Some Green Camcorder Pictures From Ranchi!

More than an year ago, I purchased a camcorder online from Flipcart. I am not a photography enthusiast or hobbyist. But I do like good pictures. Incidentally, now you can do that from world renowned online suppliers, Amazon too, in India.[Search for camcorders in Amazon search box on the bottom right panel]

In fact, good color photographs actually enhance the visual appeal of any natural scene. When natural events keep passing before our eyes routinely, we forget to notice and appreciate the beauty of our planet!

In the past, color photography used to be an expensive affair. With the advancement of digital photography technology it has become affordable to common folks like me. 

We should really appreciate our scientists and engineers working in the leading consumer product companies of the world whose brilliant minds make all these happen for us.

I could not get enough time to experiment the possibilities of my camcorder all these days. It was lying almost unused for several months.

A couple of days ago, I remembered about it. I thought I should do some thing with it. At the least, I should learn how to use it for taking pictures and videos.

The easiest thing to learn was video recording. There is another wonderful feature too. This camera has an amazing 67x optical zoom. 

It was really amazing to find the distant objects smoothly and effortlessly coming clear on the view finder. The technique the cinematographers use with their expensive cameras! It was a joy to find that I could also do it without being a cameraman! 

This small camera has innumerable functions and I might take so many days to master all those effortlessly. That may not be possible because I am not addicted to any thing.

The camera being a camcorder is firstly for taking videos. But it has facilities for still pictures as well. But I find that taking videos and making stills from the videos using my PC software would be much easier for a layman like me.

My learning experience was on the roof top of my official residence in Ranchi where my wife has attempted creating a green space including an yielding kitchen garden. It is a different kind of joy for both of us when we make some delicious dishes out of the vegetables we grew ourselves in our roof garden.

Here you will see some green shots, both of and from, our roof top in Ranchi.

All these are still jpegs from the Sony Camcorder video clips, including zoom clips.

Hope you would tell me your opinions!

Sharing Some Ranchi Photographs!

My present place of residence, Ranchi is indeed a place geographically blessed by God. I have written about the potential of this plateau to become a much developed tourist attraction in the near future. You may read that blog here.  

I had also shared some idea about the latest addition in Ranchi, the Bio-diversity park.

The capital of Jharkhand state has immense potential to become a much sought after tourist spot provided it is nurtured and managed well by the concerned authorities. Additionally, the perceived threat on account of the armed insurgency needs be settled using humanitarian approach rather than by force.

I leave that aspect to the wisdom of the concerned authorities.

Yesterday night I happened to visit the heart of Ranchi near the Church complex.

I share a few nigh vision snaps Ranchi for those interested readers of this site.

Beautiful isn't it? By the way I am just a novice in photography. These are amateur photographs taken by my low cost Spice Mobile phone about which I had written earlier.

Had I been a bit more patient, I could have captured many more beautiful snaps!

But, I was in a hurry! 

But when traffic blocks the movements in Ranchi, it is yet another beautiful scene. Time is no problem now.

These flowers that bloom on the balconies of Ranchi homes radiate brilliant colors:

Even these pigeons that live in these concrete human dwellings of Ranchi too are beautiful!

There is beauty all around!

We at times fail to recognize that beauty!

A Visit to the New Bio-diversity Park: The Latest Tourist Attraction in Ranchi

A couple of days ago, I had the opportunity to visit and spent some time in the newly developed bio-diversity park in Ranchi. 

This park was opened for public in 2012 and it is developed, maintained and managed by the forest department of Jharkhand State government.

The park is developed within existing forest land of over 500 acres. It is being developed with good intentions that the urban Ranchi people and visitors to Ranchi can enjoy the scenic beauty of the green forests and get some good idea about the flora of the forests.

Most importantly, the park is easily accessible from Ranchi. It can be accessed by road from the Birsa Munda Chowk near the Ranchi Airport within 15-20 minutes. See the location map of the park here. There exist ample parking space for the vehicles of the visitors. However, vehicles are usually not allowed inside the park.

The forest department had made a good informative website for the park which give much desired information to the public. You may visit the home page for essential information about the park.

The access to the park for the public is regulated with some nominal fees. Get the fee structure here.

