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Google Maps just updated their database to include streets, roads and place names of all major cities in India. Check it out. Now its time to see India specific mashups.

Lately, I have been observing the beggars at all the traffic junctions in Bangalore when I’m stuck for a long time in traffic. I’ve noticed a very important pattern. At any big traffic junction, the traffic at the signal has to wait anywhere from 120 to 180 seconds these days. A beggar can cover atleast 30 vehicles in this time and atleast 1 in 5, give the beggars some money. This money these days is anywhere from Rs 1 to Rs 5. I’ve even seen a guy give out Rs 100 to a beggar. So at a 3 min traffic…

This was long time pending. Last month, I got a chance to make a quick trip to Munnar and Thattekad with the excellent bird guide – Eldose. I decided to go on this trip in the last min, as Eldose called me up and promised to show me two of the rarest bird species in south India – The Broad-tailed grassbird and the White-bellied shortwing. I took the next flight out of Bangalore to Cochin to meet him as my friends Ramki, Swarna and Saurab were planning to go there as well. Traveling in low-cost airline is great for personal…

The internet is a very dull place at 3am.

Finally a blog post after many weeks. I’ve been so busy, I’ve barely had any time to sleep. We had a mini bird survey at BR hills. It went really well and I shall write about it very soon LOT of new photographs to post-process. Will take me atleast another week to catch-up. Made a 4 day trip to Munnar and Thattekad in between and I got to photograph some of the rarest birds in India. I barely covered foss.in this time around. The BR hills calendar is the official foss.in calendar (thanks to SANIsoft for sponsoring them). If you…

President looking at my Wildlife photographs When the President Abdul Kalam was at BR hills, and after seeing the forests and the wildlife photographs, he spoke about the concept of Carbon credits and how it was giving incentives for companies to reduce their carbon emissions into the atmosphere. The concept is pretty simple : A company that exceeds its limit of carbon emission, has to buy these extra credits from companies who have either reduced their emission or from people who have switched to using renewable energy. After that he mooted the idea of ‘Forest Credits’ in similar lines. He…

For the coming new year, I’m putting together a table-top calendar of some of my best Wildlife Photographs. The plan is to get this printed with one of the best printers in India with the best color and paper quality. Also want to use this as an opportunity to raise funds for the conservation projects at BR hills. To cover the costs of this good quality printing, I need some large-scale orders. Basically looking for some corporate orders of 500+ calendars. Do let me know if you or your company is interested in these calendars where part of the profits…

The photo exhibition at BR hills did happen and I did get a chance to interact with the President of India, though it did not happen the way I wanted it to. The security at the place was a mess and all the press folks had formed a circle around him, which make things really ugly. But anyway, he really loved the photographs and his personal favorite was this photograph of the very charming soliga girl (which I had photographed last week) and the mother tiger. He was really inspirational to listen to and believe it or not, he almost…

Looks like the WWF exhibition has finally come to Bangalore and it is being held this weekend at Taj Residency. I have no idea how many of my photographs are being displayed, but there should be quite a few. If you are in that area, do swing by between 11am and 8pm on the 14th and 15th of Oct. However, I will not be around at the exhibition. The President of India is coming over to BR hills this sunday to attend the 25th year celebrations of the local tribal NGO : VGKK. I’m displaying/exhibiting my BR hills photograph for…

Note to self : Do not drink Red Bull in any form an hour before you go to bed. It’s close to 5am and still not a wink of sleep 🙁