Indianomics | A bit about everything I love to read, in layman's terms

Financial Assistance Needed for a Friend’s child

by Hemal Shah on January 28, 2014

A friend of mine (Hardik Nagda) is currently facing a crisis in his family with his daughter being diagnosed with Biliary Atresia with liver cirrhosis and is looking for Financial assistance to support the medical expenses.

Biliary atresia, also known as “extrahepatic ductopenia” and “progressive obliterative cholangiopathy” is a congenital or acquired disease of the liver and one of the principal forms of chronic rejection of a transplanted liver allograft. As a birth defect in newborn infants, it has an occurrence of 1/10,000 to 1/15,000 cases in live births in the United States. In the congenital form, the common bile duct between the liver and the small intestineis blocked or absent. The acquired type most often occurs in the setting of autoimmune disease, and is one of the principal forms of chronic rejection of a transplanted liver allograft. (Source: Wikipedia)

Baby Drushti Nagda, has been suffering from Biliary Atresia with liver cirrhosis. She was admitted to Jaslok Hospital in Mumbai when she was just two months old & underwent a major operation called Kasai Surgery.

Unfortunately, the surgery did not help and was termed a failure. Now the baby has last stage liver disease with other complications like ascites (free fluid in stomach), Blood Flow in portal vein is reversed, Persistent Jaundice, Hernia etc.

The only hope for her now is to get a Liver transplantation. My friend Hardik Nagda has been successfully screened to be valid liver donor for Baby Drushti which is by far, the best news for his family in recent times. The plan is to undergo the transplant procedure at the Narayana Hrudayalaya, Bengaluru between 15-20 Feb 2014 .

The total cost of operation would be around INR 15 Lakhs, which includes the cost for “Donor” and “Receiver” surgery. Additionally, there would be an estimated post surgery hospitalization costs are estimated at a further INR 3-4 Lakhs. At present, he was able to manage around 2 lakhs from friends and other family members however he still needs INR 17 Lakhs more.

Hardik is the only breadwinner for the family, and Baby Drushti’s previous hospitalization and surgery has already exhausted his financial resources. He is in desperate need of help.

And any contribution towards this cause would be heartily appreciated. Be it INR 100, 500, 1000 or more. Please do help Baby Drushti

As per estimation letter, donations can be collected by hospital directly. If anyone is willing to send contributions directly to the Hospital, please make Cheque in favor of Narayan Hrudayalaya, Bangalore.

Please mention Patient ID (Pt.ID: 10020000656724 Baby Drushti Nagda) on back of the Cheque/DD.

Address: N H Health City
No. 258/A, Bommasandra Industrial Area,
Hosur Road, Anekal Taluk,
Bangalore 560099, India
Ph: +91 80 7122 2222
Fax: +91 80 2783 2648
Email ID: [email protected]

If you would like to do Account Transfer Directly to the family you may do so by transfers (NEFT) to the below account:

Name: Hardik B. Nagda

Bank of Baroda,

AC number: 27870100008873
Branch: Dombivli West,
IFSC code : BARB0DOMWES
Cell: Hardik Nagda: +91 9321111974

Email: [email protected]

The story of dirty Noses – F1 Cars

by Hemal Shah on January 25, 2014

Last year, around the same time everyone was complaining about stepped noses cones of the F1 cars. This year, pretty much the same story, only a bit dirty. If you look at the three cars in the feature image, two of them have ‘anteater’ type noses, while Lotus F1 Team came up with a ‘fork-lift’ type nose never seen before in F1.

In my previous post, I wrote about Force India’s new livery, however FI only had released the picture of the car from one side and left everyone guessing how their nose has been. Though Andrew Green let it out in an interview that it looks more like an ‘anteater’. There you go, most of the cars (barring Lotus I guess) will have similar noses in 2014.

