Tribune 360

10 Reasons Andaman and Nicobar Should Go On Your Bucket List

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1. The Pristine Beaches</h3>
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Andaman is home to around a three hundred thousand people, but it's also home to the best beaches in the country, maybe even the continent.</div>
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2. The Corals</h3>
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The corals mesmerize you at almost every step. This isn't Australia's Great Barrier Reef, but it's not much less.</div>
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<img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitFNSH3VSc1DSHWbnlmycfvry6g9ILRXknfNpjT10h-YgI2L713ecaUnazIrTU8rKgV31oel_7iBouI__DI1Elvjgj7CxmzQeczm5HV01sjusF3fwKpBbjwWamFs6fhNW3rxcP0s1Sl3E/s1600/Corals+around+Barren+Island+2.jpg" width="640" /></div>
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3. The Plethora of Adventures</h3>
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Think you're an adventure junkie? Then here's you're place. They've got almost everything - kayaking, surfing, scuba diving, bungee jumping, skydiving, literally everything.</div>
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<img border="0" height="424" src="http://www.tushky.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/AndamanDiving-Image-Courtesy-PrWeb.jpeg" width="640" /></div>
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4. Value For Money</h3>
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Andaman and Nicobar Islands, like the rest of India, is surprisingly inexpensive. You can easily get a night's accommodation at 800 Rupees, roughly US$ 14. And if you're the luxury type, you won't ever run out of options.</div>
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<img border="0" height="424" src="http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/03/f4/0a/2d/andaman-cannacia-resort.jpg" width="640" /></div>
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5. Barren Island</h3>
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The only active volcano in South Asia, this boy burned as recent as 2010.</div>
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6. The Jarawas</h3>
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The indigenous people of the region; a trip to their village makes your day.</div>
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7. The Multitude of Islands</h3>
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Wherever in the Andamans you might be, you'd always find some islands around that you can always cruise to.</div>
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<img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOz-M2_LO4gJUsg0FAhIB0EHZvaY0r_F9bAxeRJ6ykqdj7sn54eZchjAMSiO7m-aptFSiRK-lnwrZU8vGKGWmybB6fQrVrBNsl9BbYtnZW6NsCeO_ZzpLvcrHwOtIluzdqxs1w_eJr4vLk/s1600/SAM_0565+(FILEminimizer).JPG" width="640" /></div>
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8. The Solitude</h3>
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You could lie in a beach all day, and no one would ever disturb you. A perfect romantic getaway? You bet. Also great for some "me time".</div>
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9. The History</h3>
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The British used to deport detractors and freedom fighters away from the Indian mainland, in this secluded island. Port Blair's Cellular Jail is a live attestation of India's colonial period.</div>
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10. The Food</h3>
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The seafood, actually. Prawns, lobsters, fish and local Indian delicacies certainly make the day.</div>
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10 Reasons Andaman and Nicobar Should Go On Your Bucket List

1. The Pristine Beaches Andaman is home to around a three hundred thousand people, but it's also home to the best beaches in the coun...

