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Almost a decade ago, everyone in Rangoli village, Maharashtra was surprised when Amol won the cricket match. When he removed his shoes after the game, everybody was shocked. He lost all five toes of his right foot and is now 40 percent disabled. Inspiring: At 2 years, the gritty Village boy lost his toe Things changed for him when he was just two years old. “Our home was on the main road in the village. I was running about and didn’t realise when I had reached the road. A state transport bus went over my foot, and I lost all the toes of my right foot,” he narrates. Everything changed for him in a moment, except for his love for sports. Though always a part of village cricket team, he didn't venture out of his village to play till class 7, when his friend suggested he should participate in cricket competition in Mumbai. He grabbed the opportunity. Journey: To strengthen his theory, he pursued PG in physical education He completed his Bachelors and Mas...

We’ve often heard the phrase ‘age is just a number’, but there are people who swear by it as they do not let it come in their way of fulfilling their dreams. One such woman is Sangeeta Bahl who at 53 scaled Mount Everest, becoming the oldest Indian woman to do so. But that’s not all, so far, she has climbed six of the highest peaks in the world, in her quest to conquer the tallest summits in every continent. This isn’t the first time that Bahl attempted to scale Mount Everest. She tried last year as well but had to abort her mission after her health worsened due to altitude sickness. Not someone who gives up, she tried again, and this time, made it to the top. Sangeeta breaks the record of Premlata Agarwal who climbed Mount Everest in 2011, at the age of 48 Sangeeta Bahl, a 53-year-old former model and entrepreneur from Jammu and Kashmir, has become the oldest Indian woman to conquer Mount Everest.  Bahl, who currently resides in Gurugram, was felicitated at the...

Just like Elon Musk, the world richest man also has his own set of extraterrestrial dreams. Amazon CEO Jef Bezos spoke at the Space Development Conference in Los Angeles where he said that his company Blue Origin will work with NASA and European Space Agency to put humans on the moon, at least, start the colonization. However, inhabiting moon is just a part of the bigger picture Bezos has in his mind. And that includes people working in hollowed-out asteroids. He said we could use the earth for living and lightweight industry while the heavy industry would be shifted to solar-powered space stations. This could happen in the “not-too-distant future”, maybe the 100 years because “we’ll have so much energy” to do things we currently do on earth in space. This is actually the need considering the rapid pace at which the earth’s resources are being exploited. But why Moon? Because it’s conveniently located and easily reachable. Moreover, deposits of water ice have ...

App makers are usually expected to be tech nerds or whiz kids in their teenage years or in the twenties. But 82-year-old Masako Wakamiya from Japan has bucked the trend. 82-year-old Masako Wakamiya According to the AFP, the woman who used an abacus for maths, when she started working, is today one of the world’s oldest iPhone app developers, a trailblazer in making smartphones accessible for the elderly. Frustrated by the lack of interest from the tech industry in engaging older people, she taught herself to code and set about doing it herself. The over 60s, she insists, need to actively search out new skills to stay nimble. “As you age, you lose many things: your husband, your job, your hair, your eyesight. The minuses are quite numerous. But when you learn something new, whether it be programming or the piano, it is a plus, it’s motivating,” she says. “Once you’ve achieved your professional life, you should return to school. In the era of the internet, if you stop learning, it ...

Smart speakers are the rage just now, with the market becoming more competitive with every passing month. Amazon started the craze with the launch of its Alexa- powered Echo speaker in 2014, but more recently other big hitters such as Google and Apple have entered the market with their own offering putting pressure on sales of Amazon growing range of smart speaker. Google whose Assistant is supposedly smart than Amazon’s Alexa is expected to do even better now. What is the current status of the smart speaker market? According to market research firm Strategy Analytics, global smart speaker shipments reached 9.2 million units in the first quarter. With 43.6 percent market share, Amazon shipped an impressive four million smart speakers during the quarter though its global market share nearly halved from the same period in 2017.  Google (26.5 percent market share with 2.4 million sales) and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba (7.6 percent market share) con...

Quit Genius, the YC-backed app that helps users quit smoking, has today announced the close of an additional $1.1 million, bringing their seed round to a cool $2 million Quit Genius is a gamified behavioural therapy app to help smokers quit. Alongside the main treatment. Quit Genius also offers a Smoking Diary (where users can track their cigarettes to help identify triggers) and a Coping Toolbox, which lets users grab one of those mindfulness exercises or relaxation techniques on-demand in their moments of weakness. Quit Genius also comes with a community of fellow quitters (which is monitored by doctors and psychologists, to let users connect with one another in their path to quitting. Quit Genius aims to bring that treatment to users at a much lower cost through an app. Quit Genius was built by doctors — Yusuf Sherwani (co-founder and CEO), Maroof Ahmed (co-founder and COO), and Sarim Siddiqui (co-founder and head of product) — who met on the first day of medic...

After over a decade, the rare Nipah virus has struck India, and this time in Kerala's Kozhikode district, by claiming ten lives within 48 hours. With the casualty figure touching ten, the state’s public health department is in a state of shock and disarray. What is Nipah virus (NiV)? According to  World Health Organisation , Nipah virus (NiV) infection is a newly emerging zoonosis (a disease which can be transmitted to humans from animals) that causes severe disease in both animals and humans. The natural host of the virus is fruit bats of the  Pteropodidae  Family,  Pteropus genus  (fruit-eating species, popularly known as flying foxes). Who are in danger? NiV affects humans as well as pigs and other domestic animals. What are the symptoms of NiV infection? According to the WHO, the symptoms of NiV infection in humans has a range of clinical presentations, from asymptomatic infection to the acute respiratory...