The park now is in the developmental stage though many facilities have been already developed. It is a good picnic spot for groups who are interested in spending some hours in the wild serenity of the green forests without the usual dangers or difficulties  associated with such adventures. 

The park has two forest trails which are carefully developed. Visitors can walk through these trails and get a feel of the forest. 

A very attractive feature of the park is its horticulture efforts where many medicinal plants are grown. It is a good feature to see the rare medicinal plants many of which are used in the preparation of Ayurvedic medicine system of India. See some pictures of the medicinal plants grown in the park. It gives some opportunities for those interested in Ayurvedic research.

The park has a rose garden and a green house for developing various species of cacti. There is scope for developing a mini zoo too. However, presently such a facility does not exist. The authorities may think of this and try to breed those rare breeds of animals which provide raw material used in ayurvedic medicines.

No doubt this bio-diversity park would soon become a tourist attraction for the visitors of Ranchi in the near future.

Would it be Ever Possible for Ranchi to be in the Tourist Map of India ?

It is almost going to be two years that I made Ranchi, the capital city of Jharkhand my temporary home after having spend just over three decades in the steel city of Bhilai near Raipur, the capital city of Chhattisgarh.

The major part of my life so far has been outside my home state, Kerala, the small south Indian state on the Malabar Coast of the Indian sub continent.

All these states have immense potential for developing tourism, the only mechanism by which human beings can be trained to reduce suspicion and animosity against each other.

My home state Kerala has done it in the last couple of decades. Keralites should be thankful to all those administrators, businessmen and individuals who contributed to make it possible. Kudos to the one who invented the phrase ' God's own country ' for Kerala as a tourism promotion caption for official Kerala Tourism.

Seeing the success of Kerala in Tourism, I remember the first Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh trying to do some thing serious for his state and his enthusiasm in getting the IAS officer responsible for managing Kerala Tourism in the formative years on deputation to his state.

Though Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand have much potential for tourism, unlike Kerala they have got much constraints for making tourism a significant thing. The major  constraint is  their wider land area making the travel distances much greater between places as compared to Kerala and the lack of security on the roads due to the recent resurgence of various militant political groups at war with the government machinery. The other constraint would be perhaps the shortage of leadership both in the government and the private sector to make any significant momentum so that the activities could be raised above the threshold of initial inertia. 

However, Ranchi has a potential for rapid growth in tourism sector, provided the government is a bit more pro-active. The state government of Jharkhand of late has started acting, as can be seen from the official website of the Jharkhand tourism department,  but what they need to do initially should be more to attract people to the state. Both domestic and foreign tourists should feel comfortable to visit the state without hassles or fear.

Jharkhand's capital, Ranchi has the reputation of being known as a ' hill station' though there are no high hills or mountains in the near vicinity. This designation perhaps came from the fact that it is an elevated region with a mean elevation at 650 M from sea level as compared to the level of 300 M for the adjoining regions. Due to this there are a number of water falls within comfortable driving distances from Ranchi, making it to be known as the city of waterfalls.

I could visit  Hundroo Falls, Johnah Falls, Sita Falls, Dasham Falls, etc which are within a radius of about 30 km from Ranchi so far. Of these, Dasham Falls, Hundroo and Johnah are really impressive. The facilities that are created by the Jharkhand tourism department are very good. The authorities, of late has taken special attention to make good roads to these sites.

 A View of Hundru Falls Ranchi

A View of Jonha Falls Ranchi

A Distant View of Sita Falls Ranchi

A few months ago I got introduced to one Mr P K Choudhury, an enterprising business man from Ranchi, who has a vision to transform this city to tap its tourism potential to the fullest in the coming years. He has been successful to get some support from the state government. Mr Choudhury is an engineer by profession and he has now made his Wheels Travels of Ranchi  with the Jharkhand State Tourism Development Corporation in providing tourism packages to tourists who wish to enjoy exotic nature in and around Ranchi. [A small account of my first attempt to explore a few attractive tourism spots around Ranchi with the help of Mr Choudhury can be read online here. I have also provided some photographs taken during this trip and also the mobile phone number of Mr Choudhury here.]