India's Blood Diamonds

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<a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surat" rel="wikipedia" style="-webkit-transition: all 0.18s ease-out; border: 0px; color: #0da4d3; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.18s ease-out; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="Surat">Surat</a>, once a small sleepy town in the Indian state of Gujarat has within just a generation, transformed into a new megacity. This tropical town, just like any typical Indian city, reeks of filth and wandering cows in the streets. That is, aside from the fact that Surat happens to be the world’s fourth fastest growing city. The city is now a business magnet where more than 90 percent of the world’s unpolished diamonds are processed and polished. So a diamond in any part of the world has a fair and square chance of having moved through this evolving city. India has very little diamond reserves, but a whopping majority of the world’s diamonds, 90 percent precisely, go through the country. Through this town of Surat, actually. Now this statistics apparently suggests that India has managed to master the diamond business, just like the call center business. The reality on ground, however, happens to be the quite unlike what meets the eye.</div>
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Dirt cheap wages – cheaper than in Chinese factories, has made Surat the magnet for multinational diamond corporations who seek to get their job done with less investment on labor. The country, as a whole, has basically no labor laws, at least none which are implemented. Workers here in Surat work for minuscule wages, and are surprisingly modestly satisfied. Child labor is omnipresent and unchallenged in the region. Children as small as 10 years old work in these polishing factories, and such observations are not isolated, they are widespread. The Indian government had in the past occasionally cracked down, clearing the factories of children, in the fear of a media scandal – even though the mainstream media, both in India and the west, curiously chooses to ignore this story.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://thispost.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/121228_diamonds1_646.jpg?w=470&h=313" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://thispost.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/121228_diamonds1_646.jpg?w=470&h=313" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 11px; text-align: left;">Over 90 percent of the world’s diamonds — legal and otherwise — are sent on a secret journey to Surat, India. Here, they are polished before going back to every diamond-buying country in the world. Ctsy: Jason Miklian</span></td></tr>
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Families, unable to support themselves with the most basic amenities, join these diamond polishing factories in the hope of a better life. Despite the promise of money, it’s a hard life. After two decades of constant squinting and working 100 hours a week, the boys that come to these factories with a dream of a better life no longer have the eyesight to do the work. These men are shown the door, left with no job. By 35, they suffer from vision loss and if aren’t lucky enough to get some job, are left unemployed. Decades of continually inhaling diamond grains also often leads to respiratory diseases and tuberculosis.</div>
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But these inhumane conditions are not the worst that this billion dollar industry in Surat promotes. The conditions of these workers are bad, no doubt, but they are far better off than their counterparts in Africa. This city is not a paradise, but it sure as hell is, relative to Africa. Millions of workers in African nations like Zimbabwe work for wages so meager that they are unable to sustain even their most basic needs – food and clothing. The scenery in countries like Zimbabwe is basically just modern day slavery.</div>
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In Antwerp, Belgium, the city which for almost half a century had served as the hotspot of diamond industries is now near dead. Surat has killed it. And that was inevitable, considering the fact that it was Antwerp’s high security and rigorous documentation against Surat’s cheap labor and no-questions-asked atmosphere.</div>
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Conflict diamonds, the illicitly mined stones that fund conflicts in the world’s war zones, had been globally frowned upon in the last decade. So these illegal stones cannot make their way into countries like the United States, UK or France.  But wait, they can, thanks to Surat. These <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_diamond" rel="wikipedia" style="-webkit-transition: all 0.18s ease-out; border: 0px; color: #0da4d3; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.18s ease-out; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="Blood diamond">conflict diamonds</a> are trucked in from Africa and other mining hotspots straight to the city of Surat where they are polished and processed by workers in concrete whitewashed buildings, and these diamonds make their way into places like the United States, UK and France. It’s that simple.</div>
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So the shiny, glitzy diamond ring that some poor bloke spends his entire month’s income on for his engagement, has an overwhelming chance of having being polished by some worker in Surat as if it was about getting a better life and being mined out by someone in Africa as if it was about life and death. This is about your diamond ring, thanks to Surat.</div>
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This, however, is a win-win for this <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberley_Process_Certification_Scheme%E2%80%8E" style="-webkit-transition: all 0.18s ease-out; border: 0px; color: #0da4d3; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.18s ease-out; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Kimberley</a> approved country. There’s more work, more power, more money; and everyone’s winning – from the diamond vendor, the diamond dealer – straight up to the Indian government.</div>
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This industry in Surat is ultimately funding the mining of conflict diamonds. Anyone and everyone linked to this industry are funding the mining of conflict diamonds, and thus, conflicts – wars. That is highly hypocritical for India, a country that brands itself as the upholder of peace.</div>
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This article is also available on http://thispost.wordpress.com written by the same author)</div>

India's Blood Diamonds

Surat , once a small sleepy town in the Indian state of Gujarat has within just a generation, transformed into a new megacity. This tro...

Why putting you in jail is profitable

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In “the land of the free”, putting you in jail is profitable.  <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison" rel="wikipedia" style="-webkit-transition: all 0.18s ease-out; border: 0px; color: #0da4d3; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.18s ease-out; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="Private prison">Private prison</a> companies in the United States like the Corrections Corporation of America (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrections_Corporation_of_America" target="_blank">CCA</a>) and The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEO_Group" target="_blank">Geo Group</a> profit by incarcerating more and more people. It’s that simple: more people behind bars mean more revenues for these companies. The CCA and the Geo Group made annual revenues of 1.7 billion dollars and 1.6 billion dollars respectively in 2011.</div>
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The United States imprisons more people than any other nation in the world, including China, Russia and Iran. In a recent study, 716 prison inmates were recorded for one hundred thousand people in the US, higher than anywhere else in the world. Over the last four decades, incarceration rates have skyrocketed, goaded by a shoddy immigration law, a so-called ”war on drugs” and rigid criminal laws that apparently forbid the chance of obtaining probation and parole. Now some might think: why is that a bad thing? They’re taking bad guys off the street, right? But the reality is quite unlike what meets the eye.</div>
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A majority of the prison population are “non-violent” inmates. According to the federal government’s Bureau of Prisons (BOP), 50.1 percent of inmates in BOP prisons are on charges of drug use and 10.9 percent of immigrants are on charges of “illegal immigration”.</div>
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Meanwhile, the cost of imprisoning more and more Americans burdens the government budgets, and taxpayers have to pay more money. That’s right, more the number of inmates, more the amount of tax hardworking Americans pay, and more the amount of revenues companies like CCA and the Geo Group make. While supporters of the private prison system tout the idea that these private prisons save the government money, there is enough evidence to challenge that myth.</div>
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The government or the taxpayers – nobody wins from this situation, except a handful of corporations – for-profit companies like CCA and The Geo Group. These companies are responsible for holding approximately 6 percent of states’ prisoners, 16 percent federal prisoners, and according to a Huffington Post report, nearly half of all immigrant detainees.<br />
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Why putting you in jail is profitable

In “the land of the free”, putting you in jail is profitable. Private prison companies in the United States like the Corrections Cor...

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10 Reasons Andaman and Nicobar Should Go On Your Bucket List

India's Blood Diamonds

Why putting you in jail is profitable