India’s largest and Delhi’s first FIFA CERTIFIED Football Field at Najafgarh!

As players set foot on the new pitch at Najafgarh Football Field, they are in for delight with the FIFA QUALITY CERTIFIED turf installed there, featuring the latest synthetic turf technology from FieldTurf, the world leader in artificial turf.

This artificial turf of over 10,000 SQM at Kair village in Najafgarh, Delhi was installed by Great Sports Infra, the leader in Sports Infrastructure in South Asia.

With this installation the Sports Complex has set new benchmarks in quality, playability and execution for Delhi NCR’s top playing surfaces with the international certification from FIFA.

Shri S K Srivastava, Er-in-Chief, PWD, Delhi says “It’s always tricky to balance between cost-effectiveness and quality. But if you compare the value that this turf is going to bring, it just makes perfect sense.” Mr. Srivastava goes on to add that this turf will save a significant amount of taxpayers’ money, which would otherwise have been spent annually to maintain the grass field.

“This is a very significant project for the government of Delhi and a key element of our strategy to invest in sports facilities. I can safely say that this is one of the best synthetic turf installations that I have come across in recent times, thanks to Great Sports Infra and congratulations to the people of Delhi.”, Shri Anil Kumar Ahuja, Chief Project Manager (Education Dept.), PWD Delhi.

GSI’s artificial turf is manufactured by FieldTurf under ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 quality standards. Featuring a superior yarn that is designed with a unique Process, Polymer and Geometry for sports use, this turf is among the best a Football field can get. 

“We have installed over 500 sports facilities in India; including over 20 FIFA standard artificial turf Football fields in South Asia - the first was for Chowgule Group, Goa in 2005. Since then various high profile matches have been conducted on these surfaces, including: 35^th National Games, Kerala, Indian Super League (ISL), I-league matches, India’s first ever FIFA international match (Argentina & Venezuela) in addition to the dozens of school playgrounds, corporate campuses and pay-n-play facilities.”, says Anil Kumar, MD of Great Sports Infra.

“We are aware how important this sports complex is for the Govt. Of Delhi, so we left no stone unturned and provided our latest and most advanced synthetic turf, suitable for Football to this ground. Therefore, this ground can be used more extensively then most other artificial turfs,” says GSI Director of Operations, Lt. Col. John K John.

The company goes on to list out numerous advantages of artificial turf over natural grass like greater lifespan, lesser maintenance cost, heavy and versatile usage of the turf - all leading to much lower cost of ownership, but their emphasis was most on the player safety and reducing the risk and severity of injuries, which they claim is far lesser because of rubber infill and cushioning in the turf.

“Of late there’s been tremendous demand for better performing artificial sports turf in India, as people recognize that better quality artificial turf produce longer enduring fields, with lower maintenance, safety and increased playing time to make the most of their investment,” concludes Anil Kumar, MD, GSI.

About Great Sports Infra

Great Sports Infra is South Asia’s leading provider of turnkey solutions for sports infrastructure. It was the first company in India to introduce the next-generation artificial grass - FieldTurf and today, there are over 5,500 installations in 230 cities & towns in South Asia. 

Their product portfolio spans artificial grass for sports & landscaping, the complete range of indoor and outdoor sports surfaces, synthetic athletic tracks, sports field conditioning systems, turf protection tiles, modular galleries and multi-purpose domes. 

Starting in 2004, they have installed over 12 million Sft. of these surfaces and executed some of the prestigious projects like Chinnaswamy Stadium (Bengaluru), Vibrant Gujarat (Mahatma Mandir), 35^th National Games (Kerala), Govt. of Gujarat (Sama), World Military Games, Govt. of Maldives, Govt. of Mauritius etc. 

GSI is a winner of CII-Business Line ‘Emerging Entrepreneur’ Award 2012, Skoch Achiever Award (India's Best SMEs) 2015, South Asia Education Summit Award, 2015 - Best Sport Empowerment, 'Top 100 SME Companies in India’ out of 49,023 nominations, by India SME Forum, featured in CNBC's Young Turks, “25 Best Sports Start-ups” in India report published by FICCI and finalist of the prestigious TATA NEN Hottest Start-ups and Economic Times - Power of Ideas.

A School with great sports infra is where I will enroll my kid..

Educators and parents have realised that Education and Sports go hand in hand; therefore educational institutes must be the center of academic as well as sports excellence. While we may need to push our children to study, sports are something they get naturally drawn to. 