I thought of writing this blog today due to a call made by Mr Choudhury yesterday. He wanted some suggestions for celebrating World Tourism Day 2012 in Ranchi on the 27th September together with the inaugural ceremony at the global level to be held at Maspalomas, Spain under the auspices of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). The theme for this year's WTO deliberations incidentally is : Tourism & Sustainable Energy: Powering Sustainable Development. To be frank, I do not understand much about the link between tourism and sustainable energy, but I do feel that energy plays a key role in developing tourism. Because, the major cost in tourism is cost of travel and travel requires energy, that too petroleum based energy, for the time being.

Mr Choudhury should think of organizing a seminar in Ranchi Hotel where people could talk on this theme for half a day and spend the rest of the time on a monsoon trip to one or two waterfalls near ranchi when the streams are at their  full majesty . The bureaucrats from the government and other top officials from the corporates could be called in as delegates to the seminar as well as the short monsoon trip to the nearby falls. Alternatively he should think of organizing drawing and debate competitions for the school children taking the help from some of the reputed schools of Ranchi on this year's theme as mooted by UNWTO.

Though Ranchi has a reasonably good airport , good railway stations and bus stations, the connectivity of Ranchi with the rest of India is not so good. Flights do operate between Kolkatta, Delhi and Mumbai, but the fares are exhorbitantly high for domestic tourists to take advantage. Besides, there are no same day connecting flights from Kolkatta or Delhi for the Ranchi travellers to cities like Trivandrum or Chennai or even the adjoining state capital, Raipur or to the central India's hub city , Nagpur.

Now take the example of the rail connectivity. To the south there is a daily train to Kerala running via Chennai. This train is practically useless for those who wish to use it for travel between Ranchi and Kerala. Firstly, all tickets on this train gets booked by those from East India to travel to reputed hospitals in Tamil Nadu, like the Christian Medical College, Vellore, near Chennai. This train runs practically empty between Chennai and Kerala as the Kerala travellers seldom get their reservations. The railway authorities should think of running daily trains from Jharkhand to Katpadi and make the Kerala train extend upto Trivandrum with enhanced quota of reservations to those travelling beyond Tamil Nadu. 

The roads are improving in Jharkhand. However, the interstate travel on road is still not a good proposition due to security concerns. The state government should encourage bus operators to operate more and more buses connecting Ranchi with cities like Raipur, Kolkatta, Patna, Bhubaneshwar, Rourkela, Bilaspur, Varanasi, Kanpur, Allahabad, etc. This should be done with the co-operation of the neighbouring states and it should be ensured that the police and other authorities unnecessarily create problems to the bus operators or the passengers. If needed, the state government should consider substantial road tax concessions to the operators till the traffic gains momentum. 

The state can think of setting up a police wing exclusively for security of passengers on road and helping travellers who might get entrapped on road due to vehicle breakdowns, etc. This is very much needed to enhance the confidence of tourists in the state considering the scenario as of now.

Somebody connected to the hotel industry in Ranchi told me recently that the occupancy rate in hotels in Ranchi are too low that they are not getting even the breakeven returns. This is mainly because of the number of rooms increasing many fold in recent years and the demands not rising accordingly. For tourism to flourish, the increase in good hotel rooms is a positive thing. However, getting use of those facilities is another thing. The tourism department needs to be more proactive. It is most unfortunate that a Google search on Ranchi tourism returns with little useful information. Besides, there are no good website which provides all the important information, guidance and tour package that a tourist, both domestic and foreign, looks for. 

There could be thousands of people from Ranchi and Jharkhand who are working either abroad or in other Indian cities. They should come forward and discuss about this issue of making their beautiful state a desirable destination not only for them but also for all others from the rest of India and the world.

May I request them to offer their valuable suggestions, so that people like Mr Choudhury and those in the state government could get proper directions to plan the policies and the actions ?

Those who have cherished memories of Ranchi or Jharkhand tour or travel may think of sharing those with their tips, guidance and information on important tourist spots for helping others.

Kerala tourism people may think of diverting some of their tourists to this part through properly designed packages.

Join hands to promote tourism- the only preferrable mechanism to propagate universal love and appreciation of nature and our accomplishments !

[View the linked list of all Blogs of the Author Here ]