Backpackers Hostel Life In India

Amritsar.............The gateway to India from Pakistan side, is known for its rich history as well as for the world famous Golden Temple.
This ancient city is intriguing and it does not disappoint. Recently it has become an entry point in India for Long distance bikers, particularly from Europe.

Travelers from Europe come on a no frill adventurous trip and like to stay in Hostels, since they have to sustain themselves for almost a year in Asia, they like to stay parsimonious.

Let me take this opportunity to give you a glimpse of my experience in one such amazing place.

I had an opportunity to travel for business to Amritsar, since I have a knack for being adventurous and meeting new people I made my sleeping arrangements in a mixed dorm, bunk bed hostel- Nutz Backpackers.

The hostel is in middle of Old Amritsar City, situated within chaos this place plays hide and seek with you if you follow google map. However, the moment you enter inside the hostel it is all peaceful.

The hostel mostly attracts foreigners as I could spot only one Indian. As Soon as I got fresh, I sat in common room and learnt to play "shithead", meanwhile I was in awe with the energy that all different people from around the globe brought together, it was a whole new experience all together.

New place , new people and their experiences made the journey worthy. Some great stories were narrated and some awesome ambitions were established.

There were stories of solo bikers from Poland and researchers from Israel. There was a bibliophile from Germany, and a Hiker from India.

In compendium, the frugal way these people lived has inspired me to start my own solo journey. And this reminds me of a quote by Jim Carrey ,"It is better to risk starving to death than surrender. If you give up on your dreams, what's left?."

A lot of stories are yet to be narrated, one should not shackle oneself with fear of losing things in life, you might be losing the life itself...........!

You can save our Pilots

Wednesday, February 27, 2019

10:33 AM

Indians are elated, country's Pilot is coming home. After a string of unfortunate events between India and Pakistan since mid February, finally we are witnessing an elated homecoming moment of captured Indian Pilot Wing Commander Abhinandan which could be a clincher between Ind-Pak relationship. India has seen an array of mixed emotions early this year.

However, the media is handling this whole matter in a rigmarole manner. There is a term in financial literature called "Mis-selling", which refers to selling a product which is not needed at the moment. The media has taken all the spotlight away from the analysis of how India could've avoided this whole mishap.

We need to take a pause and rethink, does India really need this chivalry from its citizens and media, celebrating with fireworks, drums and trumpets? The IAF officer is still doing his duty, he is still behaving the way he was trained for.

Are we as a citizen of India doing ours? If we would be doing our part well, maybe our pilots would never have to step in flying coffins. The so called fighter planes is slowly fading obsolete technology which should have been replaced by the modern UAVs , Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. This technology is widely accepted by the west. India could have bought it too, but we are at a resource haul.

Our TAX to GDP ratio is same as that of Columbia, Tajikistan  or Zambia, at 16.8%. What it simply means is out of Rs 100 worth of goods and services produced by Indians, Government gets to keep 16 rupees. Of this 16 rupees Government has to spend on various socio-economic schemes, Military , pension , administration etc. India has a narrow tax base, not only this, a poor tax administration and large evasion.

Take Israel for example, the country is a leader in military technology, and has a tax to gdp ratio of 36.8%, and has to take care of roughly 87 lakh of its population. Comparing this with India's 133 crore people, one can simply understand the arithmetic involved. This is not a present challenge, but a future one too, when our so called "youth" will enter into old age and require benefits without working.

Though, digitization and linking of PAN has increased our tax fillers yet the rationale of evading tax and tolls hasn't evanesced from the mindset of a common Indian.

"Paying tax is essential for the development and security of a nation"

This message has to be transmitted to Indian's like Swachh bharat abhiyaan, and I think this was the best time to do so, the media could have done a better job.

References:

Wikipedia for tax/gdp
google for population stats
photo- https://www.google.co.in/search?client=opera&q=royalty+free+photos+air+force&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#