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Have you ever spotted a speeding car without a care for the traffic signal? Ever spotted a person rushing to the other side of the road when the traffic light is green? Ever seen bikers use pavements as roads to save a few minutes? Ever seen cars change lanes on highways or rush hour traffic on a whim? Well, so have thousands of other Indians.

Road safety in India is a serious concern. For a country that boasts the second largest road network in the world, it is inarguable that we need to pay more attention to our safety on roads - a place where we step out every day, spend a handsome amount of our time.

The government has come up with several regulations on road safety, but is this enough? Not if awareness around the topic is still lacking.

Maruti Suzuki has designed a unique way to make our roads #HappyRoads. As part of the Maruti Suzuki's India Road Safety Mission initiative, it introduced Road Safety Index last year.

The intention behind the initiative is to bring together lawmakers, local authorities, traffic police and citizens under one umbrella.

The cities will be rated on parameters such as Pedestrian Rights, Road Lighting and Maintenance, Motor Laws and Traffic Control, Emergency Services, Road Cleanliness, Connectivity, Road Transport Infrastructure, Heavy Vehicle Traffic Management, Road Safety, Differently abled friendly, Road Quality and Road Safety For Children.

Here are the ten cities that were chosen for Road Safety Index 2018 and the reasons that make their roads safe or unsafe:

Mumbai has facilities for the differently-abled like reservations in public transports, special train compartments, concessions on fares, etc. The city that never sleeps scored the best when it comes to citizens' participation in making the city accepting and warm toward the differently-abled. It won the category 'Differently-Abled Friendly'.

However, there are areas of improvement - illegal hawkers, pavements and footpaths need to be fixed or reconstructed.

Anyone who hails from the capital of West Bengal knows about its recreational parks and brightly lit streets. Its traffic police deserve special mention for redirecting rush traffic every day as Kolkata roads are narrow and many are one-way streets.

During Durga Puja, the city tries to make Pandals differently-abled friendly by installing ramps.

It won the categories - 'Road Lighting & Maintenance' and 'Road Safety For Children'.

But the City of Joy needs to work more on giving its residents #HappyRoads. Issues of waterlogging and numerous street hawkers, roadside vendors in busy areas need to be solved.

There's no one who's been to Delhi and not praised its excellent connectivity. Delhi prides itself for broad roads, top-notch metros, pavements and foot over bridges. The national capital surely serves as an example for cities across India when it comes to road connectivity hence, it won the categories 'Connectivity' and 'Road Quality' in the Road Safety Index.

While Delhi has made many of its public places differently-abled friendly, the areas that need improvement are long hours in traffic, fixing of roads that pose a hindrance to daily commute and rash driving by bikers.

The city boasts well-marked zebra crossings, adequate footpaths for pedestrians, underground SMART dustbins, reduced encroachments. Raipur fares well in almost all parameters of road safety. It won the category of 'Road Safety' and 'Pedestrian Rights'.

However, the city could do better with stricter fines for traffic violators and awareness about road safety and garbage disposal.

Other cities can take inspiration from Chennai on how to ensure good road safety. The city has wide, well-connected roads that are lit properly. It also boasts rigorous night patrolling where traffic rules violators are fined. One of the best initiatives taken by Chennai is the separate parking space on city roads that prevent traffic from accumulating. It came out on top in the category 'Motor Laws & Traffic Control'.

Areas where Chennai needs to improve are street lighting and cleanliness.

Indore is one of the few cities that has used plastic waste for construction of roads and covered garbage disposals, which explains why the city won the 'Road Cleanliness' category. Indore also has adequate zebra crossings, visual signals, street lights, footpaths.

But areas where the city needs improvement are - strict action against traffic violators, public spaces more differently-abled friendly.

There is a lot to learn from the road safety measures implemented by Ahmedabad - sound medical facilities, separate lanes for local buses, special cab service for differently-abled, wide roads. Ahmedabad won in the category 'Emergency Services', 'Road Transport Infrastructure' and 'Heavy Vehicle Traffic Management'.

If the Heritage City improves road safety awareness among citizens, it's bound to fare even better. Better street lighting and lesser encroachments will work in favour of Ahmedabad.

