World's first solar energy-powered airport: Kudos to Kochi!

In a state that is often starved of good news, this is something that we can all be proud of.

Kochi's Nedumbassery Airport is the first in the world that is powered entirely by solar energy.  The airport will recover the cost of installing solar panels within 6 years and the panels have a shelf-life of 30 years. Apparently, the carbon emissions saved is equal to the planting of 3 million trees!  This is a wonderful initiative from Kochi, and should be implemented across India.

The country is blessed with strong sunshine for most of the year and this is an asset that we need to make full use of.

I strongly believe that one of the paths to prosperity is going green and using clean and renewable energy. 

Hong Kong: The cost of success and development

It was a lovely summer Saturday night in Asia's World City, and I was enjoying a drink with a friend in a bar in Hong Kong Central, which had a view to die for.

As I praised the city and its infrastructure and friendly people, my Hong Konger friend asked me to turn around and look at the HSBC building. He said there were less people working there at this time because it was a Saturday, but five days a week, I'd see people there and in many other offices even at 11 pm.

12-hour working days are a norm in Hong Kong since it's just the way things are done! An expat couple I spoke to said they were also thrown into this rat race from day one and slept properly only on weekends! Finally, one of them managed to switch to free lancing, while the other somehow found a lower paying job that involved somewhat normal hours.

Hong Kong has the best infrastructure in all of Asia, and this includes great public transport. On top of this, the city is surrounded by nature. It's a great place to live, but to enjoy these facilities, you have to give up a lot in terms of time and work. 

Flying on MH370's route

A year before Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 370 vanished, I flew to Beijing via Kuala Lumpur on the same airline but took a different flight. As always, the food, in-flight entertainment and service were great and I enjoyed the flight immensely, excited about a friend's wedding that I was going to attend in the Hebei province. 

The fact that MH 370 vanished and that there is still no plausible explanation for what happened still disturbs me. Last month, I flew from Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong. The flight takes the same route north across the South China Sea and into Vietnam and further north. As the aircraft was over the small stretch of water before Vietnam, there was an incredible amount of turbulence and all sorts of unpleasant thoughts crossed my mind. 

When the plane reached Vietnamese air space, I was actually relieved. An accident can take place on any airline so I will not stop flying one of my favourite airlines, but still...

Images from my Beautiful Sakhalin Island

Here are some pictures from Sakhalin

When Vladivostok Sleeps

Here are some images of Vladivostok, taken after midnight.

My Turkish friends and the Armenian genocide

It was warm evening in 2012 in the Italian town of Siena that the topic of the massacre of over a million Armenians (1915-1918) by the Ottoman Empire came up. A Turkish friend of mine, who represented all the fine qualities that a young man educated in the country possess, was agitated. He insisted that there was no genocide and that many Turks and Armenians died in a civil war that broke out. Since he was losing control of his emotions and we were, after all, just students enjoying a Tuscan summer, I changed the topic.

A year and a half later, I had the opportunity of visiting Turkey, a country I completely fell in love with at first sight. The flat I rented in the Beyoglu area of Istanbul was right next to an Armenian Church. There were still some people in the city who were parishioners.

My young and lovely landlady told me that the building and the flat were once inhabited by Armenians, who were then marched off to the desert in Syria. She said her grandfather recounted the tales of the expulsion, and that she would risk a jail sentence to say publicly that this was a genocide.

This girl is a secular Turk who admires the legacy of Attaturk but refuses to idolise him.

Realising that I may be slightly putting her in an uncomfortable position, I wanted to change the topic, but she persisted and talked about how there was still some hostility in the country towards its minuscule Armenian minority, who some hated as much as they did the Kurds.

She went on to tell me that many saw the expulsion of the Armenians from Istanbul as a great chance to seize their property. The very flat I was renting was occupied by poor Turks who guarded it with knives from other possible encroachers. This reminded me of what happened to many homes of Hindus and Sikhs in Lahore after the city fell on the wrong side of the Radcliffe Line.

As someone who loves modern Turkey, I really think the country must accept that the massacres did take place around the First World War and that they very much constituted genocide. In all fairness, the government in Ankara said it wants to invite scholars from all over the world and open up all the archives and let them reach a conclusion. This is something that the government of Armenia must accept.

Back on board

My popular column on the Russia & India Report is back. I'll try and write a few times a month there, given how much good feedback I am getting.