Planning a trip to Kerala in south India? If you go on the internet, you will no longer have to use a mouse or keyboard to browse a section of the of Kerala Tourism website - you can instead gesture! In a pioneering development, the Kerala State Tourism Board allows users to access the site, www.when-it-rains.com, with their webcams - the site can be navigated through gestures alone. The website takes viewers to rain-washed plains, misty hills and majestic backwaters, and the interface takes place through sheer gestures. This is one of few tourism websites anywhere in the world to use gesture-controlled technology for navigation. Visually stunning images of the monsoon shot by Facebook fans of Kerala Tourism are used in the new website, developed by Stark Communications, the officia...
Read MoreTag: Rains
Seventeen days after the Uttarakhand disaster, the mammoth multi-agency rescue operations to evacuate all stranded pilgrims and tourists concluded on Tuesday, 2nd July 2013 with a group of 150 people being taken to safety from Badrinath. In all, around 1.1 lakh people stranded by flash floods and landslides after monsoon rains pounded the hill state on June 15 were evacuated by thousands of personnel of the Army, IAF, Indo-Tibetan Border Police(ITBP) and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), who braved all odds. Now some locals and Nepali labourers remain there who will be evacuated gradually as the damaged roads are restored. The IAF, which concluded its air sorties, has however stationed 10 choppers in the state for about a week or so for use in any operations, an IAF offi...
Read MoreThe devastation caused by torrential rains that lashed Uttarakhand in Himalayan India earlier this month is expected to cause a loss of Rs 12,000 crore to the state's tourism industry in the current fiscal, says a PHDCCI survey. "Uttarakhand was expected to generate Rs 25,000 crore from tourism in 2013-14. Although Rs 5,000-6,000 crore have been generated from the first three months alone, the state is expected to realise only Rs 5,000-6,000 in the coming months as major tourism destinations have been washed away by recent floods," SP Sharma, Chief Economist at the PHD Chamber said quoting the survey. Tourism sector contributes 25 to 30 per cent of the state GDP, and therefore the state exchequer is likely to take a major hit, Sharma added. The survey conducted by PHD Chambe...
Read MoreTourism has been worst hit in flood-ravaged Uttarakhand in northern India, with pilgrims fleeing the disaster-struck state and tourists cancelling their bookings. May and June are considered peak season for tourism in the state with hotels registering 100 per cent occupancy, but now, most wear a deserted look and several have also been washed away in the floods. "Every year, 23 to 24 lakh pilgrims arrive in the state for the Char Dham Yatra -- Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri. The disaster has hit tourism badly. "If we consider government figures, thousands of hotels, inns and residential houses have been severely affected by the flood and hundreds among them have been obliterated," Joint Director, state Tourism Department, A K Dwiwedi said. State Tourism Minister Amrita...
Read MoreAfter deluge of last week, agencies are facing a herculean task of saving as many lives as possible before weather strikes again in Uttarakhand state of Indian Himalayas. Still few thousands are stranded waiting to be either airlifted or trekking down the hills to safety. Deads are still countless. Calculating casualty figures is still a distant possibility. With rain catching up again in coming days, its a race against time to save the remaining ones. ...
Read More