge.
She said that the training gives the cadets mental and physical stamina that brings about positive changes in their personality.
A graduate from T.K.M. Engineering College in Kollam, she said that she had the total support of her parents.
She is a Karate black belt holder and during her college days she was a player in the Kerala University women’s football team.
She has also been trained in classical music and dance.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Kerala / by Special Correspondent / Ezhimala (Kannur) – November 27th, 2015
If high-adrenaline action is the surest sign of transmitting a message, Deepak Ravindran is sending out one loud and clear. His Bengaluru-based startup Lookup, which has Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and Infosys’s Kris Gopalakrishnan as investors, is in the final stages of closing its latest round of funding. And the CEO and founder of the hyperlocal messaging app, that allows businesses to connect with local consumers, reveals the announcement can be expected within a week.
Inspiration for Lookup struck Ravindran while visiting his hometown of Kasargod, Kerala. “I saw my mom chatting with her grocer over WhatsApp and placing her order. That was an eye opener about the way people use chat,” Ravindran says, in a telephonic interview from Bengaluru.
With WhatsApp, he noticed one needs to save the number for ease of communication. Once that is done, you can see each other’s frequently changed display pictures, which may create privacy issues. He addressed those with Lookup, ensuring consumers do not have to worry about chatting with storekeepers they’ve never met before.
The messaging industry has been this 30-year-old serial entrepreneur’s core strength, with this being his third venture in the space. Keeping an eye on the shifting tech landscape, he has morphed the form to suit changing needs. His 2007-launch student startup Innoz for example, was an SMS-based search engine. “It was a time when mobile phones were becoming popular. But internet was still not so common. We saw the potential for an offline search engine,” says Ravindran.
But by 2014, with data lording over voice, Ravindran realised the rules had changed again. To meet the challenge, he decided to merge the two big trends of messaging (chats) and apps. Lookup was born out of this union.
Meet Lookup’s Deepak Ravindran, a CEOentrepreneur who chose funding over finishing college and got his competition (no less than Twitter co-founder Biz Stone) to invest in his venture.
Fashioned after Steve Jobs
Ravindran’s story at 18 wasn’t typical of the average Indian science student. He took his medical and engineering entrance exams, securing ranks in both. He liked computer science, so he picked engineering.
He had discovered the internet just a few years before at 15. Logging on via a dial-up connection, he was fascinated by the worldwide web. He says, “I started looking for inspiring stories and read about Steve Jobs and a few others. I read how he started a company at a very young age and that idea stuck.”
By the time he entered Lal Bahadur Shastri Col lege of Engineering in Kasargod in 2005, Ravindran had decided that he would use it as a fertile ground to found his own company. He did so in 2007, with three classmates. When his startup was picked by IIM-A’s iAccelerator program that promised funding of Rs 3-5 lakh, things came to a head. The founders had to shift base to Ahmedabad, which meant a choice between college and the accelerator.
The quartet made their choice. They dropped out of college. “Dropping out is a fad now. But it was extremely risky back then. The only reason we did it was because we were getting funded for the first time,” says Ravindran, disclosing that they did worry about getting good placements if things didn’t work out.
For a month, the families of Ravindran and his friends believed they had quit college to pursue an MBA at IIM. “It sounded all fancy,” he said. It eventually worked out, as from dropouts, they went to being the largest recruiter at their erstwhile engineering college, taking on over 100 students within a couple of years — first at Innoz and later at Lookup.
From competitors to partners
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone was Ravindran’s competition at one point. After Innoz plateaued in 2013 and the team failed to sell it off, Ravindran decided to move to US for an MIT incubator program. He founded a Q&A platform Quest, that competed with Quora and Stone’s Jelly.
Stone was interested in acquiring Quest for a possible expansion into the Asian market. But Ravindran managed to raise just $50,000 over a year, falling way short of the $500,000 target. That’s when he decided to wind Quest down and return to India
Incidentally, Stone’s Jelly failed too. In an interview with Mashable, he even admitted that today, a small group of dedicated users is the only thing keeping the app alive. But a previous failure didn’t hamper Ravindran’s prospects according to Stone, who came on board Lookup after a San Francisco meeting in April.
Undoubtedly, things are looking up for Ravindran at Lookup.
source: http://www.economictimes.indiatimes.com / The Economic Times / ET Home> Magazines> Panache / by Masoom Gupte, ET Bureau / September 03rd, 2015
Poems by ten people who were imprisoned during the Emergency.
The Emergency in 1975 has had many gruesome after-effects. But ‘Thadavara Kavithakal’ is one positive outcome of the times.
The anthology, the English translation of which is getting ready to be published soon under the title ‘Poems from the Prison’, consists of poems penned by ten people who had been imprisoned during the emergency for various reasons. It was their endless days in prison that unearthed the poets in most of them.