The young kids in particular, are full of energy that needs to be properly channelized and what better way than sports? In fact, studies have shown that kids who regularly participate in at-least one physical activity are on an average better at studies as well.

National Public School, Vijayanagar, Mysore

But our society, at large has underestimated the importance of sports for personal growth, more so in schools and colleges where it is sometimes considered to be a play-time activity to be taken-up after studies. Adding to our worries is the lack of quality sports infrastructure in our educational institutions - both Public and Private, perhaps one of the biggest bottlenecks in developing a sporting culture in our society. This is a known problem with several athletes having voiced their concern for the lack of proper sporting facilities at the grass-root level. 

The government on its part was not very enthusiastic about sports until 2010, when India hosted Commonwealth Games in Delhi. London Olympics was a turning point when we won 6 medals and stars such as Sushil Kumar, Abhinav Bindra, Mary Kom, Saina Nehwal and Sania Mirza were born. They not only gave an impetus to their respective sports categories but helped glamorize it.

Bethany High, Kormangala, Bangalore

Since then, an increasing number of kids have shown inclination towards different sports, equally heartening is to see a growing numbers of sports facilities all across India. The government too have introduced numerous schemes to improve the status of sports infrastructure; noticeable among them is KHELO INDIA National Programme, a composite scheme of Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs to promote sports in India, which received Rs. 1262.79 crore in the Union Budget, 2018.

The Government expects KHELO INDIA to scout young talents from schools in various disciplines and groom them as future sports champions. Talented players under priority sports disciplines will be selected by a committee and each one of them will be provided an annual financial assistance of Rs. 5 Lakhs for 8 years.

“KHELO INDIA programme has certainly provided the much needed booster to the inculcation of sports culture in schools and colleges, the success of recently concluded Khelo India School Games, 2018 speaks volumes of the transformation we are going through”, says Edgar Mascarenhas, former International Hockey Player and Coach.

New Horizon Gurukul, Marathalli, Bangalore

The government seems to be serious in inculcating a sporting culture into the society, a fact noticeable by all. Educational Institutions in particular have sprung up to the forefront by increasingly assimilating international level sporting facilities at their campuses.

“I encourage my kids to participate in all kinds of sports activities, be it running, swimming, football, badminton etc. you never know what they are good at. The best part is, their school has great sports infrastructure facilities like 400m running track, artificial turf for football and modular sports flooring for basketball etc.”, says Shiva Kumar from Hyderabad, a proud parent to his kids. 

“Parents these days are super selective when it comes to enrolling their kids in a school; they want the best of both education and sports be made available to their ward. We have taken the initiative to provide good quality synthetic football turf, synthetic running track, modular sports flooring for multi-purpose games such as Basketball, Volleyball, and Tennis etc. Children simply love them”, says M S Parswanath, Director-Projects & Facilities, Jain University, Bengaluru.

Sports Infrastructure companies like Great Sports Infra, are making the most of this opportunity by customizing their solutions to suit the necessities of schools and colleges. Increasing requirements from educational institutions have grown to form a significant portion of their yearly revenue.

MDS SR. SEC. School, Hiran Magri, Udaipur

“A significant part of our program is to offer appropriate solutions to schools. Our most popular range for schools have been our maintenance free artificial turf (FieldTurf), synthetic athletic track (Porplastic) and interlocking modular sports flooring (SnapSports), which are ideal for schools as they provide a multi-sport surface and which can also serve non-sports use”, says Anil Kumar, MD of Great Sports Infra. 

There is virtually a race within the schools to outdo each other in terms of better sporting facilities that not only plays a great role in the overall development of a student but also in valuing them among the peers.

Will demonitisation lead Indian economy to digitisation? Insights into how this benefits industry leaders.

Fortunately for me, I was in a grocery store when PM Modi announced that Rs. 1000 and Rs. 500 will no longer be a legal tender. The first thing I did was to pick another trolley for some extra shopping, not many were that lucky though.

It was 8^th of November 2016, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetization of Rs. 500 and 1000 currency notes and since then the social media has been abuzz with debates, suggestions, reviews and even jokes. For some ‘demonitisation’, is one big revolutionary step that would ultimately transform the economy while for others it’s an abrupt decision.