The other cities shortlisted were Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad but they didn't win any category.

Maruti Suzuki's initiative to rank cities will encourage citizens and administration to do better and emerge on top.

The Logical Indian community wholeheartedly appreciates the various initiatives undertaken by Maruti-Suzuki in this direction. Not only the government but we, as citizens of this country, should also pledge to make our roads safe. One of the first steps towards this is that we understand our duties.

We hope the authorities take a note while we pledge to do our own bit towards happier, safer Indian roads.

For more information about the Maruti Suzuki's initiative and the Road Safety Index

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[Watch] This Is How Stale Vegetables Are Made To Look Fresh So That Those Get Sold Easily

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This video by 101India reveals how there's big scam of making vegetables fresh is going under our nose. The video reveals how farmers use silicone sprays, coloured dyes and injections to make stale vegetables look fresh. As a result of those added ingredients the vegetables look shiny on the cart of the sellers and you ...

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Belagavi, Sep 5: For people of Karnataka's Inchal village, teaching is the noblest profession of all. It is such a wonderful thing that Inchal, whose population is about 6,000 people, more than 600 persons have opted for teaching. This accounts for a teacher in every house of the village. Inchal village in Savadatti taluk of Belagavi city of Karnataka is a teachers' village in real sense.

Like parents often have dreams and choices for their kids, similarly the first choice of every parent here in this village is to get the child into teaching profession. Many who have opted for teaching are working in parts of Karnataka, whereas some are employed in state-run or aided schools and colleges and unaided institutions across the state. The craze of being a teacher is so much that a considerable number of youths are awaiting their posting.( ALSO READ: Teachers' Day 2016: 11 inspiring quotes from the teachings of Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan)

According to reports by TOI, one of the biggest teacher-families in the village is of Shabbir Mirajannavar, Bailhongal taluk secretary of Karnataka State Primary Teachers' Association. While on an average, families in the village have at least five teachers in the household but record breaking Shabbir's family has given 13 members as teachers to the village. "Most people in Inchal village are into teaching. Agriculture is only their second option," SL Bhajantri, Savadatti block education officer, said.( ALSO READ: Happy Teachers Day 2016: Best Teachers Day Messages, WhatsApp & Facebook Status, Quotes, wishes, SMSes & greetings to share)

It all started in 1970s when Shivanand Bharati Swamiji established an education society along with some other teachers, bringing a centre of higher learning to the village. Dating back to history, there were just eight teachers and one primary school in Inchal village and those who wanted to continue studies had to trek all the way to Bailhongal town. Lack of an institution of higher education denied many life-changing opportunities. According to reports by TOI, the Rural Teachers' Training Centre was opened in 1984 that gave free training to students in the village. It was followed by Prasad Nilayam, where students were provided free food.

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Teacher's Day Special: This village in Karnataka has a teacher in almost every house

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For people of Karnataka's Inchal village, teaching is the noblest profession of all. It is such a wonderful thing that Inchal, whose population is about 6,000 people, more than 600 persons have opted for teaching. - Teacher's Day Special: This village in Karnataka has a teacher in almost every house

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Dozens of birds have mysteriously fallen out of the sky in Boston, prompting health officials to launch an investigation.

A total of 47 grackles rained down upon the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston on Thursday. The Animal Rescue League of Boston said that 32 of these birds died, either at the scene or afterwards as rescuers attempted to tend to them. The remaining birds are in "good condition" and will be sent to a wildlife center in Grafton, Massachusetts.

The Animal Rescue League said it also gave "emergency treatment" to a cat at the scene, but it died. Another cat also reportedly died, with homeowners advised to keep their cats and dogs indoors and check what they are eating.

"When I arrived, birds would fly, like from a house to a tree, they would flop in the tree and they would fall to the ground," said Alan Borgal of the Animal Rescue League of Boston. "The weaker ones were just falling right out the sky."

City officials have sent the dead grackles, which are a type of songbird that travels in flocks, to Tufts University to help determine the cause of death. It is currently unclear whether the birds perished due to a virus, some sort of environmental pollution or intentional poisoning. Test results are expected next week.

