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Exciting times are ahead, ladies and gentlemen.

India wins Olympic Gold

Well, we have been a bit silent out here on The Better India since we are in the process of migrating our platform from blogger to a self-hosted one. This will provide better features and an ability for us to showcase things better.

Until we get back to speed, here's some fantastic news - India wins Gold at the Beijing Olympics.
Abhinav Bindra won the medal just a few minutes ago in the 10 m air rifle shooting contest. He was tied with Hakkinen of Finland for 9 rounds and in the 10th round he got a perfect shot!

Congratulations to Abhinav and to India! This is the first ever gold medal in an individual sport in Indian history.

Tagore in London

London's Royal College of Art will be holding a week-long exhibition of paintings by Rabindranath Tagore and other Shantiniketan masters such as Nandalal Bose, Benode Behari Mukherjee, Sunanyani Devi and Abanindranath Tagore.

This article in the Times of India, written by Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey, talks about the exhibition:

A few years later, the painter Tagore turned to Rothenstein, when the latter was principal of the prestigious Royal College of Art, so that his paintings could be showcased. However, his dreams did not materialize. It is still not known why Rothenstein could not organize an exhibition of Tagore’s works at the Royal College of Art, what is known is that three exhibitions of Tagore’s paintings were held in London between 1930 and 1938.

Now, generations later, the Nobel laureate’s dream will finally see the light of day. The exhibition at the Royal College of Art will start on August 27 and end on September 1. “We are happy that we could fulfil his desire,” said an official of Visva Bharati, which has been instrumental in organizing the exhibition along with the London-based art house, SA Fine Arts.

Read the complete article here.

Small Ideas Big Changes and a little bit of Just Dial

One of the things that gets us easily excited and blissful here at The Better India is to come across stories of inspiration in mainstream Indian media. Therefore, we were delighted to observe that Hindustan Times has been running a series of stories titled "Small Ideas Big Changes". The introductory paragraph of this series is:

Mumbai is the city of opportunities. It is as full of possibilities as of traffic. Here, we always think, anything, really, is possible. Small Ideas Big Change presents the stories of 12 daring, dogged and ambitious people who didn't merely dream but who went ahead and did what they dreamt of. These entrepreneurs, little known when they started, grasped the opportunities that Mumbai presented them with. They altered their own lives with their successful ventures.

On July 16, HT reporter Pratik Ghosh, writes about VSS Mani and his overwhelmingly successful business idea - Just Dial. For the uninitiated few, Just Dial is a telephone search service in India. Users can call a specific number and obtain contact and address details of almost any commercial establishment of their respective cities.

The article talks about the genesis of this idea:

The idea of launching a telephonic service struck Mani in 1988 when he was working in Delhi for a yellow pages company. He was chatting up a client about the prospect of trading information, when it flashed across his mind. His logic was simple: "Unlike in the West, Indians are always banking on friends, relatives and neighbours for information in their everyday life. Why not launch a service to cater to this need?" asked the Jamshedpur-born Tamilian.

With an annual turnover of 85 crore and, check this - a valuation at Rs. 500 crore, Just Dial sure is more than just an idea coming true.

Read the complete article here.

Prakash and Mandakini Amte win the Magsaysay Award for 2008

Baba Amte's son and daughter-in-law, Prakash Amte and Mandakini Amte have won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for the year 2008 for their work in the field of social development.

Vivek Deshpande writes this article in The Indian Express:

The honour came in recognition of the work the doctor couple has been doing for the tribals at Bhamragarh in the thickly-wooded, Naxal-infested corner of Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, where they have established a hospital and school, and, according to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation in Manila, Philippines, have enhanced the “capacity of the Madia Gonds to adapt positively in today’s India, through healing and teaching and other compassionate interventions.”

In fact, Prakash has also won the Venu Menon Award for wildlife conservation in the year 2000.

Read the complete article here.