There have been conflicting opinions even among industry leaders, economists and bankers alike. While Meera Sanyal, former Banker and AAP Leader isn’t impressed, Nandan Nilekani on the other hand has hailed this reform saying it will boost India’s digital economy. 

The question however is, will it?

I debated extensively on this (among friends obviously), and the results were equally contrasting. The most obvious questions were - Why do we need a cashless society anyway? Was sucking 86% of the liquidity out of the system only way to go cashless?

Well its shocking to know that India, despite its reputation as an IT hub, hasn’t been able to make great strides towards digital economy. As per 2015 report by the PwC, in India 98 percent of all transactions in terms of volume and 68 percent in terms of value are conducted in cash.

But, it’s not the lack of a sense of pride or awareness (for that matter), the only reason for this massive cash economy. We have 21 percent of the world’s unbanked adults and as of 2015, only 53 percent of our population had bank accounts. Therefore, it is high time we act and do something to get things right – ‘Demonetisation’, can be a good first step in that direction!

Nandan Nilekani, the ex-CEO of Infosys said, "While the infrastructure has been laid down in the last seven years, the demonetisation drive will accelerate the roll out of digital financial services in India supported by Aadhaar, UPI, USSD and micro ATMs. What would have taken another 3-6 years to get rolled out, I now believe because of the urgency of the matter, will happen in 3-6 months,".

The growth of PayTm and other such mobile wallet service  post this reform is one such indication of people adopting cashless transaction in droves. There has been a significant rise in the popularity of several technology enabled payment methods, like usage of cards at POS terminals and faster adoption of mobile banking facility etc. Can you imagine, even e-commerce websites have started acceptance of cards on delivery by ensuring that the delivery guys carry a POS deive. 

Opportunity for Industry Leaders

As per the India E-Commerce Market Forecast and Opportunities, 2020, India’s ecommerce market is projected to grow at a CAGR of more than 36% between 2015-2020, with the B2B segment predicted to grow by 2.5 times by the end of the period. This is indeed a big business opportunity that needs to be tapped at the earliest.

There is going to be a massive expansion of new business opportunities and an explosion of economic activities on the Internet over the next couple of years. Players like PayTM, Freecharge are already in the game, while others like Ola Money, Zeta pay, Razorpay et al. are catching up big time.

Where are you?

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Disclaimer: I wrote this as part of an assignment by a Bangalore based Organisation.

Image Credit: Google Image search

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Backpacking India

India is just not like any other country, they call it a sub-continent. Its so diverse in all the ways, say like Europe (i presume a lot more diverse than Europe as well). The culture, food, language, dressing, manners, terrains, changes every 500 kms in India.
We have close to 800 languages in India, so you can very well assume how different are we Indians from one another.

Say for instance I am from Bihar, 'Angika' is my mother tongue, speak 'Hindi' in general: right now I am staying in Hyderabad, where they speak 'Telugu' - which I don't understand, they eat different food, use different spices, celebrate different festivals. I studied in Manipal, where they speak 'Tulu', which again I dint understand. So you see to be able to see India, and to be able to form an opinion about India - you should travel across all parts of India. In some parts you will come across poverty (like in my state - Bihar, Bengal, Orissa and also in Varanasi), while in Other parts your experiences will be entirely different. 

If you wish to explore India comprehensively, I suggest plan a trip of more than 2 months. Itinerary - land in Delhi spend 2-3 days there, head to hills (Rishikesh, Kullu, Manali, Dharamshala: 1 week) - then go to Leh-Ladhak (motor bike - hire a bullet: 3 days) and then experience a bit of Punjab (Amritsar and Wagah: 2 days). You will get exhausted after that, so straight away head to GOA (relax, unwind at its beaches, go scuva diving, try some weed, offshore gambling and all: 5 days). Then try Kerala (goto Kochi, Munnar/Coorg/Wayanad : 3-4 days) then you should try Karnataka (Silicon of the East-Bangalore, spend 2 days in Bangalore then visit Mysore/Hampi: 3 days). And if you are coming in Winters then head to Tamil Nadu (Chennai, Pondicherry/Madurai) from Bangalore: 2 days and then goto Andhra Pradesh (Vishakhapatnam:1 day). After that head to Orissa (Bhubaneswar and Puri: 2 days). Visit Bengal from here (Kolkata and Darjelling: 3 days). Explore the North East India (Kyongnosla, Majuli, Mechuka, Dawki, Moirang, Shillong: 10 days). Then come the challenging part try Bihar & Uttar Pradesh (Patna, Gaya, Varanasi, Luckhnow and Agra for Tajmahal: 7 days). Go to Rajasthan from Agra (Jaipur, Jodhpur/Jaiselmer, Udaipur, Pushkar: 1 week) and then head to Gujarat (Ahemdabad, Rann of Kutch, Daman & Diu: 2 days). Finish your Travel in Maharashtra (Ratnagiri, Pune, Mumbai: 5 days). Spend atleast 3 days in Mumbai, experience its night life and Bollywood and then fly back home. 

