29-year-old Sonya Baumstein wants to become the first woman to cross the Pacific solo

#SonyaBaumstein #Pacific #SanFrancisco #Rowboat Sonya Baumstein is a 29-year-old athlete from Orlando, Florida, and she has drawn up plans to cross the Pacific solo in her custom designed row boat Icha – she has already embarked on her journey from Choshi – a port east of Tokyo. She is headed for San Francisco and hopes to finish the 6,000-mile (9,600-kilometer) journey by late September.
Once she does that, she would become the first woman to row solo across the Pacific. Till now, only three other rowboats have successfully made the journey and no woman has ever done the journey alone.
This has been reported in foxnews.com dated 7 June 2015.

She has experience of the high seas – she has already rowed the Atlantic to the Caribbean and is upbeat about this challenge.
Her rowboat, the "Icha," short for an Okinawan phrase meaning "once we meet we're family," is a lime-green, 23-foot (7-meter) -long vessel that weighs less than 660 pounds (300 kilograms). It has no motor or sail.
Weather permitting, she plans to row 14-16 hours a day, breaking her sleep to check her location.
She hopes to stay within the 100 kilometer (62 mile) -wide Kuroshio Current that arcs across the Pacific, at least for the first part of the journey.
She is not having a boat to follow her for support because of prohibitive cost but there would be a team who would provide support remotely from shore via satellite phone and GPS.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Gurgaon signs pacts for women-only cabs on International Women's Day

#gurgaon #womendrivers #InternationalWomensDay Taking into account the growing number of atrocities committed on women traveling by cabs, the administration of Gurgaon has, on the occasion of International Women's Day, signed two MoUs with five companies. They would launch women-only cabs and a mobile safety mobile app for women in the city.
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 9 March 2015.
The MoUs have been signed with Maruti Suzuki, Eco Rent-A-Car and mindyourfleet.com.
The district administration has agreed to help women drivers get driving licenses from the regional transport authority, Eco Rent-A-Car cabs will employ drivers in their service. For a start, 50 women drivers will be trained.
However, the administration has not indicated when the service would start.
Another MoU has been signed with Jarviz. This is a Gurgaon based firm that has developed a mobile SOS app for women's safety. The district administration is in favor of it.
The software will have the power to track the location of a woman in a cab via GPS in her cell phone. Moreover, even if the user is not in a position to extract her cell phone during any emergency, SMS and e-mail alerts can be sent by pre-set and auto configurations.
The app also automatically sends an automated alert to her workplace when a women employee reaches her home. Friends and family members whose numbers are fed in the phone app will also get alerts. It has been on trial for two months and, even though the company has not advertised the app till now, it claims that more than 40,000 customers are already using it.
It is hoped that introduction of such measures would go a long way to mitigate the sufferings of women on the roads not only in Gurgaon but in other cities as well.

Safety of women in Delhi - Uber and all app-based services banned by Delhi Govt

Women are not safe in the capital of India and, in view of the latest incident of rape of a 25-year-old woman, a financial analyst, in a Uber cab by the driver, the Government of Delhi has taken a decision to ban all Uber cabs as well as al app-based cab services in the capital.
This decision appears to be one like cutting off the head to get rid of headache – the logic is: no head, no headache. Such a decision would mean that thousands of drivers will be out of work because Uber itself has nearly 3000 drivers on its roster.
After the tragic Nirbhaya case, it was expected that the administration as well as the police would be more alert and sensitive to issues related to women – at least in the capital. But, that has not apparently happened.
The Nirbhaya case had proved to be very costly for the then Congress government in Delhi due to its tardy response to the dastardly crime, hence, in this case, the BJP-led Union government does not want to take any chances. Accordingly, the lieutenant governor of Delhi has directed the transport department to ban Uber and all other app-based cab services.
As the facts emerge, it is revealed that Uber does not carry out any background checks themselves on the drivers in their roster and expected their partners and the Delhi Police to do the verification. Uber carries out the cab service without actually having any driver on its rolls. They operate through a network of drivers who possess valid licenses or operators who own cars.
It is not known why the police does not carry out random checks on vehicles and drivers of such vehicles and also whether they have serviceable GPS installed in the cabs. If random checks are carried out, it would not be difficult to weed out the ones who do not meet the minimum requirements.