Any World Class Indians at the Olympics?

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Indians at the London Olympics

How many medals will Indians win?

In this context James Crabtree, the Financial Times' Mumbai correspondent, is amongst those who have started a media  discussion on why India, with over 1.1 billion people, produces few World class athletes.

Crabtree notes that, in addition to the long established work of the Tata Foundations, foundations set up by billionaires Laksmi Mittal and Mukesh Ambani have financed the upkeep and training of a few Indian athletes. The sums they have spent so far though is small. As Crabtree notes, "The total investment of these groups isn’t enormous: Mittal set up his trust with an investment reported to be of just $9m.for instance."  

Here is a link to one of James Crabtree's stories: 
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2012/07/25/indias-tycoons-rally-to-support-worlds-least-successful-sporting-nation/

Similar issues were raised in another story after India won the World Cup cricket title in 2011.
India's Cricket Victory: Can It Lead to Success in Other Sports? See:
 http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india/article.cfm?articleid=4582

Anant Agarwal heads edX: the Future of Online Education - For anyone, anywhere, anytime

EdX is a not-for-profit enterprise of set up by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology designed for study via the web. Anant Agarwal, former Director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, serves as the first president of edX. Along with offering online courses, the institutions will use edX to research how students learn and how technology can transform learning—both on-campus and worldwide.The University of California, Berkeley also joined edX.

Stanford, Princeton and other universities have backed a rival web education platform Coursera https://www.coursera.org/ , which though is a commercial for profit business, backed by $16 million in venture funding. There is also Udacity http://www.udacity.com/ set up by a Stanford professor. 

https://www.edx.org/

Deepak Chopra launches YouTube channel

Health and fitness guru Deepak Chopra officially launched his free YouTube channel last week. This follows the launch of comedian Aziz Ansari's web channel, which though charges $5 for each video feed. 
Chopra Well's  launch included a discussion with special guests: former Mexican President Vicente Fox; Brazilian lyricist and novelist Paulo Coelho; journalist and humanitarian Lisa Ling; actress and cancer spokeswoman Fran Drescher; Ashtanga yoga master Eddie Stern and social media expert Eric Handler from Positively Positive.

The site is a joint effort of Deepak and his kids Mallika and Gotham and supported by Google, which is trying to organize YouTube to compete with cable channels, by setting up web channels like Chopra Well. Author of 65 books, including 16 on the New York Times best seller lists, Deepak is also Lady Gaga's favorite health guru. 


Here is a CBS news report on the launch:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505270_162-57472843/deepak-chopra-launches-new-youtube-channel/

To view Chopra Well:

 http://www.youtube.com/user/DeepakChopraGlobal

 To view Aziz Ansari's site, which charges $5 for an hour long video:
http://azizansari.com/

In other news this week

Indian labor in New York underpaid and most have no health coverage, says Desi group's report

http://www.drumnyc.org/DRUM/Media/Pages/WC_Launch.html

Prabhu Dayal, India's consul general in New York, settles case against him by housekeeper

http://www.sunday-guardian.com/news/ny-maids-harassment-case-likely-to-be-settled-out-of-court

Sunita Williams and two other NASA astronauts dock with Russian space station

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/article3648678.ece




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