The anthology in Malayalam was first published in 1977, edited by Civic Chandran, one of the poets, and republished with extensive notes and memoirs in 2010. Some of the poems had been translated and used in various English anthologies over the time.
The cover photo of ‘Thadavara kavithakal’ the English translation of which is getting ready to be published.
First time
This is for the first time an attempt was made to translate the anthology completely into English and published as one book.
Freshly translated by noted Malayalam poet K. Satchidanandan, with a foreword by Balachandran Chullikkad, the anthology carries 25 poems by ten poets, most of whom are still alive, while a few like Muhammed Ali and Udayabhanu have bid adieu to this world.
The remaining — M. Somanathan, V. K. Prabhakaran, M. M. Somasekharan, Das (Kuttikrishnan), C. K. Raghunath, Purushothaman, C. K. Abdul Azees and Civic Chandran –- are mostly still active as writers, theoreticians, editors and activists, having moved away from the Maoist ideology that had stirred them in the Seventies.
The poems are on diverse themes. ‘An evening note’ by P. Udayabhanu recalls the turbulent times when revolution was brewing across the country while V.K. Prabhakaran’s ‘The People of my village’ is about the unrest beneath the surface.
However, they are marked by certain recurring symbols such as storm and rain and the spirit of revolution.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kozhikode / by Aabha Anoop / Kozhikode – November 04th, 2015
The U.S.-based Kerala Center will honour six Indian-American Malayalis for their outstanding achievements and service to society.
“Every year we invite nominations and the committee has to make a unanimous choice for a candidate in a category to be selected to receive the award and this year is no different from previous years in terms of their achievements,” said Kerala Center board member and trustee Thomas Abraham.
Four-member panel
The honourees were selected by a committee consisting of four members headed by Mr. Abraham. They will be honoured at the Center’s 23rd Annual Awards Banquet on November 7 at World’s Fair Marina in Flushing in New York City.
The honourees include Navin Manjooran, Global Director (Energy) for Siemens AG; Sasi K Pillay, Chief Information Officer, University Wisconsin System; Prem Soman, Director of Nuclear Cardiology and Associate Professor of Medicine and Clinical and Translation Science at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for Medicine.
Other honourees are George M. Kakkanatt, a former U.S. Air Force Captain and chief editor of Azchavattom Malayalam news weekly, Leela Maret, Scientist at New York City’s Environmental Protection for Community Service, and Captain Jophiel Philips, Judge Advocate General in the U.S. Air Force. — PTI
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National> Kerala / November 04th, 2015
The neighbourhood kids in Saji Thomas’s remote Idukki village used to call him ‘potten’ (idiot) and not just because, as children often cruelly do, he was born deaf and mute but because he was also constantly trying to piece together junk into something new.
Touching the sky: Saji Thomas will now feature in a TV programme
The 45 year-old ‘potten’ has come a long way. Thomas designed and built a twin-seater ultralight aircraft on his own from used parts and recycled material which got him into the record books and will see him featured on Discovery Channel in a programme called HRX Superheroes beginning on Monday. The programme is anchored by Hrithik Roshan and showcases nine people who overcame physical disability to achieve their dreams.
His ultralight aircraft, called Saji X Air-S, has already done several successful flights at a private flight training academy owned by Thiruvananthapuram-based SKJ Nair, a (Rtd) Wing Commander. Thomas’s passion for planes was kindled when as a 15 year-old he saw a small aircraft spraying pesticides on nearby rubber plantations.
He mustered the courage to go and ‘talk’ to the pilots, one of whom gave the mute kid their Mumbai address. A few months later, Thomas ran away from home to Mumbai. Impressed by his enthusiasm, the pilots gave him some manuals on aviation to read up and put him on odd jobs.
Over the years, Thomas has had to undergo severe hardships to build the aircraft, even selling all five cents of land he owned. “First he could only construct the frame of an aircraft and the second one could not fly as an engine from a motor bike was used in it,” his wife Mariya told TOI.
After Thomas sold the second aircraft’s model to an engineering college, he bought an aircraft engine with that money and completed the work on Saji X Air-S last year. Thomas, whose name is mentioned in India Book of Records as the first differently abled person to build an aircraft, often worked as a rubber tapper, an electrician and band photographer to earn a living.
“It was when we lost all hope that support came from Nair who made arrangements for Thomas to test his aircraft and also helped him in flying the aircraft at Manimuthar in Tamil Nadu,” Mariya said.
Thomas is now seeking a licence from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and plans to build a twin-engine aircraft. He is also seeking a job as an aeronautics mechanic and hopes that some reputed company recruits him.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / National> City> Thiruvananthapuram / by Anasooya S, TNN / November 02nd, 2015