As the weekend starts, we will see more car launches and more disappointed fans with their favorite F1 car’s nose cone, often considered as the face of the car. Many are of the opinion that we all will get used to it. But with the amount of jokes people are making, I think it would be rather too difficult.

Fan comment on www.F1Fanatic.co.uk site

It is raining discounts in the Air

by Hemal Shah on January 23, 2014

Spice Jet kicked it off, and everyone else followed the suit. Creating a stir with a 50% discount on base fares and fuel surcharges for tickets bought 30 days in advance, Spice Jet let the cat amongst the pigeons of air, which let to a cascading effect. Within hours, IndiGo and Go Air introduced similar fare discounts, so did Air India later in the day and by late night, Jet Airways did the same.

The best part was that this came without any warning and took everyone by surprise. I was anticipating a price-war when Air Asia would eventually launch, which is a given in any case. Tony Fernandes, the Air Asia CEO has already announced that his Indian operations would provide dramatically low fares which perhaps would be lower than the current prices being offered by low-cost carriers. I was thinking may be the airlines would like to cash in the money they can now and prepare for the bloodbath once Air Asia comes along.

But this move certainly surprised me. The discounted tickets are only available on carefully selected routes, and the entire inventory is not part of this. In all probability, they only have 50% of their inventory open for these cheaper fares.

The fares from SpiceJet also do not come with a catch – oh yes, there is something that is free (or discounted in this case). These tickets are refundable with applicable cancellation fees. Which means, you can cancel the ticket and will be getting money in return upon cancellation. Now that is real bold move. In real world terms, this is a discount sale.

Apparently, the initiative is to ensure that they have enough load factor in the coming months which is a typical lean period for airlines. So if you have not planned, do it today – it is the last day.

VJM07: Force India Launches their livery

by Hemal Shah on January 22, 2014

Force India broke its own record earlier yesterday when they launched their new livery. On the outset, this is by far their best looking car since they started in 2009 and this is a long way coming.

“The VJM07 looks stunning and the new livery reflects the way Sahara Force India is evolving,” says Vijay Mallya. “I’ve always believed our cars have been the most eye-catching, but adding black as a main color gives us a fierce new look”. The new livery brings a fresh trackside image for the team with the introduction of black alongside the traditional colors of saffron, white and green. (Reports FIF1 website)

The new livery is really attractive, and looks really aggressive unlike any of the previous editions. The predominant White has been replaced with Black, while retaining Orange and a slightly brighter green color.

Add to this an all new driver line up with one of the sought after pairing, it all looks positive for Force India. They have been consistently improving and are a very strong midfielders who, many across the world, not only in India, look up to. Everyone is expecting a podium from the Silver stone based team with such a strong setting, time will only tell how they would stack up against formidable competition.

The new design is based on the 2013 car VJM06, and looks a lot similar except for the odd nose design (to meet the new regulations). However, Andrew Green, Technical Director at Force India explains that the new car is different compared to its predecessor.

“Almost every single part is a new design, from the front wing right back to the diffuser. The genetics of the VJM07 still lie in the 2013 car, but we’ve had to achieve the same results in a slightly different way.”

Image Credits: ForceIndia F1 Website

Why Formula E when you already have Formula 1?

by Hemal Shah on January 9, 2014

The news floated around last year (2012) when FIA conceived the idea of a racing series based on Formula 1, albeit with Electric engines. It spread to soon and many firms got immediate interest in setting up a team for themselves.

And one thing I personally loved of this development was there was an Indian team among them.

Mahindra Racing has been putting a commendable effort into the Moto3 series since 2011 and were the top 3 team. With their Indian bike business not starting off on the right note, Mahindra started to get involved in high-tech motorcycle races to get their R&D prowess in-house.

They also have a distinction of being the only Indian motorcycle manufacturer providing their vehicles to other racing teams. Like the Renaults and Ferrari’s of F1. For me, that definitely sounds volumes of how much Mahindra is dedicated to prove itself as a global manufacturer. Continue Reading

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