Then in your next trip plan for Andaman & Nicobar and Lakhsdweep. Its always advisable to befriend someone of your own age in India for any help, write to me on rakeshchandravanshi@gmail.com for any help if you coming to Hyderabad. Cheers!!

Ganga diary: dolphins in the river

It had been over four months since I had begun my research on the Ganga. We were to spend over a whole week of the cold February on a stretch that hosts the Vikramshila Sanctuary in Kahalgaon (Bhagalpur District) Bihar. As I was packing my bags with the warmest jackets I had, I was a bit apprehensive. I had already heard about the horrific experience of filming the river from our crew that had just come back from Kanpur. Ganga there is highly polluted and with tonnes of toxic industrial waste pouring into it, it was literally nauseating to shoot in Kanpur. 

I was wondering what would become of the Ganga by the time it reaches Bihar. But somehow my mind wavered to thoughts of me catching a glimpse of the elusive river dolphins. "Yes! There are dolphins in the Ganga," I told my friends and family who stared at me in disbelief. And then a flurry of questions started: "'Do they flit in air?", "Isn't the Ganga too polluted for them?" The dolphins had definitely caught their attention. I felt the need to draw focus on this endangered animal.

It was 5 am. We were on the banks of the Ganga. It was still dark and extremely chilly. The winds were strong. As we got into the boat, we found the vastness of the river daunting. Surprisingly, the river was wide and clear. It looked quite clean to the naked eye. Dr Sunil Chaudhary, a conservationist, told us this was because two other tributaries had joined the river diluting the muck that it had gathered in Kanpur. And, in fact the river was at its pristine best at some spots. 

Its proof lay everywhere. We could see the crystal clear water from the sandy islands. Birds like cormorants, open-billed storks, red-crested pochards docked the area. Dr Sunil told us that what we were looking at was a sample of how the Ganga originally was! Just then my optimism took over and my eyes started scanning the area to check if any otters were basking in the sun. Just then I saw something grey that emerged out of water and vanished in an instant. I thought I hallucinated. And then I heard people say, "It was a dolphin!". I got super excited. 

And there was no looking back from that moment. In the next few minutes, I saw another one. This time I could see the tail fin as well. And there was another one flaunting its nose from water. I realised these water mammals were all around us. I wanted to take a closer look at them but was worried that if we got too close, they might move away. But to our relief, we were told that these dolphins are practically blind and rely mainly on echolocation for navigation. So all we had to do was wait there till they showed themselves. And they didn't disappoint us. As the sun was about to set, they really started surfacing closer to us. I swear I even saw a couple of them flitting in air! 

I was soon named the "dolphin spotter". While Bahar Dutt and I had a gala time spotting at least 20 to 30 dolphins, it was turning out to be a nightmare for our cinematographer Prakasam. Capturing a dolphin on camera was a near-impossible task. When we used to focus our camera in one direction, they used to emerge from a completely different direction. They just didn't seem to follow any pattern. 

It was amazing to see how they have managed to survive despite all odds. Fishing nets take a huge toll on their population. Dolphins often get stuck in gill nets used to catch fish and get killed. I have seen them and let me tell you that they are simply too beautiful creatures for us to watch from the sidelines as they die into extinction. -Blog IBN Live. (more at http://www.eoearth.org/article/Ganges_river_dolphin)

Why This Kolaveri Di ?

IBS to Hyderabad

Rides such as this can be unforgettable. You hang in your legs, let yourself loose and enjoy the ride. But a word of caution --> put your sleepers off else you might as well loose it. This is what happened with the other guy in the video. And you would be amazed to know that ‘This Seat’ happens to be high on priority for the couples as well (especially while returning during the night). If you get an opportunity, do give a try.. trust me you’d love it J