"We don't know what is going on," John Meaney of the city of Boston's Inspectional Services told NECN. "So we are investigating all avenues."

Local resident Willien Pugh told the Boston Herald that his cat Sally B was found dying on the back porch as deceased birds fell from the sky.

"We took the cat from outside and we thought it was a girl so we named it Sally - then when we took it to the vet, we found out it was a boy, so we started calling her Sally B," Pugh said. "Real good cat."
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Dozens of birds fall from sky in Boston, dead from unknown cause

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Dozens of birds have mysteriously fallen out of the sky in Boston, prompting health officials to launch an investigation. A total of 47 grackles rained down upon the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston on Thursday. The Animal Rescue League of Boston said that 32 of these birds died, either at the scene or afterwards as rescuers attempted to tend to them.

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Scientists from Forschungszentrum Juelich have developed the first complete and compact design for an artificial photosynthesis facility. This is a decisive step towards applying the technology. The concept is flexible both with respect to the materials used and also the size of the system. The researchers have now published their findings in the journal Nature Communications.

In future, sun and wind will supply the lion's share of our energy. The fluctuating nature of these renewable energy sources means that current research is focusing more intensively on efficient storage technologies. Like the energy sources themselves, these technologies should be environmentally friendly and affordable. This trend is particularly apparent in research on direct photoelectrochemical water splitting, that is to say artificial photosynthesis employing a combination of solar cell and electrolyser. In this way, solar energy can be directly converted into the universal storage medium of hydrogen. This process was first investigated in the 1970s, but has only begun to attract increasing attention in recent years. As yet, research has focused on materials science for new absorber materials and catalysts to further improve efficiency.

Juelich solar cell researchers Jan-Philipp Becker and Bugra Turan, however, are concentrating on an aspect that has so far largely been neglected: a realistic design that can take this technology from the scientists' laboratories and put it into practical applications. "To date, photoelectrochemical water splitting has only ever been tested on a laboratory scale," explains Burga Turan. "The individual components and materials have been improved, but nobody has actually tried to achieve a real application."
Compact, complete, and expandable
The design created by the two experts from Juelich's Institute of Energy and Climate Research is clearly different from the usual laboratory experiments. Instead of individual components the size of a finger nail that are connected by wires, the researchers have developed a compact, self-contained system -- constructed completely of low-cost, readily available materials.

With a surface area of 64 cm ², their component still appears relatively small. The trick is in its flexible design. By continuously repeating the basic unit, it will in future even be possible to fabricate systems that are several square metres in size. The basic unit itself consists of several solar cells connected to each other by a special laser technique. "This series connection means that each unit reaches the voltage of 1.8 volt necessary for hydrogen production," says Jan-Philipp Becker. "This method permits greater efficiency in contrast to the concepts usually applied in laboratory experiments for scaling up."
Compatible with a wide range of technologies
At the moment, the solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of the prototype is 3.9 %. "That doesn't sound like much," admits Bugra Turan. "But naturally this is only the first draft for a complete facility. There's still plenty of room for improvement." In fact -- the scientists add -- natural photosynthesis only achieves an efficiency of one per cent. Jan-Philipp Becker is of the opinion that within a relatively short time the Jülich design could be increased to around 10 % efficiency using conventional solar cell materials. However, there are also other approaches. For instance, perovskites, a novel class of hybrid materials, with which it is already possible to achieve efficiencies of up to 14 %.

"This is one of the big advantages of the new design, which enables the two main components to be optimized separately: the photovoltaic part that produces electricity from solar energy and the electrochemical part that uses this electricity for water splitting." The Jülich researchers have patented this concept, which can be flexibly applied for all types of thin-film photovoltaic technology and for various types of electrolyser. "For the first time, we are working towards a market launch," says Becker. "We have created the basis to make this reality."

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solar energy; materials science; energy and resources; civil engineering; energy and the environment; renewable energy; sustainability; environmental science

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From leaf to tree: Large-scale artificial photosynthesis: Researchers create the first practical design for photoelectrochemical water splitting

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Scientists have developed the first complete and compact design for an artificial photosynthesis facility. This is a decisive step towards applying the technology. The concept is flexible both with respect to the materials used and also the size of the system.